Draviyum naanum (Dravi and I)
I feel incompetent when I do not find the words to write about the people who mean the most. This is especially the case with Dravina.
We’ve been friends for over a decade from school to now. While I’ve written detailed mails in the past professing my love for her on many birthdays, I am yet to find ways to tell her exactly what it feels like to be her friend. It’s mostly because when I sit down to think about it, I begin to tear up.
A week before her wedding, Dravina remarked that we would now both carry the labels of being married women- a future that we never really spoke about despite having discussed far more trivial matters, through trivial relationships. I think it is because we both honestly never anticipated a future where there would be a thaali or outfits we’d have to match with our respective *gulp* husbands. But now, I feel compelled to look back and document a brief bit of our history because I am sure there is going to be a future where I forget.
Pardon me for rushing through this in the next few paragraphs. I do not think today is the time to write everything about her. I do not have the skill or the ability to dissect my emotions towards her.
On the morning of her wedding, I told myself to be patient. “It will come to you. Don’t rush your feelings,” I said. It never came. I was confused and overwhelmed and mostly wanted it to be over because that is what she kept chanting. “In X hours, it will all be done”. This lengthy piece is an attempt out of perseverance.
Please also remember that there is a deep transience here. Our relationship has become different from before. There were better days.. days of being closer to each other, in each other’s bed, sofas and bean bags, eating potato chips. Now, we are divided by distance but more so by time. It hurts. But only until we meet again. Time resets with Dravina. For many moments after, I am better than okay.
For now, here’s a beginning, a middle and a slam book entry with prompting questions that I hope will help me write my small feelings through vague floating bits of memory. It has been hard. Bill Bryson took nearly 700 pages to write a short history of nearly everything. Dravina is bigger than that. How does one make it fit a medium blog?
But here’s a start.
The beginning
The first time Dravina and I really talked was at our Class 11 excursion to a place I have no memory of. I only know that we spoke through winding roads enroute to a hill station while everyone else around us was asleep. That morning, we spoke about how we were finding it difficult to let go of the people we were then loving. She was one of the few people who knew about my grief. I was perhaps actively hurting then and found the space to tell someone my secret. She seemed empathetic and kind. Her silent understanding was more important than words that day. I had decided by myself and without consulting that she would be my friend. She then, was.
Two years later, through several culturals, sleepovers and book recommendations, we became better friends.
However, it was after school that there was a time when we were both alone, trying to evaluate friendships that we no longer found any place in. Kinship, justice and circumstance led me to form one of the most formative relationships the most of my life. Dravina gave meaning to these words.
We met nearly everyday through college. The simple act of dropping her at college ensured continuous presence in each other’s lives. We tried learning to accommodate new relationships and odd friendships while watching our very many matinee shows, films and trips to Anna library. Beds and sofas tore as our butt imprints on them grew deeper. We went on trips and saw each other’s families as our own.
I will never forget how Dravina fought for me with my boyfriend when I had no belief that I deserved better. She very literally stood next to me as I broke up and wept and mostly tolerated me through my several obsessions including one of North Korea and its dictators.
This was the best phase. The beginning. We had time, very little money and lots of Sowmya Bakery puffs and potato chips. We regaled in each other’s presence. Our lives were intertwined, our bodies vastly different and our reflexes sharper. It was youth, joy, glory, love, home food, tuition, Gangotree and my irritating constant shadow. It was when I had access to Dravina’s every thought as she wondered what she’d like to be. “Should I be an architect? What about a historian? A pilot? Something. Anything”.
Teaching though, was a curve ball.
The middle
Dravina’s time at Teach For India saw a real dip in the time we got to see each other. I was in ACJ and was wrapped up in the surreal world of a co-ed college with others who spoke about things far more intellectual than I had ever thought about. I don’t think I noticed the distance as much.
