Those early friendships

Sue's post on her son and his little friend has inspired me to write a post of my own. I am blessed with decent memory so I have fairly vivid memories of some of my kindergarten friendships. For some reason, in those days, I mostly hung out with the boys at school. So here's remembering Abhishek, Arvind and Shammi.

So first there was Abhishek. Having both just moved to Delhi from Tamil Nadu at five, we were practically inseparable and happily chatted away in Tamil all day long while our teacher unsuccessfully tried to get us to interact with the other kids who mostly spoke Hindi/English. This continued until our teacher and parents conspired to tear us apart and put us in different sections lest we turn into some kind of social rejects. Heartbreaking, really.

Then came Arvind. Arvind was the sweetest guy and we got along really well. Until he lost bladder control in class one day, that is. After that incident, he was constantly the butt of everybody's jokes and I was too embarrassed to hang out with him. So that's how poor Arvind got dumped. Some of us have to learn the harsh ways of the world sooner than others, I guess.

Then came Shammi Kapoor. No his name wasn't really Shammi Kapoor (Bollywood star), but I remember him as such because he was Shammi's most ardent fan if there ever was one. Now Shammi, for some unfathomable reason, imagined that he had found a most captivated audience in me for his Chitrahaar song-and-dance performances. So each morning, Shammi and his devoted mother would hunt the school grounds and would not rest until they had found me. Mommy dear would then leave contented for the day. Shammi was like krazy-glue. Once spotted, it was impossible to get rid of him, or to make him stop "electric-shock dancing" (Shammi Kapoor's signature dancing style). I can still recall his chahe koi mujhe junglee kahe moves.

There were others too, but these are are the most memorable and perhaps also the quirkiest.