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February 18, 2001-- a day after my eleventh birthday. That’s when the first tear fell from that eye. It was this day seven years ago when I found her sobbing in the bus. I had never seen her cry, so I was caught by surprise. I didn’t know how to approach her, our friendship still being very nascent. I carefully sat next to her, scared that I might upset her even more by inquiring the cause. She looked up at me and continued crying. I finally mustered up the courage to ask, “Manal, what happened? What’s wrong?” She didn’t hesitate at all in breaking the news to me. “He likes her, Sidra. Since grade seven”, she replied between sobs. I didn’t know how to react to this news. I just sat there staring blankly at her as she continued sobbing all the way home…I called her that evening to discuss the situation at hand. I listened to her carefully as I chewed my bottom lip nervously, not knowing what to say to console her. “Why me?” she asked, “Why me, Sidra?” And I seriously didn’t know. I don’t vividly remember what we talked about, but it was one conversation that brought us much closer. From that day onwards, she hated my birthday…
I can still close my eyes and see the silver Jubail bus parked on the corner in the parking lot near the basketball court. A good number of seven to eight buses always parked between our brown bus and that special silver bus, keeping the two at a safe distance. Each afternoon Manal would dump her belongings on her seat and run to the silver bus. She’d stand at a distance shyly looking at Saif’s direction as he walked and talked with his friends Samuel, Emad and Nikhil, one hand holding onto his stack of books and the other wildly gesturing to elaborate his words. She’d inch her way to where he sat, next to the driver in front and wait for him to keep his stuff inside on his seat. Awkward moments would follow. She wouldn’t know how to combat the swarms of butterflies in her stomach and he wouldn’t know what to say. After a few futile attempts, the ball would start rolling and then before the conversation could proceed… it was already time to go. It wasn’t always like that. There would be days when they would both not be on talking terms and I had to play messenger… I vividly remember the marathons I ran between the two buses to deliver messages back and forth, usually forth…I’d run to his bus, knock on his window, he’d roll his window down and I’d thrust the letter forward and breathlessly explain it was from her and run back. Her eyes would always follow me instinctively making sure that I reached the right person and that the correct eyes were reading her letter…
August 2002, the first fall with no sight of Saif in school. Only she knew how hard it was to feel that emptiness in the school grounds. He had left to Cranbrook, a boarding school in Michigan. We would sit and talk about Cranbrook for hours—what we’d do if we got into that school, how Saif must be coping up, how the people over there were and why did people have to leave for boarding schools. Our conversations revolved around Cranbrook twenty-four seven. She had a new short-term goal to achieve—getting into Cranbrook. I was in total awe of that school…its architecture, its environment, its students, the courses it offered, and the scenic location it had. She had her own reasons. The school was like Hogwarts to us, enchanted, magical, far from reality, incredible… a place where life really dwelled. We talked about its teachers, its students, about Saif, about Saad—Saif’s elder brother, about ways to get in and how much fun it would be if both of us joined the school. We tried looking for people in CK other than Saif and Saad, who we could count on as agents; to update us about the going-ons…we, found none. I even remember the CK brochures that seemed to further intensify our yearning to be there. The front cover of the brochure showed a typical scene from the dorm life of Kingswood-- a common room bustling with students, a girl perched on a couch flashing her teeth, students excitedly chatting away with peers, and a coffee table cluttered with food and beverages. It made us want to fly to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
I often find myself associating my memories and bygones with films of that time… Devdas, a film starring Shahrukh Khan, Aishwariya Rai, Madhuri Dixit and Jackie Shroff, gripped audiences all over in May 2002. This was one of the films that was released at the very peak of our friendship, so it does deserve some amount of importance. I have many memories associated with this one film… I still remember how Manal narrated the whole story to me online on msn using comic sans, size 12, bold in maroon color. I can still recall the way I was in a stupor when she narrated the end, “..Paro runs to the huge gates, desperate to reach to Devdas before he closes his eyes forever… she blindly runs, but to no avail, the gates have been closed shut…but Devdas sees her silhouette before he dies in peace…and her lamp finally extinguishes…” One very famous dialogue that Shahrukh delivers in this movie was stuck to my head like a leech…
“London ki baat hee kuch aur hai… baray baray log, bari bari baatein, bari emaartein… and you know Trafalgar square, pigeons? Kabootar!”
…which eventually turned into something else, thanks to our CK mania!
“Cranbrook ki baat hee kuch aur hai… ganday ganday log, gandi gandi baatein, gandi emaartein…and you know Kingswood, dogs? Kuttay!”
Our friendship knew no bounds, be it insanity, joy, fun, immaturity, we’d been through it all. June 2000, high school talent show—one day, I’m sure none of us would forget. The sudden shortage of performances pushed us into hastily deciding to dance on “Dupatta Mera” a number from Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai, an Indian flick. It was quite a disaster, we made a total fool of ourselves as we--a mere fifth grader and seventh grader pair, tried to create fireworks on stage. I even recall the nasty repercussions we both faced and how eventually we recovered from the unwanted public attention. I have hated Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai eversince…
Yet another film, “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Ghum”, released in 2001, ran parallel to our realms of imagination. How close Manal saw the Anjali to me and the Pooja to herself. She often referred to us as sisters, although complete opposites of each other like Anjali and Pooja in the film. Saad and Saif aptly fit in the shoes of Shahrukh and Hrithik respectively. Yes, the personalities really matched. We would discuss each and every song of the film and associate ourselves with it. Crazy as it might sound, both of us were only physically present in Saudi Arabia, but in reality we were mental nomads finding ourselves studying in Cranbrook, dancing with Shahrukh or Hrithik in England or in Manal’s case, in Bhopal.
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Posted by Sidra on 2008-07-19 15:02:25 | Rating: | Views: 38
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