Of friends,flats and college life...

8 years ago i got down at the pune station and took my first step out all alone as a quite 18 year old who was overburdened with her rucksack..little aware of how life would be burdening her in the years to come. That was 2001 and i was super impressed by the Pune station...which by my standards was huge.Coming from the small town of Jamshedpur, the size of pune did not amaze me much but the people...oh yes they did.

Pune so far has been a mixed bag of emotions,stories,memories and learnings.My first college where i actually sat with boys!!!!(i was from a strict all girls convent in jamshedpur).I learned that shaking hands with boys is not as bad as loosing your virginity,since thats how we learnt it to be in school.College became even more fun as i learnt the concept of sitting in the canteen more than the classes,memorising the menu card instead of notes,wishing the waiters instead of recognizing the proffesors,going on early morning walks with buddies and then coming home and sleeping after chaai at the the canteen.I learnt of fluttering the eye lashes,flirty hand shakes and twisting the right way to the latest songs in the clubs.I sat on bikes as we headed up the mountains to Sinhagarh,without helmets to watch the first sun rise.i mastered the art of sleeping with my eyes open in the lectures and passing exams sometimes with notes hidden all over me.Colelge taught me the art of smoking with a packet of frooti in hand..a balance of nutrition and smoke :)

Staying away from home had its own joys and sorrows, though at 18 you dont see too many sorrows as long as you have your buddies with you.Moving out of the hostel,which had a 10PM deadline we learnt that living in flats was the ultimate in"freedom'.waking up at 11 to have a breakfast of maggi and eggs,we planned our days keeping which club would be playing which kind of music that night.Tuesdays would be Hip-Hop and saturdays would be the final feather on the cap at the best 5 star club in town.Friends were family and plans would break or work out only if everyone had the time for it. Staying at home was another fun as we watched movies inside warmblankets with coffee and garam pakodas as it rained outside.Monsoons in Pune would mean a mandatory visit to Lonavala , early morning walks without umbrellas to get wet in the morning rains. Falling sick would mean home made khichdi as we would stay at home deciding if watching a horror movie was better than a romantic one...of course we had more options to watch ;)

Obviously if 5 girls stay in the same house it would be pretty much as complicated as the plot of some Shakespearen play. If one of us decided to have a beauty regime on Sunday, someone else would be busy washing clothes while the luckier ones would be "chatting online' with the several loves of their lives. Valentines day for some chosen few would be dinner while the rest of us,maintaing our "single" status would head out clubbing at night. Even hagging with autowallas at night would be fun as we bargained to pay 20 rupees less than what was asked for.

Even today meetign up with old friends is not half as much fun as it was then,when we could move out in shorts and Osho Chappals and sit on the neighbourbood chai stall.and that chai stall could never match up to all the cappucinos or expressos that i have had so far:)