Kancho

After my last blog post, my friend, Kancho, demanded one about herself. So this is my license to bitch about her on a public platform. I do bitch about her regularly but unlike on Facebook, Whatsapp or the real world, she can't hit me back here. Let's hope she doesn't start a blog too.



I remember the first time I saw her in fifth grade. Uh-oh this sounds like a love story. It was one of the final days or initial days of school or something and classes were combined. I remember her because she was this crazy girl I had never seen in school before and she was running around the class 'freezing' all boys. And then she walks up to me and says 'freeze!' I think I froze because I was confused and not because she told me to. The first word she ever spoke to me was 'freeze'! :O


This is why I remember the first time I saw her. Not because it's a love story. It's because she is a crazy woman!


Then in sixth grade we were in the same class and, for reasons unfathomable to me, I became best friends with the crazy girl. We were always together. Like Siamese twins. We had a really bad dressing sense - we wore bell-bottom jeans and flaunted it. Yeah, that bad. We joined the same coaching classes. We started bunking classes. And what did we do after bunking? We took a train to the next stop, had a Maaza from the small bottle worth Rs 9 and came back. Onetime I was fasting and we bunked class and went to the next stop and somehow lost our way. We were broke, so we walked around for hours before we finally found the way. And what did I have for breaking my fast after those long hours of walking? The Rs 9 Maaza. We were really, really broke.


In 10th grade we got into a fight with a girl. Let's call that girl P. Kancho and I were a team, you fight with one of us, the other one makes it her fight too. So I don't remember whose fight it originally was but we both got pretty heated up. We three created a big scene outside our coaching class exam venue in front of a hundred alien students who were studying for the exam. We used up every swear word that the 15-year-old us knew. I faintly recall P bringing her hand up as if to slap Kancho but I step in between and block her hand or something. It sounds very filmy here but I am sure it looked pretty stupid. Maybe she didn't mean to slap her and I ended up looking stupid. Maybe I didn't block her hand and stopped mid air which is pretty stupid too.


In 11th grade, she started dating Rohyt. Rohyt and I had a love-hate friendship. The reason for both love and hate is the same - he was dating her. I had this crazy piercing contest with him. Every time one of us got a new piercing, the other one would get two more to stay ahead in the count. By the end I had 13 and he had more. I had total 12 ear piercings and one eyebrow piercing but he had more ear piercings than me, an eyebrow piercing and a lip piercing. You are questioning our sanity levels, aren't you?


In 12th, Kancho and I had a major falling-out. There was a lot of fighting and crying. I did something which I would regret forever - I hit her. She punched me back. I broke her glasses which was somehow in my hand. I had a lump on my forehead for the next few days. I am really not a violent person....most of the time.


After this fight, we didn't speak for months. Our groups split up. Those months were filled with resentment, pain and grudges. But after a looooooooong time we finally made up. That is a different story altogether. I don't wanna say it here because it's pretty dramatic and I feel shy. That was a very, very emotional moment.


After 12th my parents moved me out of Mumbai to Kerala, probably to domesticate me. I wasted one year (one sucky year) in Kerala studying for college entrance and next year went to Manipal. So basically since moving out of Mumbai, we have had a long distance friendship, with me occasionally visiting Mumbai.


Long distance friendship sucks. I missed so many important moments. Like the time she got her first tattoo. I didn't get to know the guys she dated. She made new best friends. No I am not jealous. She can't fire me from my biggest best friend position because I have the most job experience than any of the newer candidates. Somewhere in this long distance period, Rohyt (who was now her ex for a year, but they dated for three years before that) passed away. It was pretty hard on her and I wished so bad that I was there.

* * *

It has been 12 years since her 'freeze' moment. And to this date whenever we meet in Mumbai, we are still the same Siamese twins. :)

I love you, Kancho. Thanks for putting up with me through all these years. And I need an award for putting up with you. Please don't kill me after reading this blog.

By the way, her real name is Anjali.