Meet My Roomie..

I have this irresistible urge to rave and rant about my ex-roomie today. It might take me a couple of posts, but trust me, it’ll be worth the read.

And for all those who didn’t know I have a roomie- yes, I did have one.

I met him a couple of years back at home. His mom and my dad had been childhood buddies. There was this excitement one weekend that there’s a guy from IIT who has taken out his valuable time to come visit us with his parents, and so we were woken early on a weekend to dust and clean the house, clean ourselves up and be our best selves. Already cursing the anticipated nerdy guy who we imagined would be a chashmish with heavily oiled hair combed neatly with a front centered parting, sitting shyly in between mumma and papa and nodding his head to everything, my sister and I decided to bully him. Our initial shock came out of seeing this tall, good-looking man looking ravishing in a black tee shirt with the words “IIT” typed visibly who was a far cry from the initial idea we had of a chashmish working on the computer. But bullying was a custom for anyone overly praised for their virtues by my parents. Soon, he was flanked with me and my sis and while my sis kept bombarding him with questions, I looked straight into his eyes and kept smiling and nodding till he got so uncomfortable that he would start squirming in his seat.

That was the plan originally. However my sis soon got tired of asking him questions, and I was asked to dutifully show him around the house. It is a custom to take anyone new to the terrace and take pride in showing him the view from there. Soon, we were on the terrace talking, and God knows how barriers fell, walls were broken, and we were exchanging email ids.

That was some three years ago. He has been one of my closest buddies ever since. So what if he was doing computer engineering in one of the best places and was a nerdy niner and we were so often reminded back at home how to be a good kid like he is and do well in academics? He is one of the most versatile guys who could live up to his goody boy image coming from a missionary school for boys, and be an equally rowdy engineering student.

It started with weekly emailing, monthly talking over the phone when he would be home and occasional meetings. How can I forget the way the aunty beside us was crying buckets in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna while we kept making inane jokes about the Khans and the Bachchans and the aunties and everyone else. Apart from roaming around in Esplanade and my visits to his place to eat goat meat curry his mom made, the thing that got us so close was the fact that we could discuss anything under the sun.

When he went to Germany for his summers, he would tell me in detail about the people and the new stuff he learnt. And then I came to the US and talking became an occasional event. However we soon devised a method to be in touch. I made him my virtual roomie. Gmail and Gtalk helped us through this. We would be logged on to Gtalk 24/7, and while he did his assignments and I did mine, we kept chatting as if we were living in the same place. I would always be greeted with a good morning email from him when I woke up. And then we would talk about trivial stuff like mess food, what classes did you have today, and anything and everything under the sunlight and the moonlight. While he gave me funda on computer engineering and programming, I told him about my experiences in the US and how things were different here. We would write occasional letters to each other. But most importantly, my morning would start talking to him before I freshened up.

It was like having a person in your own room, talking to him, sharing stuff, despite the fact that the person lived half way across the world. We talked about everything, from computers to programming to biochemistry to politics, sports, his institute, my school, crushes, heartbreaks, family matters, and everything else. He has helped me in so many of my assignments by reading and editing and giving his feedback. I remember a particular quiz when I had scored a 5/35 (there was no credit for partially correct answers) when he actually used probability to calculate that the chances of anyone getting an answer correct was (1/2) to the power 7, so difficult the exam was. This had worked wonders to boost me up that day.

We have spent hours playing KBC when I would ask him inane questions with weird choices. I remember once we played “who do you think my latest crush is” and kept giving him options. By Jove, this brilliant guy narrowed down the choices and almost got most of the answers right.

Having a virtual roomie was fun. I could have someone to talk to, yet I had my space and privacy. It felt sad coming back to an empty room with no one to talk to. At the same time, I could be in my shorts with my unkempt hair and my room in a mess, and not worry about my roomie seeing me that way (the firewalls didn’t let us use camera). In an age when most of my friends complain about how poorly they get along with their roomies while they argue on every little thing ranging from who will cook what and who will pay for what, I have been fortunate in having a roomie who was never really physically present to give me a hard time, yet was always there whenever I needed him. The guy who taught me how to make power point presentations, the guy who taught me that more than meeting a deadline, it is important to beat the deadline, the guy whom I started to respect for his disciplined life and the way he handled priorities, he is the best roomie anyone could have.

But like all good things end, he graduated and went home. Ever since he left, I have felt this void, this emptiness in my room (though he was never really there), these inexplicable feelings of missing someone and not having someone to rush to and tell every time I spotted a good looking guy on the campus, felt low, or needed help with my assignments. He will be in the US soon, and I hope that we will be able to resume our roomie-ship then, though he will still be a good many time zones away. Interacting with him has made me a far better person and a far better friend.

I miss you roomie. I miss telling you my exam marks and you analyzing where things went wrong. I miss listening to the insane stories of your friends who dressed up like the Pandavas while going for an exam. I miss you cheering me up every time I cried. I miss you explaining me the concept of God while I yawned and flipped websites without you knowing it. I miss falling asleep at nights talking to you.

I miss you.

sunshine