I remember my first cycle trip to his place… and how I got lost while coming back….i remember how I could still manage to reach home finding my way out with the high telephone tower helping me out…

I also remember a day, when three of us small kids were cycling around in noida and one of us met with an accident… he happens to be the father of a sweet girl today…
The third one happened to be one of my closest friends of those times… good company he was…I was always scared of his dad because he was a Police Officer, and his mom was one of the sweetest moms I knew… she is such a lovely lady… and the Mickey and Mona, his brother and sister… were two sweet darlings we used to be with…

Time passed… and I moved out of the school… to find a dream and a career for myself, and during all this while we did not talk… we moved apart when no one had heard of something called an email and we used to keep our fixed line numbers in phone books… so loosing that phone book meant that you loose touch… and if someone changes his residence or the number changes.. Then also you would not be able to track them down…

I lost one of my phone books… and I lost a few of my friends I had practically spent the nicest days of my life with… did not make any long lasting friends in the new school or college except while doing my masters… infact the people that I call friends are very very few today…

When I was going to London last month, I talked to one such friend… and he happened to the same guy who I used to treat as my best friend back in दाव school… Abhishek Dixit…

the same guy who used to roam around with me on cycles… the same guy I remember as a die hard fan of Amitabh Bachchan… The guy from Banda, UP, the same guy who used to sit with me on the last bench in school, the same guy who fell with me while we were trying a few summersaults on our last bench in school॥ The same guy I lost touch with for about 11 years…

And I was there with him, in a different country, in a different continent, about 6700 kms away from home… living some of the best moments of life again… the same comfort level॥ The same care… the same conversations, with some refinement though… things did not change much did they?

We walked the streets of London, we went to Scotland, we talked, ate, and ooooogled at girls together… life made simpler… the simple joys of life come to me in form of Abhishek… who also doubled up as the guide in a firangi country in the not so good of situations and the better ones too…

London would have been a mess, if he was not there… thanks Bro for being around… then and now!!! You are a blessing!!!

शुक्रीया दोस्त…