ON FRIENDSHIP DAY...

Sitting with the plated blue skirt tucked under her thighs, she looked nervously round the room full of faces... round, thin, pale, bright, crying, smiling, sleepy faces...
there were more children in that room full of chairs and desks than there were pencils in her box, the thought made her uneasy as she took out the pencils and counted them again, finishing at 14 as she placed them back and returned to her nervous inspection of the room...
There was a boy beside her, tiny and thin, but he had a horribly big mouth, and he wailed even more horribly with it! It was confusing... she couldn't decide if she wanted him to stop crying or to join in...the typical first-day-at-school-fever was not new to her, she had had her share of it when she had joined prep, breaking almost everythn in sight to be able to go back home, yet her attempts had failed as she had been forced and tempted and lured into studying with chocolates and nice shiny pencils and she had made it through the first year...
but today was different... it was her first day in the first standard... first day in a new school... amidst an entirely new set of strange faces that were more than her pencils...
She hung in between the choice of crying or not crying when suddenly she saw her enter the class... a girl smaller than she was, with strange golden-brown hair the kind of which she had never seen and even stranger green eyes...the brown-haired girl moved her head in a stupid noddy-like manner and smiled at her... and she found her confusion dissapear as she forgot all about crying and smiled back...
Later that day, as she sat beside her mommy in the verandah, chewing on a carrot after having told her all that had happened that day, the brown haired and green eyed girl crossed her mind and she asked her mum if there was a way to turn strange-green-eyed-girls into normal-brown-eyed-girls...

...mommy laughed.

11 years have passed since that fateful day... and life came across with numerous people and even more challenges... situations and decisions that brought out the best and worst in me, i started with the world... and today i have only a handful ...
but the best part of it is that this handful makes my world complete...

there are only a few people who stand by you when times get tougher than you are... who share with you your burdens... who laugh at your silliest jokes... but most importantly, who make you what you are.
to me, these few people are not just my friends... they comprise the most precious and pure part of 'me'.

They are the ones who have made me look into myself, who have moulded me, who have given me strength and light, who have been my shield, and my way to the world...

thankyou guys, for being who you are.

4 special thankyous for the most special friends i have, to whom i owe the most important parts of me...
the first for my best friend for life, my brother... thankyou bhaiya... you have always been my inspiration.
all my intelligence and wisdom, i owe to you.

thankyou my strange-green-eyed-girl , for always standing by me...your eyes, your hair, and you yourself are the most beautiful in the world...
i am understanding because you made me so.

thankyou chuchoo... for solving all my problems, even the math ones : ) and for believing in me.
i am brave because of you.

lastly... thankyou mommy... for being such a great friend... who has been there for me always. I never let you know i need help, but somehow, how i can never understand, you always have the right thing to say at the right time that makes me stronger and wiser and gives me hope.

Guys, and mom, had it not been for your love, hatred, kindness, support, insight, mistakes and wisdom, i would have always been afraid to face the world that had more people than the number of pencils i owned.