cradle to grave - there she goes.

Maybe it isn't cradle.

Though first grade does seem like "cradle" now. The first time I met her, her arms were tied to two strong men,who were trying to prevent her from running away. She didn't want to enter the room I sat in, that hellish chamber we called grade one... the room where popularity didn't matter.. where Barbie dolls and G.I Joe's were our biggest problems.. where we were all duty students. 

She looked pleasant on her second day at school. It seemed like she had come to terms with the noise, the boys, the new people, and me. I was a dominating arrogant bully. But she liked me. One thing led to another and we ended up talking and becoming the bullies (plural) of our classr. We were intelligent and even had a male sidekick that would fetch us our two rupee chocolate biscuits from the school canteen, and bring us lunch. There were lots of special phone conversations, loony bollywood cinema, cardboard cutouts of actors we wanted to be like and our school annual days. Two summers passed by, and so quickly.

As the summer ended, we were about to go into middle school. I was in for the biggest shock of my life. We were going to be separated. I was not able to accept the fact that we were going to be five sections apart, even if they were on the same floor.

My world came crashing down. The only person that I got along so well with, the only one who I thought was cool enough to be my friend , the only one who loved the same things I did, was snatched away from me. Through the next four years we fought a lot. We were like a cheesy couple that kept getting back together and breaking up. 

We were planets apart when it came to our personalities. I was openly aggressive, decisive, daring and bossy. She was all of those things as well, except that she wasn't open about it. We struggled and revived our long lost friendship after four years. We had grown up even more and that was a sign of improvement. It wasn't great, but it was a good start and finally two years ago, she was back.

The distance that kept us away for those 5 years hardly made a difference. It was a horrible break, but it did us some good, because we were back and better than ever. Fooling our mothers, going to eat at random breakfast cafes, talking for hours below my house without paying the auto rickshaw driver, taking long walks on the beach, hanging out aimlessly at coffee shops, sleepovers, hugs, dreams and nightmares. Sometimes, it was hard to imagine what i would have done if it weren't for her. 

We changed along the way and stopped talking for good. We grew up, we considered people's opinions, we had egos and we stopped talking. out of the blue. She was annoyingly possessive, irritating, lazy, never on time (when I called her to shop) and would do everything i did...so much that it wasn't funny. I ran into her on the street a couple of months ago. What shocked me, was the fact that I did not recognize her. She looked like she had lost the will to be happy. Last i heard, she deleted her Facebook profile, changed her phone number, dropped out of college, started smoking, and stopped talking to everyone she knew....and this broke my heart. What happened to that beautiful, intelligent, ambitious girl that i knew? She wanted to change the world and be the next J.K Rowling. We had a life long plan, a pact that we made when we were 15. She would walk down the red carpet in my designer gown, custom made for her, and launch her first written book.

It's unbelievable that people who once meant the world to you can never be part of your life again. I still believe that everything she taught me or didn't, stays with me. Whether this exists or not, I cherish and respect every similarity and every difference we've ever had.

Maybe it wasn't grave either and "forever" probably doesn't exist.

but memories do.