Friends I Miss a Lot - 1

Life isn't really the same again now that A is gone. Yes, My Friend and Bro, A has gone off to sacrifice himself at the hallowed alter of MBA in Finance. It is a dream come true for him, but those of us whom he has left behind really miss him.

I have known A closely for almost a year and a half now. We went to the same college, and back in college I knew him as the Geekiness Personified. A is your regular, decent, charming, as-good-as-they-come 10 pointer and much more than that

I discovered the latter when I began working with him in the same company after college. I came to know of his great sense of humour, his extremely colourful vocabulary,his adventurous streak, his 'cullinary' skills, his absulute devotion for his mother, his immense affection for his lady love, his loyalty to his close friends.. I really came to know and admire A a lot.

He would rise every morning with regularity that would shame an alarm clock, get ready, do his starting MBA prep for the day,and read the paper all this while his flatmates were exercising their muscles by hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock.Then he would arm himself to deal with the hostile corporate world, by taking in healthy breakfast in FIXED quantities. There are many stories around this , my favourite being the one where A clamours for oranges and claims "If i dont get vitamin C, I'll DIE".

While in office, he'd give his best to the work there, even though, he claimed he hated it. He was very good at it for somone who claims that.

After office , it was again his daily grind of MBA prep.

Somewhere in between all this, he'd always find time to drop by my desk with a cup of tea/coffee for a quick chat, or ping me on our internal messenger, send me invites to Toastmasters meetings or listen to me crib about work and agree wholeheartedly with me. He has helped me get through a lot of bad workdays.

And A in the Kitchen ! This bit deserves a separate blog post, but I will do as much Justice to it as I can. Back in our early days in Hyderabad, A, his flatmates V & SMA , and me used to cook together at their place. V and me were the operating chefs, A and SMA were the assistants. we knew it was time to start cooking when A began to get restless. A would then help us by chopping up tomatoes and onions along with SMA and abusing SMA to the maximum extent possible , just to amuse us.. Perodically, he'd warn us that the food was not going to be enough as he was very hungry and he had a lion's apetite. We knew him well enough not to believe him :)

I could keep on writing.. but this food talk has reminded me that its dinner time. If A is reading this,
You Rock Bro !
All the best in life.