Farewell

Today again we were playing Reply-All, and the topic was on the snap taken on the weekend Shanthi left.

The first thing I noticed about Shan when I met her was her hair. Long, strong and silky. I have used the same words in orkut as well, but I will let that be. The ultimate buggable creature, Shan was the best person to try your dry humour on. Good soul that she was, she never took it to heart. Which made us raise the bar higher and higher.

The first of those started when she accompanied us to Mahabaleshwar, and was doing a Rajnikanth sitting in the front seat. From the road to the Narayanpur temple, to the cliffs of Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani, I bugged her no end. That was the start of a beautiful relationship, which parted ways a couple of weeks back.

Mahabaleshwar to Shirdi to Dive Agar to Goa to Khandala-Lonavala, we had so much fun. Like the time when we always teased her about her college where there is gender discrimination, even in college buses (girls sit on left side, boys sit on right side ... girls dont wear trousers, boys dont wear t-shirts ... girls boys dont talk, or you fail in the exams) ... like the time when we hitched a ride in Goa, and her eyes went wide as she said "Lorry?"... like the time when we walked back from Senapati Bapat road after devouring pizzas...

Like the time we teased her about her innumerable "boyfriends" here ... like the time her mom served her a few more dosas when she tried to say "no" in kannada ... like the time she said she would lose weight by walking, and it rained on the day she decided to walk ... like the time we splashed her name all over the office, and in the newsletter on her birthday during the annual pre-bash ... like the time when Ayhay sang a song for her in the canteen ... like the time when she applied mehndi on Sushma's hands...

Putting mehndi was one thing she did superbly, every two-three weeks her room mates used to show their hands "See, Shan put this...".

At times giving you gyan(She's Sun certified Java, mind you), at times dumber than the "dumbest blonde joke ever", she was one heck of a person to be with. She had this rickety old laptop, which would run only on AC, nevertheless it was our only means to watch movie after movie (only one movie...number of times...thanks to Beryle) on innumerable weekend afternoons. It also helped Gokul to study for his Interwoven test. Stupid gal took it with her, even though it was adding 4 kgs to her already heavily overweight luggage.

A constant companion in our pizza outings, Shan always comes when we talk of US. And with Shan comes McKinsey. And her Vince mama. And her meeting with the Pope. And the awesome plum (read rum) cakes she got from Pondy.

Chechi will miss her for the time she spent with her, Gokul will remember her for the fellow LT she was, Vidya and Beryle will remember her for obvious reasons, and the rest of us will remember her for the person she was. A nice friend, a warm hearted lovable girl who never hurt anybody, Shan left Pune two weeks back for "green"er pastures in the US. And I wish her goodluck, and hope our paths cross again in the future.