Every Destination Has a Journey to It...

It has been waiting there in my drafts since December 24, 2011... It wasn't the lack of time to finish, but I couldn't find a way to perfect it; imperfection wouldn't do justice for what it's worth! But then, there is no humanly possible way to  achieve perfection in a case where the degree of perfection only gets higher every time you re-read it... and so, I leave it here... 

I don't know how I ended up here, but am glad I did. It was perhaps the nonsensical episodes of 'How I met your mother' that left me here, wanting so badly to write about people I no longer can imagine to have lived without. Friends.

Them and theirs!

It has been an interesting journey till here. It is in no way the destination of the journey I had started five years ago, but how often are you happy about not getting your story right? Never, I guess. But this one time, I can live with it. It is perhaps the best mishap that could happen to anyone. Five years ago, I initiated a long chapter of my life, that I thought wouldn't ever reach a satisfying end. Meanwhile, I met people who didn't only make me 'edit' this chapter, but made this chapter feel redundant, and to this day, I feel happy deleting it.

I had started my graduation on a very unhappy note. I had just dropped out of an aeronautical course that my father had paid a fortune for. It was unimaginably hard for me to ever make up for it, all I wanted to do was just get over with a graduation, do a job, earn money and pay back in the only possible way I could. If only choosing architecture wasn't wrong enough, I ended up in a class where I had nobody to help me sail through the long tiring five years that were to come. The 'chapter' started with makeshift friends that I knew were never going to help me in any way to ease up the process of 'making it through'. It was upsetting in a very unexplainable way. I had never lived without someone worthy of being called a 'friend', and as hard as it was, the only possible thing to do was to pretend to be friends with the makeshift arrangements that the first week of college had made for me.

Pretense was never a thing that I could perfect ever, but as I look back at those times... it feels as if my entire life before that was nothing but a bad pretense. And then, one day 'you need to change the company you're living in...' was all it could take to reconsider even the idea of the pretense that I had happily accepted. 

I can never trace back how it started, but towards the end of the second year I had now some people who had completely evicted the pretense out of my life, and to this day, they have constantly redefined the term 'friendship' for me.

It was a girl on the first day of my college, who made things easier for me just by being there that day, or else, I'd have died out of regret and would probably have dropped out before the beginning of 'this' end here. Things with her started on a pleasant note, though they never remained the same throughout what with the coming of a new chapter in her life, but that's entirely a different story. I can't imagine not meeting her that day and having a different life than the one I lived these past years. I am not sure if I have been anything to her or not, but she has been something more than the 'first day of college' to me. With a lot of bumps in our journey together, life with her has been tremendously amazing for me. Her saying/doing things for me has been as helpful as her not doing anything at times; because above everything else, she has been an amazing friend to me, for the times that I will cherish forever.

They are the people who tell you never to thank them, or be sorry to them. But it is sometimes impossible not to thank them or be sorry. If there was a way to be thankful to them for their presence in my life, I'd put it in an endless loop.

I am sure if I hadn't met these people, my life would've been totally different. The 'girl from the first day' was a link to the many more mirrors to her. It was indeed the telephonic conferences with her and the 'other' guy that marked the beginning of something that lasted forever, because the  'other' guy wasn't just a part of the preface to my life, he became an entire chapter. I remember seeing him from the other end of the classroom on one of the days in the first week of college. He looked absolutely normal (was a rare thing, when I looked at the rest of the class) and somehow all he said made sense back then. As it turns out, he did give sense to every imaginable nonsense. He was funny and beyond; redefined humor to me if nothing more. This might sound gay, but he did have an overwhelming identity. He has been one of the several reasons that has made me go on with the journey; had it not been his 'sometimes intolerable' jokes, I would probably have lost everything I had in the name of a sense of humor!

It's been a roller coaster ride, these five years; and I always had these people puking with me together, when the twists and turns in it were killing.

I was used to be made fun of, what with the last two years of my school being unimaginably lifeless, but let's not go there! There were the three of them, I always counted them as one. I don't exactly remember why, but am sure they had a reason of their own to irritate me. I wouldn't say I hated them for what they did, it was only for how they did. It is indeed surprising for even myself how things changed from what they were. Two of the three, if not all of them became a part of what I have loved dearly over the past five years. I wouldn't call it a coincidence, it is just a gift.

He wasn't there wholly when the unpretentious days in the starting of my second year had just begun, but he was somewhere around. He was one third of the single unit that them three created, but for some weird reason I couldn't make myself dislike him. The 'other' guy and him joined our team in the beginning of this new session, and how everything changed is out of my recall limit. It has been one excessively exciting trip for me, these last so many years. He added something to the book that was being written. If I could pick point one thing out of him, I would but there wasn't a single perfect thing... there were many, or maybe it was his bloated perfection in everything that I have enjoyed every time. From being from the other territory, to being one of the best friends, I have found his presence utterly amusing and beyond, because it is through the passage of time that I have begun to realize what I will be missing without these people around...

