My Bestfriend

Like many of you, I have had plenty of best friends in life. But none like Nisha. She was my cousin and we met mostly during summer vacations and family functions. I was introverted and shy. In contrast, confidence flowed from everything she did or said. Some of it may be attributed to her being a city girl and I was born and brought up in a village. Although, my books made me well-traveled and wise beyond my years. I used to invent my own games, try on the neighborhood kids, and then tell her all about them whenever we met. She always liked those and added one or two things of her own.

Being of the same age and brilliant academically, we were bound to be compared against each other. However, most of the time, it was about who is prettier. She was milky white with a sharp nose. I had my oval face and big beautiful eyes. No one ever won that competition and we never worried about it. My parents loved her extrovert nature, often wishing she would sprinkle some of that on me. Her mother exclaimed at times at my peaceful nature and why hadn’t her daughter received some of that. We were like fire and snow and inseparable whenever we were in the same place. Afternoons are the longest part of summer vacations and we whiled away those reading stories and enacting them. We danced in the evening or raced each other or played hide and seek with other kids. We would change our clothes to confuse others and found it super amusing.

Very soon, it will be time for her departure and difficult goodbyes. We would exchange our clothes, shoes, and toys as a promise to meet next time. If any wedding happens to fall in mid of the year, we used to be overjoyed, as that would give us some time together. All the happenings will be exchanged and future plans which kept changing. So, imagine my happiness when in Class Six, my father planned to enroll me in the city school, the same as my cousin. The only person happier than me was Nisha who declared at once that we would be bench partners and she would talk to the teacher about that. Fate had other plans.

I was visiting my maternal grandmother that summer. We were all having lunch and Granny came back after attending my mother’s call. Nisha’s father committed suicide after killing her and her brother. Their mother had committed suicide a year prior to that because of family fights about which Nisha never liked to talk. I could not swallow the food in my mouth. The whole family sat there talking about the tragic story of an entire family being dead. I walked away refusing to believe my ears. Life goes on and people move on. But I could never really process this. I have passed twice the time I have known her, without her. Still, late at night, when I am unable to sleep, I wonder about the plans we used to make. I never become Doctor as I planned in Fifth standard but would she have become Pilot as she planned. She was a born leader and maybe she would have been a social media influence with her impeccable dressing sense. I would never know this. The only thing, I know is that we would still have been best friends.