In her second year at TFI, I flew the nest and went to Madurai. What was it like before I left? What did we say to each other, Drav? I can’t seem to remember a thing. I only know that by this time I was properly jealous of her co-worker and friend Shiv because when Dravina and I met, she would call me Shiv. It hurt so much then. That sting, I remember. (Shiv, if you are reading, I love you. I was v young)
Dravina finished TFI. I was at her graduation. It made me so happy to see her on stage. Anusha and I baked her a massive chocolate cake. We ate, took pictures and engaged in a lot of pride that day. It was an important moment.
It was decided that Dravina would go to Cuddalore district’s Kannarapettai to work with three people — her colleagues from TFI- Shiv, Nisha and G- to take over a bunch of schools in the area. I think she mostly knew what she was going to do but didn’t realise that the move would involve battling snakes, head masters and head mistresses and several, several squirrels.
By now, we were both lost in our own trials and tribulations. We called infrequently, visited every now and then but went nearly 6 months without seeing each other. A new low. We acknowledged this and felt sad about it, angry even. I wrote an email to her asking why she had no part to play in understanding my new battles with anxiety and depression. I thought I had a right to question her absence and demand her ear at my beck and call, not thinking about what she was going through or if I had ever done the same for her before. I was lonely, angry and child-like. Acting out because several other things were going wrong.
This is when Dravina’s sister Pavi decided that it was time to get married. The brief time we got while planning her wedding are days I still fondly think back to. It was access again. Joy.
A year after Pavi’s I told Dravina that I’m ready to get married too. To someone she had never met and only heard about. How strange. How could the two of them not know each other? How could Vasanth not have Dravina’s proper seal of approval? Why did she just blindly go with my decision? Could she have said something?`
Days before my engagement in February 2020, I decided to travel with her to Cuddalore because I do not think I could have been by myself. I was so scared to meet even my closest family. I cried and nearly fainted from anxiety. She hovered around holding my hand occasionally and distracting me. Till date, thoughts about the time make me cry. I was so heartbroken but she gave me enough strength to get on a bus to go home. How can I possibly forget?
The pandemic often saw us video calling with updates. Nothing happened. Nothing moved. We were so far apart- living in the same city but completely unable to meet. We made conscious efforts to be in touch. Phone calls, voice notes, reminders and scheduled video calls to remember each other’s faces. No one measured Covid’s impact on friendships.
Dravina was not at my wedding. She only met me later because of rigid protocols. She partied with us, woke up and made filter coffee for a bunch of people before leaving in the morning. I liked dancing with her. She was amazing.
In the last two years, Dravina and I took our first vacation together in years. We went to Varkala and rolled in the waves. We ate fantastic food, got to know about each other’s new allergies and loved time together. Through her, I made better friends with her friends.
Through her, I saw Deepak at every stage- school, college, work and now- becoming an important part of her everyday. There’s no one I’d rather see her married to.
Dravina is my conscience, I think. She is an aspirational best friend- knowledgeable, wise, kind and extremely stupid. I love her for all her thoughtfulness and for times when she brings out her true silly self.
It isn’t right when she is faced with any injustice even though she encounters them often. If you think that a patriarchal wedding is a way to bog her down, you are wrong. It only means you’ve made enemies of people who love her fiercely. Dravina is everything good about the world. She offers safety and nurtures those who are fucked up even if she isn’t in the best place. I will try to do everything right by her for long, long time to come but before that, let me answer a few conventional slam book questions.
Your name in your birth certificate: Sanjana Ganesh
What I call you: Sanj, Sanju, Loose, Mental
Relationship between you and me: Best friends, sisters
Something you like in me: Your gums, your warm heart and the answers you’ve shown me in our mathematics exam.
Something you hate in me: You pichify every surface you find and play the tabla on random things including desks and other people’s stomachs.
Things we like to do together: Hug and kiss many times, play in the beach.
Favourite hero: Vijay, Vishal
Favourite heroine: Simran, Jo
A song you want to dedicate to me: Natpe thunai
My favourite jetti: Black colour, very stained one.
My favourite person: Sanjana
Your favourite person: Dravina
What message do you have for me: Stay the same sizZzzzzz :* :D Luv u miss u kiss u
Bonus
https://vimeo.com/765750046
