Watch out. Guest post

My friend, Manu, is a scientist with a lot of time on his hands. Here, coming and going from Paris to Prague, he tries writing mush and ends up penning a tell-half tale of how he met 'The Nimpip', and how it was the coolest thing to ever have happened to him. Forgive him for the sentiment. He's really a sweet boy.

Okay. All rise!

Names, places and events in this post may or may not be based on reality. Facts may have been modified to accommodate anonymity and fiction might have been incorporated for laughs, simply for kicks or to screw with your minds...

Hi, my name is Manu and I am guest posting for the Nimpip. A long long time ago I used to also blog about all and sundry… I used to write about things to do with motorbikes, women, my life... but mostly I wrote about my screwups in general. You can still find an account of all that awesomeness here, but for now I am calling in sick with a temporary blogosphereo-quitto syndrome. But one never knows…

So recently the Nimpip brought up the topic of bringing in some new blood to boost her flagging and slightly ignored blog. After much discussion and back-and-forthing of ideas (for the record, I still hold that my idea of a progressively-inappropriate series of photo shoots involving several ladies of the morally-lax nature and playful mammals, was a lot more imaginative than the Nimpip’s shoot-me-in-my-face-why-is-this-not-over-yet idea of a quiz) ... so where was I? yeah, after much back-and-forthing of such ideas we hit upon yours truly writing up a little something.

So kids, let me tell you how the Nimpip and I met. I should clarify ahead of time that as I write this I am waiting for a connecting flight from Prague to Paris… after a week of hardcore Prague style partying I am on my way to a mind-fuckingly boring geek conference in Paris. I am shelling out all these details just so everything I say next is put in perspective, and also because I love some constructive reinforcement as to how cool my life is right now.

So anyway, back when I was young, carefree and mostly innocent, I did what any bram-boy born to a doctor-engineer couple is destined to do. I joined an engineering college. Now the logical succession to that numbingly dull career choice is to pack one’s bori-bistara and head off to foreign lands in search of money, fame, excitement and the once-sacred NRI tag. My attempt at this involved first learning a foreign language -- German, to be specific. That’s where the Nimpip and I first met. She was wearing her favourite look of bewilderment mixed with cool nonchalance mixed with dread about the forthcoming weeks. This was mostly because she had no clue why she was in the class, didn’t give two hoots about the language anyway, and in a rapid, succinct and critical appraisal of her to-be-coursemates, had come to the conclusion that we were all basically dweebs.

It was frandship at 4th glance. I cannot quite remember our first words or the first time we sat together. But I remember checking her out at every possible occasion and figured that that would be an easier activity if we were sitting closer. Such is the affliction of the male mind, we check out women, each and every one of them -- fact. I suppose over time the Nimpip realised that this particular dweeb was in fact an awesome dweeb because suddenly we were sitting together at every class. Now most of you who have studied in India must know that there is this invisible line that divides classrooms based on gender, especially in classrooms where the interaction is limited or the relationships new. It was pretty much the same case here, with girls in the first two rows and guys in the last. I was the lone exception because I had just made a cool new friend and would be damned if I were to instead sit with smelly body-odour guy with the excessive touching problem.

German class was in a swanky language school with a very suave teaching philosophy and some young, hip teachers. The upside of all this awesomeness was that there was plenty of time and opportunity during classes to talk, muck around, gossip about the high-pitched punjaban in the front row with the crooked nose and crack spectacular jokes. The Nimpip did most of the gossiping and jokes were generally my department. Premium frandship building stuff, this!

Somewhere along the line the Nimpip made a comment about how she saw an aspect of forging new friendships as an investment, of time and effort. I remember feeling at that time that I found this to be a rather pessimistic view. Would you make a new friend knowing well that someday soon you will part ways, maybe badly, and never see him/her again? My answer at that time was yes, and that hasn’t changed since, but looking back I now realise that that wasn’t the right question anyway.

Now, at 36000ft above sea level, my flight is equidistant from my origin and destination. The memories from last week are already vague and the upcoming days at work feel like something from the life of another person. The only thing of importance at present is this conversation that I am having with you. Metaphorically speaking, my life right now is at about the same place. As I work and play, doing the things that drive me, I have no idea where I am headed, and the journey to this place has been so long and packed that I have lost a little of where I came from. Equidistance seems to be my wings and for now the landmarks that are vital for me to keep my crap together are the friendships I build. Each one of those relationships has a story, a setting and an emotion that all come back to me when I think of them. Some were successful like the Nimpip and I, and others have crashed and burned.

Without getting too mushy, sobby and generally driving away the few readers still loyal to the Nimpip, I would just like to acknowledge that being the architect, master and cause of innumerable screwups in my life, I am grateful for the few times I did the right thing -- and checking out the Nimpip in German class was one of them! Someday in the future when her tall, good-looking, artsy brats meet my probably dark haired-blue-eyed progeny, I will repeat this story and hope that their friendships are just as awesome.