Goodbyes and Hellos
"Naina, you're leaving next week? When were you planning on telling me ?" Maaya was freaking out by the minute as she made her way to the railway station to leave for work. While she knew Naina was planning to leave Mumbai for work around month end, she did not know that her friend was actually leaving the very next week, trying to avoid the festive rush.
"I thought you knew re. All my special people know, I'm leaving soon." Naina bit her tongue knowing amply well how her over thinker of a friend would not skip a beat and respond to this statement. Smacking her forehead she let Maaya jump in anyway.
"So, . . . . I am not your best fweand.?? " Maaya verbalised the words in the Husky dog way as she was getting restless, she wanted to be able to say goodbye to her bestie before she left town. A little goodbye to make up for the lost time before they meet again. It all felt too sudden and unceremonious and Maaya was getting frantic." Getting into the auto she usually took, she continued to talk.
The autowalla had been ferrying Maaya around the same time everyday for a few months now, and finished his tea almost on time to drop her everyday. An arrangement of convenience where one got a hassle free ride on time and the other had a secured customer to start the day with. We all make such unnamed connections, smokers with their panwaadis for a daily smoke break, tea lovers with the chai wallas and foodies with the maggi-wale bhaiyya. The names are never exchanged, but small talk and little connections of everyday convenience binds all. Something the covid pandemic took away when all was halted and deliveries were also made from a distance.
"How about I come by to your place today?" Maaya speculated.
"I have work yaar, not that I'm trying to blow you off but there won't be much time to spare. The house is a mess too" Naina was running out of excuses, she had to meet Abhay before leaving town but did not want to upset Maaya either. These were the two people this city had gifted her with that she truly cherished as the happiest accidents of her life in Mumbai.
"Main aari hu, and the house can be messy. I won't mind, It's not like you have to impress me with your home management skills. I'm asking for WFH for today. You make up something too. We'll chill" Maaya ended the call, without giving Naina any chance to actually retaliate.
"Bhaiyya, distance double ho jaaye to chalega? Aj hum office nahi jare." Maaya beamed from behind her mask as she gave further instructions to the auto driver. True to his business, the man simply requested to be paid by the standard rates for the destination and drove as per instruction.
"Main aagyi" Maaya greeted Naina with a hug as she set down the paper bags of vada pav on her side table. Scanning around her apartment, Maaya looked around with pensive eyes.
"You call this a mess?"
"I call it triage management, something you do when everything is a mess and. . .
"Are you calling me a disaster?" Maaya raised an eyebrow. Naina hushed her anyway.
Settling down on the sofa-cum-bed Naina decided to turn on a movie she and Maaya both liked. Yeh jawaani hai diwaani, the Ranbir Kapoor starrer that shows the transformation journey of a character named NAINA. Ofcourse, Naina loved it, Maaya liked it too but for a different reason.
"Ye Vada pav tu nukkad waale chachaa se laayi na? Ye fried mirchi wala achaar wohi rakhtey hai." Naina was diving right into the food.
"I know you love those chillies too much, and I like their masala. Truth be told; No amount of garlic bread can ever sway me from Mumbai ka local Vada Pao." Maaya and Naina chuckled as they licked off the rusty red spice mix of their finger while messy eating.
As the movie played along in the background, Maaya was reminded of how she first saw it and why she liked it. Kudos to the plot and cast, but Maaya liked it more because of her friends. The first time she saw it, it was through the eyes of someone else. It was somewhere around the time she was in college when Mridul was a mere acquaintance (some guy introduced by a mutual friend).
She was living in Dehradun back then, the weather was no where comparable to Mumbai. Even summers were chilly for her, and it was during one late autumn evening that Mridul had called her up, excited beyond words for having seen a first day first show of YJHD. His excitement was palpable in his texts and coaxed Maaya to get out of her comforter and come on call, which meant standing outside in the balcony for network and braving the chilly winds of Dehradun.
She had stayed up till dawn with him, and she barely remembered a thing about the movie plot, but she did remember Mridul's voice ringing in her ears, pouring in his childlike excitement into her despite the miles separating them. Needless, she decided to visit the nearby theatre in the city and check out the movie herself. Years later she ran into Naina at work, unexpected to say the least they had bonded like soul sisters. Sharing the good, the bad and the ugly secrets with one another. Maaya wondered if she should tell Naina about her dream, about Mridul and her dilemma. Deciding against it, she snapped back into the moment, of spending the day with her bestie before she leaves town.
Now, sitting on the bed, with a messy backdrop of Vada pav and butter fingers, Naina and Maaya sat chatting about the good times and planning about the great ones ahead. Of Naina's new position as associate lead at her firm and their plans to spend their new fat paychecks.
"Tune mera gift dekha? Abhay got me stuff from that brand you were raving about a few months ago" Naina could not contain her excitement as she waltzed towards her cupboard while dancing to- "Dilliwali Girlfriends". She loved this song a little too much. Maaya sat crossed legged, waiting for her, while enjoying the little show she was putting up with her goofy groove.
"Ooo I love this brand, and that face pack is amazing, I have it too." Maaya smiled appreciatively as she inspected each of the mini boxes stacked in the gift box. Her eyes stopped and so did her heart for a microsecond as she turned around the last one. It wasn't what was in it, rather what was written on it that made her pause. The particular item was called MRIDUL. The last thing she wanted to focus her mind on, had now showed up here.
"Oye, aise dekhne ka nahi. Ye sab apun ka hai bidu" Naina snapped her fingers at Maaya, in an Earth-to-Maaya signal. Snapping out of her surprise Maaya put down the box.
"I was kidding re, I know you already have the same collection with you. Probably that's where the gifting idea came from to Abhay. He's too lazy to think of such gestures anyway" Naina joked, as she always did when it came to Abhay. She had a rather comfortable equation with long-term beau Abhay, so much that her close friends had practically accepted him without ceremony as part of the extended family.
Finishing up the movie, while chatting heavily throughout, Naina and Maaya both agreed it was a much better way of spending time than having gone out. For starters, they did not need pants, and had gorged on most of their favourite snacks in the most messy way possible. Restaurant dining meant behaving like adults in public, which they seldom liked to forego. Packing up to leave for home, Maaya gave Naina a little goodbye hug, unsure of when they'd meet again. Closing the door behind Maaya, Naina walked back into her house and cleared up the paper bags of food and put away the dishes. Turning off her laptop screen, Naina looked at the rolling credits to the movie, and reminsced about the characters. She too had come a long way much like Naina from the story, and her story with Abhay was no less dramatic. As for her friendship with Maaya, her rowdy, unruly and a bit of a headache friend, one could easily get a good storyline out of the entire plot. Naina loved Mumbai city, the weather the people and most of all these two idiots she was thankful for- Abhay and Maaya. Like her guru, Mary Kondo advised in her books- keeping all that sparked joy (people and things alike), Naina was ready to move on to the next city to welcome new adventures while keeping old happiness intact in her basket.
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