“Together we can and we will make a difference!”
These words that were a patent of Suhaib Illyasi of ‘India’s Most Wanted’ fame, pop up in my head every time I hear the word together. What he says is of course correct, but the way he used to say it was what added the humor ‘tadka’ to it.
And trust me when I say that me and my friends in Pune rarely made any difference ‘together’, except maybe in our own lives. I was working in Pune and that was the first time I had a proper ‘roommate experience’. Shall I count myself to be one of the lucky ones to have had an amazing set of girls as my roommates? Hell yeah!
I’ve spent three glorious years with these girls and together we have had some pretty amazing adventures – you know the kind you cannot have if you get married in your early 20s (jibe intended at all those who feel girls should not wait beyond 22 to tie the knot).
It’s been four years since I have moved cities, gotten married and all that… but I recently got a chance to go back to Pune for a short trip for a mini-reunion. Yay! My husband was to go to Pune for some official work and I decided to tag along. He stayed in his guest house, fuming over the fact that his wife was staying with her previous roommates for the entire week that they were there!
Why on earth would I let go of a chance to relive my bachelor days? Another former roommate was also there and together, the four of us had a blast! Remembering the good old days was fun, but reliving them made us realise that age has somehow caught up with us. For instance, we went to this club (point to be noted judge sa’ab is that we are not party animals and we only go clubbing, like once in a year, and only with each other), and got tired of dancing in just a couple of minutes.
Then two young college girls who had pushed their way onto the oversized table we were occupying, started off a pouting-selfie-deleting-pouting-again-spree which irritated us to no end. Then the youngest in our group suggested that we also take some pictures, so we asked one of those college girls to click it for us. Click it? She and her friend actually joined us in that photo-session. And now all of us are stuck with some great pictures with two strangers in it.
We had a hearty laugh about it when we came back to our dingy little rented apartment, which was like a temple for us! Honestly speaking it was the worst-possible apartment architecture-wise. It’s just that we had found it by a stroke of luck and without having to pay any brokerage (yes that was a big deal for us).
It’s time now for me to move back to Pune in a couple of months. My fauji husband will probably go to a non-family posting, meaning I cannot live with him for the duration of that posting (read more about it here). So I am contemplating moving back to Pune. None of those fiery young roommates live there anymore. I would probably have to rely on Housing, a real estate start-up which has apartment postings, to find a new house. And I am going to terribly miss the time when we girls would ‘together’ look for houses, meals and guys to stalk. Time flies!
Refreshingly Random 