1.) Talking to Sis about the recent Mumbai terror attacks

That was probably the longest conversation I have ever had with her. I think that's what's strangely weird, yet heartwarming about this family. We don't have to say we love each other. We don't need to. The love is somewhere laced and smuggled between the swapping of recipes, mutual dissing of school teachers and politicians - and of late the horrific attacks.

And I think the very first, open-minded discussion I had about the attacks was with this usually hypertense woman. And I'm glad I shared it with her. In a way, it was her way of saying that she is happy with her new married life, and my way of saying that I'll be fine.

2.) Talking to Ze Love Guru about the four of us

If Ze Love Guru were a man, we would've been soulmates. We think alike. We speak the same things, at the same time. I was waiting at the station, thinking about how I missed our conversations and wisdomous swappings about life and relationships, when she calls. We meet up after what seemed like months. There used to be a time when it was an everyday affair. That eve, we talked about work. About Curly Fry. About FCW. About how the four of us used to hang out so much. About "changes".

About her life being complete. About how "we think about changes only when something drastic happens to us." About why I need to give myself a break, and just go with the flow...

Its amazing that in all her modesty, she thinks she's not great. When I think I don't have the answer, she has them for me on standby.

But fuck change. When did long friendships start mutating into myths? I still wish we still stuck together.

3.) Juhu Beach Shoot with Fellow Writer Saab

Now this is exactly why I love spontaneous plans. Because they haven't been planned a week in advance or ''iterinarised", I never end up getting disappointed. So in the excuse of just trying something new, and also begin shooting at least, I decide to go to Juhu beach one early morning. Fellow Writer Saab was sweet enough to be my model, sandals and bag holder and co-shells collector for the day.

Neither of us expected Juhu Beach to be such a clean paradise! Towards 9 am, we were the only young-people-who-wanted-to-be-kids-again on the beach. Apart from shooting Writer Saab's natural poses, we did beachy things- collect shells both live and dead ones and then (accidentally) freeing the live ones, stand on the water while it cleansed our feet (but we were kinda bummed that we didn't experience that feeling of the water trying to take us with them).

We faffed quite like street urchins for the rest of the day. The events included dissing Barista for keeping fake cookie jars and aggravating our hunger pangs, minor rickshaw accident with a piece of rearlight glass swiping my cheek, Writer Saab fighting off tummy butterflies till he finally received that big offer letter from the BAAP of all ad agencies (while we entered the office with semi-tan and sandy feet), and singing and yapping all the way while the poor cabbie took us back to our routine excuses- work...  

Ok so I think I'll cut the list short here, because my eyes are welling up. Because I've only come to realise, despite this being a rather shitty year, I've had some good times too. GREAT times.

The list would also include Bandra Reclamation sessions with Miss iWant, working and hanging out with Jai Basanthi and Veerubhai Enfield (the best co-workers one could ever imagine), almost every outing (and every argument about who gets Neil Bhoopalam) with Chicilata aka Girgit, random jam sessions at Carters with BB Gunn, Karaoke (and losing voice the next day) with my other disfunct yet strangely nice family called Team BP -

Hey ! the list's is actually longer than the shittier times. Which makes me want to ask myself, why exactly was I whining. If I just listened a little more carefully, I could hear each one of these people tell me , "You are not alone, and never will be."

So, to the ones I love and to those who I will love, I hope you continue to stick by this hopeful cynic of sorts, no matter what. I hope you know that I'm doing great, and I hope we stick and can be shiny happy mad people together in the coming years too.