Day 44 - Thank you to friends

I am finding it extremely difficult to pen down another blog post after the abrupt departure of Gina on Saturday. My family and me are still coming to terms with it and finding it hard to reconcile to the fact that we will never see Gina's radiant smile and get to talk with her ever again.

God can play strange games sometimes. In this world of abject mediocrity where most of us lead our lives without leaving behind a trace, He has taken away the one person who has contributed so much to the world and to the people around her and who had so much more to give.

Gina's untimely departure (I am still finding it difficult to say the 'd' word) has exposed the fragility of life for me and how many of us go through life without saying a small word of 'Thanks' to people close to us or how we don't take time out to call a friend and say a few words to them.

So I have decided to dedicate this blog post to say 'Thanks' to the friends who had a significant impact on my life till now, in a chronological manner. The blog post may not appeal to all you readers but please bear with me for this post.

Here goes........THANKS to

• Kushal Thakker from Sacred Heart Boys High School: for being my best friend in school and igniting my love for space and astronomy.
• Nilesh Shah, Chandrakala Anyarabhatla, Kauser Tasneem Ahmed from National College: for standing with me and shaping my life across the two years of college.
• Rajesh More from BVCOE: for being the best room mate in the initial years of engg and showing me that its OK to accept that you don't know some things and are willing to learn.
• Arvind Ganesh, Shivraj Yadav & Kaushal Mehta: for being the best friends across 19 years now and supporting me in all my stupid things. Thank you guys. I couldn't have done a lot of things without you and you know that.
• Vaishali Deore: for accepting me with my faults and being my first love. I'm sorry I hurt you in the end.
• Guneet Singh Sodhi in TSM: for having patience with me, teaching me how to ride a scooter, unconditionally giving me his scooter as I tried to woo my wife and not telling me anything. Being a key factor in me being able to woo Ani. Thank you.
• Anindita Das in TSM: for being my friend, accepting me, teaching me how to be a man, teaching me how to accept my faults, loving me and agreeing to be my wife. She is my support system and the bamboo of my life's tamboo.
• Shalini Saxena & Padmavati Nori in TSM: for teaching me that a boy and a girl can really be back slapping, running in the corridors, fighting friends.
• Preeti Narayanan in TSM & Bangalore: for taking me in when I had no place to live. We were the first true live-in friends way back in 1997.
• Nikhil Shah in Genesis: for being a great room mate in a god forsaken PG accomodation and being my friend since then.
• Gina in 3M and beyond: for being Gina. Cannot say anything more here.
• Arundhati Ghosh in BuyAsOne: for being a sounding board, teaching me things in life, being so open in mind that I can discuss anything with her and being with me for all these years.
• Sowmya Ramachandran in IBM: for bearing with my super emotional crap that I load on her. For listening, for bearing my difficult friendship, for accepting my emotions for her and still being my friend, for the ability to discuss topics that other may find ridiculous. I love her very much.
• Malathi Srinivasan from IBM: for being a great sounding board friend to whom I can go at any time to discuss esotric details in life.
• Ruchi Mohan from IBM: for being the friend with whom I can be naughty, flirty knowing that she is just as fun and mentally mad as me.
• Sanjeev & Ritu Rakhra: for being family! Our support system and much much more.
• Sandy & Deepa Rahi: for being family.

Thank you for shaping my life till now and I know a lot of you will be shaping my life for a lot more time.

PS: If your name is not here shout out at me and I'll either tell you why or apologise and include your name. :)