fuck love

a blog on 'life' and other popular four letter words...

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Ode to a friend.....

My friend Ruba left.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been about over a decade since I’ve known him. It’s funny remembering how we first met. We were both arrogant gulf bred brats who met in Class 7th in a sleepy town called Kottayam in God’s Own Country. And like all Gulf bred brats, we hated one another because either of us knew that the other’s tall tales were all a bunch of bull.

“Yes, the Sheikh and my family are very close friends”, I would boast to the group of girls I tried to impress.

And he would reply to the same group, ‘Oh, that’s nothing. The Sheikh sends his car to my dad everyday’.

“Oh really, I thought the drivers went to the Sheikh’s car rather than the other way around.”, I would respond and then we would fight like crazy, fistfights et all.

It was funny that we never got along earlier – we hated the same teachers, the same teachers hated us and we both spent a lot of time in the principal’s office, mostly together and mostly because of trying to break the other’s face. But it was in Class 8th that we got together – our English teacher, Reena miss, decided to put all the trouble makers of the class sit together and Ruba and me sat on the same bench with Kiron between us. Now the story was that both Ruba and I hated Kiron- so since the enemy of an enemy is a friend, we joined forces to fight the foe no single superhero could withstand and on that day, the Avengers was....oops, sorry.. wrong story J… but the point is that Ruba and I got together then to buddy up against Kiron. But later, Ruba n I realized that we had a lotta things in common and eventually we turned into the best of friends.

School life was never complete without Ruba. One of my most distinct memories was once when the Chemistry teacher caught us talking in class. She picked up on Ruba and yelled at him to repeat what she had just said. Since he obviously could not answer the question, she furiously asked Ruba loudly, “Reuben!!! Tell me why do we immerse the Copper rods in Copper Sulphate solution?”

Ruba thought about it for a long while and answered conclusively with this die-hard confidence, “To kill the germs, ma’am.”

After school, we ended up in the same engineering college. While he was interested in tran’sistors’ and re’sistors’, it was my classmates’ 'sisters' I was interested in J . While he learned C, C++ and other languages, I tried learning Tamil from the Hindi people staying there. Since I was always had a feeling that the college management would one day ask for my thumb as ‘guru dhakshina’, I used to proactively give them the finger anyways. If Standard&Poor had known me then, they’d have downgraded me from ‘AAA’ to ‘???’ (or even ‘WTF’!). But Ruba was always around to my rescue. And in spite of our varied interests, we still were the best of friends and used to meet every Friday night along with half the college at our local assembly point outside college, to pay our weekly homage to Shakeela aunty.

We even liked the same women in college. While I bitched big time about him and screwed his image with the girl he was hitting on for pitching my own ulterior interests , he later took revenge by charming the girl I had a huge crush on. We also had the same set of friends – the resident heartthrob Dannyboy, Estella, ‘Frenchie’ Chandy, ‘Kambi’ Jinny, ‘Commissioner’ Maathu, the mighty meek Ashwin, Moulana mon Moulana, Jetty ‘Dash’, ‘’kaaka’ Kiron, ‘Out’ Varkey, Leejoe Shukhla and a whole lot of other characters who still color our lives in their own special ways.

After four years of college, as it was fashionable then to exchange addresses, I was quite shocked when he actually started making use of it by writing letters to me. Today, I still have some hundreds of letters he’s sent to me. Later he revealed that I was the only person in the world who ever read any of his writing.

A few years later, he moved over to Germany and even though we never kept in touch, we could always pick up from where we left in the rare calls that we made to each other.

He recently got married and he told us of his secret to gaining respect from his wife- he grew a thick moustache. And sure enough, after marriage, he was the one who wore the pants in his house, behind his apron.

My dear friend Ruba left. And it’s weird having all these thoughts running through my…..

(Door Bell rings…)

Aah, that must be Ruba back from the wine shop with the booze…

Hope he hasn’t forgotten the salted chips…

Saala hamesha bhooltha hai.

J

13 comments:

  1. Oohhh...thank God you dint loose your friend. Lucky you to have such an old friend around!

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  2. Dammit. You scared me with the title.

    Cheers to friendship:)
    Awesomely funny post \m/

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  3. Ur title scared me too :o

    Friendship Forever <3 :)

    Hahahaha at that whole bitching about him to the girls he liked thingy :P

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  4. College kids can be really cruel with nicknames, right? :)
    Loved the post. And don't tell your friend I said this, but his name is really funny. :p Reminds me of a telugu song "Rooba rooba".

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  5. Goddammit! Raj u shudnt give hearattacks. Ode gave me chills. Thought u lost him.

    Oooh those rare Germany calls, i so relate to you. I am going through the same.

    Some people can never be forgotten. Happy that you met such kinds.

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  6. I have to say what is coming on top of my mind'men and their booze'....after all the emotional stuff i was actually wondering what the ending would be and then comes the very mallu man climax...
    And kudos to his effort u still have a great friend......Cheers!!!!

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  7. lolz...you did scared the hell out of me..that was truly funny..you are lucky to have such a great friendship...I wish you stay connected with your friend forever...ameen..keep writing:-)

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  8. lol...'Since I was always had a feeling that the college management would one day ask for my thumb as ‘guru dhakshina’, I used to proactively give them the finger anyways' that was hilarious...cheers to friendship...

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  9. ROFL.. nice one...

    http://achu89.blogspot.com/

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  10. hey ur blogs are very interesting....i luv ur style of wring...specially a blend of wit and humour in it...hey but dis post's title really scared me...but whatever it was an interesting read...happy writing..:)

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  11. nice blog...and I too have a special frnd like u have. we were in the same college and are still together. we too hated each other in the beginning but we are the bestest frnds today....
    Sayathing

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  12. Hey Pooja, thx fr droppin by..ya, he almost killed me fr writin this post :)...do drop by more often :)

    Thx fr droppin by, Pri.. thnx fr the kind words ..Cheers!!!

    Hey Cupid, I still bitch to the women my frnds r hittin on against them :) Friendship forever :)...do drop by more often :)

    Hey Divya, yup, i so agree... i had a bad one myself... glad his name aint the other telugu song 'ringa ringa' :)

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  13. Red, he almost killed me fr writin this onebut like u said, he is one of those unforgettable ones :)

    Hey Somz, glad u see u back.. hope things r well wid u .. ya, the mallu man his booze :)

    Thnx Mishi fr the kind words ... thnk u Mishi :)

    Cheers 2 Friendship, Sub..thnx fr droppin by dude :)

    Thnx Center Shocker :)

    Hey Inviolably Sacrosanct, thnx fr ur kind words.. glad u liked 'em... thnx again.. do drop by more often :)

    Hey Sonam, nice to know tht u too hv a similar bonding.. friendship ki jai.. do drop by more often :)

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