A friend's betrothal

This post is up here for various reasons, ranging from the this talking about the betrothal of one of my first friends, to taking a chance to walk down memory lane.
As a walk back to the early days of my life, and as I start counting the people who've nurtured a deep bond, a friendship, Shyamala ranks up there. Firstly because, it was a time when friendships had no tag of selfishness attached to them, a time when smiles were genuine, and anger was playful. It is said that fights between two older people takes years to dissolves, ones between fifteen to thirty year olds takes nearly a year or a couple, but fights between kids is for hours, or minutes at max. You snatch a toy away, he cries, you fight, he hits you, you hit him, you pick a new toy, he comes along playing with you, or vice versa. I had quite a few good friends I had made in that period of my life. Shyamala was technically my dad’s second cousin, and my second-aunt, but then she was probably three or four years elder to me, so was more like an elder sis. Her brother Arvind was a baby when I knew him. I’ve heard he’s moved on to do wonders these days.
There was this concept of a Saturday night Satsang group in Bahrain, among the Tam-speaking junta, which was co-founded by a few of them including my dad, Mohan uncle, Shridhar uncle and others. Though Shyamala and I knew each other earlier, it was here that I guess we got closer. We used to play a lot, set the house on fire. The Satsang basically was a meeting for the older ones to keep in touch with their spiritual self, and a guiding of the newer ones into the spiritual routine. Post the Satsang, when people used to sit and chat, we kids used to run away, and start playing. Shyamala was the oldest of the girls in that group, and I was the oldest of the guys. So we kinda herded over the group (not me actually), and used to have loads of fun. Playing ranging from hide and seek to dark room, to name-it-get-it. As for my memories with Shyamala, I still remember when I was in class one, we had a farewell party to one of the well-known Tam people in Bahrain. We had to put up a small comedy skit. I did the role of Bill Gates, and she was Rabri Devi, and had some hilarious dialogues, which went like, Bill asks Rabri about the kind of microchips she uses, and she says she uses only Uncle Chips, and also stuff like Bill asking Rabri why there is no “peace” in Bihar, with replying, there is no “peas” in Bihar, but it is abundant in Bhindi and stuff. I didn’t understand anything of those dialogues then, but I remember very well that every evening I used to wait for her to come over so that we could start chatting soon. Some friendships occur after years, are wonderful to think about, and always stay with you. This is one such friendship of mine.
Shyamala was a prototype Indian girl. In the days when people get to dirtier formats, variety clothing and “abuse-worthy” mannerisms (I am totally against abuse, but at times, the girls could be more decent of course) she was one person who knew to have fun, well within her limits. She was definitely an example of how a “foreign-bred” girl could remain totally rooted. I’ve always admired this quality of hers, and here is a testimony to that. She was also a fantastic dancer. I once remember she did two superb back to back renderings of the classical beauty Male Mannivanna, followed by the peppy I’m a Barbie girl (with Shilpa). It’s been a long long time since I’ve left Bahrain. I’ve definitely got a lot of memories back from the ten years I lived there, and Shyamala was one of them . I miss the entire gang, Prashu, Shyamala, Arvind, Rakesh, Priya, Meera, Shilpa, Sudarshan, Nikhil, and all others there. I miss you guys.
And Shyamala, I’m terribly sorry, Prashu, Heru and I wanted to come to your betrothal yesterday, but Dhoni kept us away. We’ll definitely make it to meet you sometime. It’s a promise. Wish you a very happy and successful married life!
Vignesh.G