This is dedicated to Anand.... the special one on a special request that inspired me to
I Hope this scribbling pad is enough to put down whatever is in my mind…
Year, 2001 I remember was the period when I was suffering from a severe disease called as Internet Mania. Being online for hours with in used to be one of the greatest time wasting symptoms of this disease. I guess it was not new for people…(kids) of my age (I was just fifteen) to feel excited to make new connections, friendship with pple… In the earlier days it used to be having pen pals… and then came to online friends! It was and of course is exciting thing of that age. Anyone we see online, jus went on sharing good information… lol.. Not ridiculous really, at least I kept it decent. It was jus a hobby to be looking for new and trendy things.
And there enters a popular site back in those days, Parachat, a site for online chatting… and since I lived in Uganda, I used to be more excited about making new Indian friends online… But it wasn’t really a clean site.. or maybe it was… I don’t really know cuz I never took it that serious, signing in with fake name age and location used to be fun for sometime! Play pranks on other people and the like.
‘ASL Plz?’ Was the coolest thing bout online chatting followed after ‘wanna chat’ which is an off trend word now. Beware, some people did have scary experiences too that went to the craziest depths in a silly manner and crap, but I guess I was careful while revealing the real information about me everytime I chatted. But at the same time, I was one chatting edict, it was the coolest thing I was doin back then though I never went to the extremes of bunking classes for being online. Lunch break and Games Period used to be my favourite timings where I wud be spotted in the Computer Lab of our school, and since the computer teacher and I were good friends, he would let me surf and evenif he dint, I would still sneak in saying I had projects to complete. This was almost my daily routine apart from studying once in a while.
One fine day as I did the usual being online … Parachat really was a silly stupid local site I guess full of road sides crowd, (I dint know that then!!) but like one in a million I met up with this fellow named Andy (God knows if it was his real name…), one of the most decent people I ever met on this bloody site, at least he dint ask me my asl as we talked, infact I really did enjoy talking to him and the conversation wasn’t too silly or boring maybe we both liked to speak about the general current affairs after the brief introductions and sharing of the hobbies part. He shud be decent after all he was studying MCA (I mistook it to Masters in Chartered Accountancy… Later I confirmed it with my dad and felt I would have made a fool of myself if I asked him the fulform) . This student of Hindu College where Arjun Rampal was his senior was a neat guy I could think of being friends with and here we exchanged our email ids, at least I exchanged mine for the first time.
Surprising to find someone sensible and humorous and cool guy on parachat.
The next day I received a mail from Andy, wow…!!! Awesome J.. and here he writes something similar to,
‘Hi,
U are such an innocent girl and I liked talking to you, nice to know you. My real name is Anand Kumar.
Yours
Admirer…’
Cant forget this because it’s the first an last one for me… I haven’t had admirers really , maybe those who confessed that they were. Anand was the only one. Aight.. My reply of course followed immediately.
‘Hey,
My real name is Srujana , and I m studying in the tenth grade in Aga Khan High School, Kampala- Uganda. But I m an Indian, we jus settled in east Africa since my dad works here.’ Nice to know you too..Nice to be friends…
And this of course was an end to parachatting! J Finally… JJ….
We started sharing mails and reply them without missing, I used to receive at least one in a week and I was eager to read the replies… and write back immediately. God Knows what we used to talk much bout but whatsoever, it was all fun! A feeling of someone who s caring. This Friendship was neatly getting woven strong long lasting one. Continued on…
Year 2002, he sends me his picture after a kindly by force request. And what did I see… A fair guy in the library wearing a red tie and studying hard (a magazine… J). Anand is handsome! And since he sent me his snap, I had no complaints to make really. But he started almost irritating me, asking me for mine… well back then were no digital snaps not of mine. And scanning pictures is something parents would doubt about and doing something like this was just not the best thing (then lot of lies might have got involved answering parents). But what’s the harm in doing it? After all it’s just for Friendship? We still continued to share mails and after the long pleading I scanned my snaps and emailed him (My first ever attachment by myself). His job search was also on as he completed his MCA, Masters in Computer Application.
My mails though were much longer than what he wrote to me. I wonder how bored he would get reading all my days scrap…. He shared his marks, that’s one thing I wouldn’t really do because I was not all that bright but there were other thing I could talk about.
There was even a long gap for sometime (Probably busy looking for a good job) for which I impatiently wrote expressing my anger about the long gap…(couldn’t understand then, I m sorry for that Anand!)
And there comes a reply in mid 2003, my inbox would die if it dint contain Anands mail… lol…. And he writes just one phrase, ‘I Love You’. I was actually awaiting for a good news about his job or maybe I don’t remember which mail came first. I wonder what was going through his mind. And Unfortunately or fortunately my friend was also sitting besides me in the lab when I read that mail… and she announced it in the class… Leave alone us being in love for real but this rumour worked wonders!... It helped me get rid of some Iranian guy who proposed to me! So all fine!...
Was chatting online after that an acceptance for his mail?... I don’t really know but in our minds was just good friendship and I dint want to end it with bad terms… and never did I think so much.
He then got a job… and I remember calling him like three times from Uganda, the first time I made a call to him, he was in a theatre watching a movie , the second time, he was in a vegetable market or some market probably I don’t remember and the third attempt, it was his birthday and I wanted to wish him!
Then Comes 2004…. It was a busy busy year… My Board exams for 12th grade and it was the same till 2005 feb…. we were in contact in a good way.
2005, he shifted to blore ( I think), well he was working with Wipro by the time I came back to India- Hyderabad. And then came in the spicier life… all busy with Studies and Career but I survived here because Anand wasn’t thousands of miles away. Ofcourse we were closer…. Spoke on the phone aswell. I don’t remember spending for calls on him.. he did call me and I m thankful about that.
Shifting to India was beginning life from scratch!.... and making new friends wasn’t a joke.
Then the relevant stuff started, seeking advise… ey btw, he s good at giving advise… and all the information about current affairs and ways of life in India... and loads and loads, theres really lot I learnt from him after I came back… so many more things, how to deal with people and lots and lots of conversations also followed late night… Like drinking milkshake in a beer bar… we talked relevant stuff in irrelevant time.LOL my sis thought that we were in love!! NO Sister!! thats not true. And Not for long did this also continue cuz later I started catching him on Gmail…. Lol… There was good mutualism, and thats what made the big difference, we hardly get such pple online. I really adore this guys personality though i never met him in real. One happy Online friendship that never crossed limits to turn hopeless! Thats why i consider it rare and its why we are still good friends though the interaction reduced ofcourse cuz life moves on!
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