I slouched on the sofa with potato chips, as Oprah started her show. The re runs of her show is the only thing that I look forward to in these hot summer days. College is closed for vacation. I have never been the kind to join any summer classes, but Srivi always manages to enrol us for few each year. Once we tried our hand at glass painting. We really believed the three week course would allow us to paint our building's windows. We had even decided how much we would charge for each glass pane. Mrs Tambe would incur extra for her comments on our second-rate future during last year’s Diwali celebration in the building.  But then Srivi broke one of the glass panes we were working on and the teacher just happened to step on one of the rogue glass shards and the summer classes were cancelled. Then there was that one time when we joined Karate classes. Women empowerment was on our mind. But the timings were at 7 a.m. We decided we could empower ourselves through getting our beauty sleep. We reasoned that it would not be in our best interest to frighten our future husbands. And then there was one time we decided to try our hand at community service by dedicating our time in helping plant saplings around our society. But it involved actually touching mud and working under the sun, which Srivi had not thought of. We were ousted from the team when we took a four hours lunch break. We fell asleep. But I digress. So, I was sitting on the sofa watching Oprah, waiting for Srivi to show up.  It had become a routine for us this summer vacation to watch Oprah show together. Just as Oprah introduced her guests, Srivi had arrived. Dressed in pink salwar kameez with matching pink danglers, she looked like a cotton candy. I refrained from telling her that. But it made me hungry.

'You won't believe what mom was saying today. She said we should join Mrs Mehta's cooking classes. Apparently it would come handy once we are married.' She laid on the couch with look of utter disdain. Girls like Srivi don't just sit. They sit in a way that their dress doesn't get any crease at the same time showing off the delicate handiwork of the local karigar. I could never manage that.

'So what did you say?' I asked.

'I said okay'. She answered with a huge smile.

 I knew she was going to drag me to learn to make dhoklas and faafdas. I really wouldn't mind learning it. But Mrs Mehta didn't like me. It was really not my doing. Her cat was in the habit of taking afternoon stroll in the building compound.  By stroll I mean it would waddle around trying to look feline, but failing miserably. So on one such afternoons we crossed paths. We made eye contact and I thought it would be impolite if I didn't pet it.  As I reached to pet it reluctantly, it clawed at me. In utter shock some not so polite words might have escaped. At that precise moment Mrs Mehta decided to show up and gave me an earful about defiling her innocent cat. I swear the cat was smirking at me. It is an anti-Christ. I really did not want to spend my afternoons getting the stink eye from Mrs Mehta with her obese, satanic cat mocking me in the background. I shared my fears with Srivi and she agreed. We got engrossed in the show playing on the TV. The episode was about reuniting family members after years of separation. The emotions were raw and tender, and so was my hunger for more chips. I tore into another pack and we continued watching in silence.

Srividya Hariharan was my best friend. We lived in the same building and had grown up together. From a lanky kid, she had grown into a beautiful girl. I was not blessed with the ‘ugly duckling turning into swan syndrome’. Mine was more of a ‘wild boar turning into a farm pig’ syndrome. My addiction to a particular brand of potato chips didn’t help either.  Despite our differences, we had stuck by each other. There had been another childhood friend Pintoo. The three of us would play in the building compound all afternoon during vacations till our mothers would drag us home. Pintoo had no qualms being part of our girly games. There were no other boys in the building. But then we came at an age, when our gender differences had started becoming apparent and Pintoo took them personally. He realised he could climb over the compound wall to play cricket with the boys from other buildings. And so he did just that, leaving Srivi and I to watch TV at home. Pintoo never came back to us. And then we grew up. A swan and a farm pig and there he was, a misguided rooster. We never spoke to each other. Until a year back, when the members of the building were celebrating Diwali on the terrace. The same Diwali when Mrs Tambe made her acerbic remark. Pintoo decided to rekindle our friendship by offering to sell us some weed. Srivi was touched by his gesture and thought we all would be friends again. But we couldn’t afford his weed and told him that. He looked disappointed in our lack of interest in weed or the financial hopelessness and fled the scene. Srivi was hurt.

Our show was interrupted by her mobile phone. She screamed “Jo-Jo!” and ran to the bedroom. That was her boyfriend Ramanujam Mani. His name left a lot of scope for coming up with innovative pet names and Srivi had supposedly taken it up as a challenge. Last week it had been Nu-Nu. I got engrossed in the reunion of a mother and daughter who were meeting after fifteen years. A family feud had separated them and here they were now, hugging each other and crying tears of joy. I was moved. I could feel their sense of closure in meeting a loved one after so many years. Oprah was talking about inseparable blood ties, and it got me thinking. It was a simple idea, but it was getting me excited and I wanted to share it with my best friend. But she was busy on the phone with Nu-Nu, no wait, Jo-Jo. I went after her in the bedroom to find her sitting on the edge of the bed with her face contorted in a look which screamed bloody Mary! I was familiar with this face, because I was familiar with Srivi and her relationship woes. It looked like Jo-Jo had done a bad one. She cut the call as hard as it was possible to poke on a touchscreen. She looked at me and shouted “I hate him! He is a scoundrel!”

“What happened?”

“He cancelled on me again. He was supposed to take me out for that latest Salman Khan movie.”

“I read the reviews, it wasn’t that good anyway,” I tried to cajole.

“That is not the point! He cancelled on me! Karthik never did that to me.”

Karthik was Srivi’s boyfriend before Jo-Jo. But back then, he was not Karthik, he had been Tik-Tik. She had broken up with Tik-Tik when he failed to compliment her for her new dress. It had been an ugly fight with lots of tears. Srivi had just dusted off his pleas and moved on. Now, she had to make do with Jo-Jo.

“I need to break up with this boy. It makes no sense. He is obviously not in love with me. This is the third time he is cancelling on me in this month.”

I just ‘hmm’ed. I wasn’t going to read too much into her laments. This happened every week. One moment I was supposed to invest my emotions and hate him and in the next, love him, in show of my solidarity for my best friend. Their love was really exhausting for me.

“I am sorry, I don’t want to burden you with my worries. You wanted to say something?”

“Oh, uh…” I stuttered. Suddenly the idea didn’t seem that plausible. After all it required travelling across the city in search of something, which may or may not exist. After much struggle, I answered her.

“You remember how you always tell me, that I don’t do anything exciting?”

“Yes, it is true. Last time we went for that trek, you sat at the bottom of the hill waiting for us to come back because supposedly the hill has feelings, and wouldn’t want us trampling all over it,” Srivi rolled her eyes.

“Well, yes, yes. So today I am going to be proactive. I have this plan. Oprah has spoken to me.”

“You are not making sense.” Srivi was getting annoyed.

“I think we should find my dad and have our very own reunion.”