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Sometimes some people unknowingly become such an important part of your existence long before you even realize. I think it has been like that with this friend of mine. Not in a mood to name her, so let’s just use pronouns :) Today is her last day in my office and I am left wondering - Have we really been together for 4 years?

We probably learnt everything together. Infact there are so many 'firsts' with her that jotting all of them down would be impossible. We took our first salary together; we both sat down and learnt how to do tax calculations, every minute details of it. We analyzed our tax reports, sal slips, promotion lists, everything.

We called each other at odd hours stating 'I am bugged - let’s meet'. Not every time the other person would make it but definitely asap. There was an amazing clarity about the relationship. We both always had similar thoughts, similar emotions given any situation which just became stronger each day. We have shared countless hours after office discussing and gossiping. I could trust her with anything and I always will. Some people are so upright in life that you need no warranty for their uprightness.

This blog is out of the blue........I don’t usually allow anyone to venture into my private territory but as has always been the case with some people I thought let’s make an exception :). I am going to miss the immediate calls, mails and meetings, now that she is going far. I will miss knowing her colleagues, her managers and giving code names to them. But I know something we will devise some way of bettering this relationship. Distance is simply going to alter the dimensions :)

:-* ...as always

Pet names

Do you know where Mr.Chopra lives? Nopes, I answered and the stranger who had spoilt my book reading session left. He must have just covered a few paces when realization dawned and I opened the door again and yelled back at him "he lives on the third floor". Surprised, he mumbled a feeble thank you and changed his course to go upstairs. I am sure he must have thought I was a moron but only I knew the problem. I had never known Chopra uncle by his name, for me he has always been 'Daewoo' uncle for he was the first person in our society to have bought the huge "Daewoo Cielo" back in the 90's when marutis ruled the roads (they still do).

Pet names - the ones that your parents give you or the ones you acquire over a period of time because of your ability or foolishness always stay with you, come what may! Traditions make parents name their child as "Vyankatesh" and practicality/fondness changes the name to Venky. My childhood, I remember at least 10 sonu(s) and equal raju(s) in my society. To complete the pet name bouquet there were others like chikku, minti, munni, monu, dinky, tillu, babu,etc. Every time an aunt called my friend chikku, she would cringe but answer and every time we called her that she would throw a tantrum and go away reminding us her real name. Parent's too acquired a pet-name as a result of their kid. I mean Mr.Walia was never known by his name but always as chikku's papa. These are pet names as a result of fondness or as some general rule because the names were too long.

But there were others that were acquired because of a habit. For example we named Manish 'hanky' after his constantly overflowing nose and his eagerness to wipe it off even when he was supposed to pick up a catch. Debashish became 'ducky' after his amazing capability to imitate 'Uncle Scrooge'. Nidhi became 'popo' after her famous rickshaw driver act in one of the society plays (She had imitated the rickshaw's horn extremely well). Mandar was nicknamed 'Dhonya'(long time back....no way related to M.S.Dhoni) because he would either hit a six or get out (‘dho deta tha’).

I once knew of pandit uncle and his nameplate read (Sirish Patwardhan (panditji))...for everyone knew him as panditji because he knew every shloak, mantra in the Hindu tradition and was the lead man in all traditional activities. Garage wale uncle, I can still point his house and tell you his whole family tree but ask me about Mr. Surendran Nair, and I would probably tell you I don’t know him. I too gave the weirdest pet names to people and they too readily accepted it. BCS aunty (she had filled my BCS form), Dabba uncle (he had made my school dabbas when my parents had to urgently go out of station), Line wali didi (because the first time I met her was in a queue and had fought with her), the list is just endless.

Times have changed and I am no longer in touch with many of these old folks but I am amazed how the memory of their pet names never fails me. The name immediately rings a bell and brings back a gust of memories. And I guess it will always be so :)

Probably nothing summarizes my fondness for pet names than this line from Jhumpa Lahiri's Namesake - "Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated". Perfect, isn’t it?

Federer won :)

Finally Federer ended his dry run at Roland Garros and became the 6th man to win a career Grand Slam as he tied up with Pete Sampras for the most grand slam titles, 14 in all. He definitely was the better man at the finals yesterday and all though Soderling played well he was no match for the experienced Federer who won 3 straight sets 6-1, 7-6, 6-4. The second set was unarguably the best of all.

With Nadal ousted quite early this was perhaps Federer's best chance and he made no bones about it either! He played his natural game and with his characteristic attitude. I vividly remember the first time I saw him play. It was the 2004 US open finals. I had never been a tennis freak and it was his amazing game that made me follow tennis and yesterday as I saw my favourite achieve what had eluded him 3 times, I couldn’t help but shriek. And who better than Agassi to present the trophy to Federer!

The French open 2009 has been quite unpredictable with all the favourites except Fedex being shown the exit by relatively lower ranked players. Even Federer had almost missed it against Hass in the semi finals. Safina again returned empty-handed, this world no 1 is still without a single grand slam title :). Leander Paes again pocketed a French-Open but this time it was without Bhupathi. He is one man who just refuses to give up and we are not complaining. Keep them coming Paes!

Wimbledon is round the corner and if last year's marathon final between Fedex and Nadal is anything to go by, we sure are gonna have a great time :) [Although a different result is what I am expecting...Ouch! I know I am biased]