02.08.20

When Rahul said, pyaar dosti hai (love is friendship), 12 years old me, was so happy thinking that I have a chance with a guy named Rahul that I liked. As any one-sided love stories would go, this too ended in despair. But again when Rat's eventually fell in love with Meow, I cried my heart out thinking why this doesn't happen with me. (Feeling nostalgic yet?)

Hello from the other side!

As I am getting older this pyaar and dosti thing makes zero sense to me. You must be thinking that that's because I have never experienced love. I am not saying you are wrong but we all have experienced love from people around us. What we might have not experienced is sex/physical affection. But I am getting sidetracked.

My problem with people associating love with friendship is sole of the way all of us reacted. Who grow up watching and reading such stories felt missed out and wanted that magic to happen to us as soon as possible. We forgot to cherish and trust the process.

I have lived in about 10-12 cities now and there was not even one place where I did not think "What if the love of my life just walks past me and we talk and then live happily ever after." Which never happened of course and neither anyone reciprocated when I approached them. And I don't want to blame anyone for my anxiety but what the hell they won't read it, so yes these kind of experiences are the reason behind it.

I have met a lot of people in my life who I am still in touch with. But as vague and random the above paras sound, I want to dedicate this to those two people who stayed with me for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish. I know, I know I just quoted the wedding vows but it is true.

I got to know them 7 years ago. Saying it now makes it so real and wired in the sense that, when we meet people we never think that we will last so long. We always assume that we will grow apart as time passes. I kinda at the back of the head thought the same thing. But I am so lucky that I was proven wrong in this. 

We know each other inside out and in my opinion that's all that matter. I don't have poetry or a novel written on them. Maybe in the future. But for now, I just want to say that I am so grateful and lucky to have them in my life. My best memory of us bunking school and sleeping at each others house. Or intimidating guys who think they can scare us. I keep these memories very close to my heart. 

These 5 months are the hardest. I guess for every one of us, we hate being home just because everyone is home. We feel suffocated and violated. But we have to get through this and I know the ups and downs are more frequent now than ever. Once in our lives, we are facing almost the same thing. But as a wise human once said: "When you pass the test, then this too shall pass". The test here is not "The survival of the fittest" but how can we survive with each other.

P.S: I am so sorry if you are thinking that reading this was a waste of your time. Nevertheless, I have a few books recommendation. They are based on friendship so here we go...

• The Buirning Girl by Claire Messud 

•  A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 

•  Swing Time by Zadie Smith 

• Sula by Toni Morrison

• Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood 

• The Hot One: A Memoir of Friendship, Sex, and Murder by Carolyn Murnick

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

• In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

• Three Things About Elsie 
  by Joanna Cannon

Happy reading!

Love, Athena.

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