I look back at everything and it makes a good laugh; living with people you once abhorred, if 'hated' is a term too harsh. I wasn't exactly a fan of these people initially. I remember being on the other end from them, and interestingly, it is one side that we create together now, or so I believe if they don't.

It was the other one third that took time to be acquainted with. Besides being the other end, he was the reason behind the little bump that the 'girl from the first day' and I faced. It wasn't only the fun making part that he so much enjoyed initially that I had almost hated him; the more obvious reason would be the distances that were created by him. But, time has a fix for everything... and I can't believe that he is more of a friend than those that helped me sail through the initial days of this stupid college. It is true that we do not share a very happy bond, or like the one I share with the rest of them, but he is as dear to me as the others, maybe a little more than others. I am amazed by how he has proved me wrong at so many things that I had happily assumed before knowing him. It is his blunt kindness that I admire; knowing for sure he'd be there if there was a need. It is hard for me to put it in words, this equation; and I don't want to mess it up by trying, because beyond a doubt... he is one happy chapter of the book that is being read out.

Nostalgia... if you want to call it that! 

The last five years gave me several million reasons to be nostalgic now, when the journey is about to be over that we all once embarked on together, headed in different directions but traveled together for the same destination; today! 

There are so many faces that I have seen, met, known, forgotten in these years. But, they are the faces I will never get tired of seeing! I have the most clearest memory of seeing this girl's face among all the strangers that surrounded me the first day of my college. I wouldn't be able to recall what was, but there was something different to this one. The next day, she was there at the podium, singing the 'entertainer' song for the whole class. I had found it extremely amusing. I felt glad on knowing there weren't all the jerks in this class of 40 people. It took time... but soon it was time; I got the chance of 'knowing' her. She was different in all the possible ways, and amazing in everything that others were always pretending to be good at. I have never forgotten the visual of her singing for the class... it gives me back some of the memories that I want to live again. She'll always be that amazing amusing  girl to me... but the process of knowing her is still well... a process; she has so much more to her, beyond being one of the best that she is! 

There is so much to look back and I am surprised by how many things I miss every time. These have been the perfect five years of my life (ignoring 'some' part of it) and I wouldn't ever be bored of talking about it. I might not have given anybody any such moments to look back and smile, but they sure have given me the time of my life.

I remember a day or two before all this began... I did not feel any different coming to this place; I had my own reasons. The place was too known to me, and then... I had an old companion to be traveling with me. I had known him since long, but came to 'know' him only the last two years of my school life. He had been a distinct stranger all the years before that; distinct, because we knew each other in our own ways. He's been a mysterious friend all these years; had his own ways of being one. It wasn't a usual bond... it was beyond ordinary; and it still is. Knowing him before coming here feels totally different because there's a difference in the way I know him now. He'd be there when you have failed (literally) without the usual sympathies; he has his own ways of giving you the support that you need. He won't be there at 12 o' clock to wish you a Happy Birthday, but he will make sure you're remembered through his own silly ways of wishing! He'll tell you only the things you want to hear, but will listen to everything you have to say!
He has been a unique friend and I wouldn't ever be able to put it in words, why!

Them are the reasons... I can rejoice and be happy and more! Each of them has a way of their own to give you even more and that is what makes it worth living!

She looked a plain Jane when she stepped in the drowning classroom one of the rainy days. They were a trio that grabbed attention of every sane and insane being in that room. I only remember the minute conversations that we had that used to last only for a few multiple of some fractions of a second. It felt good, knowing them, talking to them; felt different each time. And then there was a jump... I am not able to trace back how the plain Jane became the monster that she is; a lovely monster that one ;) She's been one amazing friend, like we've known each other since forever, and we have... I adore her craziness that we both share; doing things 'her way' is always an adventure. She would always be there to listen to you and give you some amazingly non sensible ideas sometimes; she'll make you do things that you wouldn't ever do otherwise... and beyond everything, she'll try to be the best friend in any possible way she can be... and then, she surely is one!

"The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination."

                                                                              -- Don Williams, Jr.

When 'red' is much more than a color!

And it surely is the fellow travelers that makes it... I feel lucky to have them for mine. It was only yesterday when it all began, and I wouldn't ever wish it to end. I take myself back to each of the days when I met them, and it brings back the same curiosity of knowing them more. It feels refreshing to have reasons and more to look back and just smile over... nothing! But, then you don't want to; because they wouldn't ever give up on giving you more such reasons!