One afternoon while my brother, S and I waited in the passage for mummy to arrive from her workplace, I noticed a small head peeping out of the upper floor courtyard. As I looked up, the head pulled back in a ruckus. Going by the haircut, I assumed it was a boy. S screamed “(who are you?)” We heard a door closing. S and I went back to tearing papers and flying them across the building. S was younger and naturally had more friends of his age than me in the building. Jealous. I was one-man army. I was the eldest among the children in our quarters. I smiled in my head when the kids called me ಅಕ್ಕ, chest did a little up and down each time I heard it. A small sense of authority crept in; yet being responsible for S, his fights and his mannerisms was not something I truly enjoyed. Mother gave me an earful each time I came without standing up for my brother, but how to? He got into quarrels often and patched up even more easily; I was sluggish and did not want to be a baddie, losing out on the few friends I had.

While we watched Shilpa Shetty groove to “Shut Up and dance” in her green shorts on the TV screen that day, my father called in a girl: skinny, earth brown with a bowl/mushroom haircut. I had seen her an hour ago. Papa introduced her as our new neighbour, his friend’s daughter: “H”. She was a year older to me. Her white bow around the neck and pink cheetah print top had already caught my attention, I was a little taken aback by the fact that I would never be the leader in the building again. H did not speak much that day, all we did was ask each other who our favourite actor was. She asked me if I knew Diganth’s “pancharangi paw paw” song, and I laughed it off. We then switched to U2 Kannada music, they played everything except the one we wanted to listen to.

She was a huge D’s fan, I had secretly started liking him too. We watched his film together, curling our stomachs, catching our breaths when “paw-paw” song played. Our teenage hearts smiled when we had extensive discussions on Aindrita Rai’s dresses and wrote down lyrics of D’s song together on the terrace.

We were on the same school bus, sticking our bums together in a small seat. Even in our school tour buses, I looked forward to sitting with her because that is how it had been. She danced her way to another seat while “ತೊಂದ್ರೆ ಇಲ್ಲ ಪಂಕಜ” (no problem Pankaja) played on repeat. But a problem existed, what had happened suddenly? Are we not friends anymore? I saw she was now a part of kids who I thought were cool, and fun, knew dancing, winning relay races and playing sports. I think I was a part of it too because I tagged along, although never really in the group or out either, like standing in the shallows of a wave pool in Wonder La and trying to muster some courage to dive in robust waves near the gates. Because apparently, the entire thrill lies there.

“ ನಾವು ನಿಮ್ಮೊರೆ ಪಂಕಜ.” (....we are the same team, Pankaja...) played

“all lies”. I thought.

I had done quite a share of imbecilities with her being the partner in crime, like this one time we were too innocent to search for f*** in the Oxford mini dictionary, the other time we had googled ‘sex’ with my grandmother buzzing around like a bee in the room, did building level competitions with 2 of us and 3 younger ones, danced to “Sheila ki jawani” where she made me Akshay Kumar although I wanted to be Katrina. We both could be Katrina. “you don’t know dancing that is why” was a drill-in-the-wall reply. Equal parts of agreement and anger nullified each other. I sprinted back to my house in a snap.

Somehow dancing in front of a huge crowd for teachers’ day tops my list. Something like this was as hard as a pair of jeans being stuck below your knee but you wanted to wear it no matter what. I still wanted to dance, to prove her wrong and of course, the million times Anybody Can Dance (ABCD) song videos she had shown me filled traces of courage in my veins. H loved it, being in the centre, choreographing, choosing songs, costumes, cutting songs, basically everything and I found this amusing about her. Her honey eyes beamed like a boss character in a KJO film during such events. We chose a few songs from the current favourites. A common thread between them was that she loved them. We called ourselves MJ4, I was slow to pick the steps, but tried my best. It was a dance like everybody was watching, rigid and tout. I don’t know how the performance went; I only remember copying H’s steps, sniggers that followed me and one joke that a boy had said about breakproof stages. I expected H to say something, to me at least. I went back home and asked Mum to throw the MJ4 costume away.

When Alia Bhatt’s “में तेनु समझावान्की” song was 9Xm’s new favourite, by then I found what I was good at, studying. But looking at film posters from the bus window was my favourite activity because there was no other access like FB, or Instagram to catch up on things. That morning Humpti Sharma Ki Dhulhania had released; hence posters were relatively new and clean, devoid of pee and paan. H had gone to watch it, we no longer watched films together. But we still shared the same place in the school van. The same evening, H’s brother, A and S pulled a fight; both our mothers’ had a duel. Mom sent away all the books she had given me. I pulled a rough paper, saw around, wrote a small “thank u and sorry” with a K just the way she used to pen tattoo on her arms sometimes and swiftly stuffed it in the heap. A and S patched up the same night.

The next morning H stopped sharing a seat with me. She had walked in, not even a glance at me, changed the seat and kept glaring out of the window on her side. The next year she finished school. The next decade I moved cities. Not a word was spoken. In the lockdown sun, while I walked on the ground because mummy coerced me into it, H walked in the opposite direction. Her face shrinking, and I couldn’t figure out if it was the sun or me. By the time I was making my smile ready, she put her head down, fixed her earphones and changed her path. I pretended to fix my loose shirt and dragged my feet, looking at the shadows dancing.

Funny how all this came back to me when an Insta reel showed

Charming Shahid Kapoor playing...

“आए खुदा मुझको बता तू रहता कहा क्या तेरा पता “ (Dear lord, tell me where do you live?)

POV: You grew up in the 9XM generation.

It was her first favourite out of all the songs we had listened to, sang the wrong lyrics and hummed together.

“New Year new me” motto had seeped in, I replayed the reel many times. I made messages in my head,

“Hi, Happy New Year, this reminds me of you

Maybe we can, uk like be friends again ?”

or

“Hi, this reminds me of you.

Happy New Year.”

or

“This reminds me of you,

C’mon, we can follow each other on Instagram at least?”

Instagram had to refresh that every time. Maybe because I was fidgeting on the screen a lot, my index finger kept nibbling on the arrow icon. I tried hashtags on the search bar: #9Xmmusic #shahidkapoor #growingup #paathshala

In vain, even twenty thousand-odd posts did not have this one reel.

The song kept ringing in the head, and l mouthed a few lyrics while watering the plants the next two days. Somehow her face in school uniform came in little flashes and went away. Particularly in this line:

“..याद तेरी आती है..” (Dear Friend I remember you)

And then Jhoome Jo Pathaan came into reels, I binged it. Now I have Deepika coming into my mind while doing the same thing. She is slowly going away with the song I think, I feel that sometimes songs are simply made, but most of the time it is people whom we liked, shared it with and danced to it who bring new layers to it when they go away these layers are sawed through, you either collect the dust or wipe it clean. 

.    .    .