I can’t say that the memory in the subject was something lingering, let alone kairotic , certainly pleasant though. The person in question was my junior in school, my neighbor, the first female friend I ever had, lively and cute. Too many dainty descriptions would add a hue of romance to that incident, a color I did not even recognize at that stage, so I will just stick to what happened.

Nalini , the girl next door was the best company I had at that time. She was a bundle of happiness , to every one around ,and she wanted me to have a cut in every bit of joy she ever saw ,Be it the lunch box full of iyengar delicacies from her house or my first pen that she let me have just because I once wondered aloud that it would be nice to have .

Auto rickshaws were the mode of transport to our school , if both of us did not have place to sit she would make me sit and then would plop down on my lap , colorful would say a poet , but trust me it was torture . She was not exactly plump, but my legs would hurt all the time, finally I decided to just site beside the auto driver, Babu Mama as we fondly used to call him.

Was she beautiful, definitely cannot remember, but I do have a photo of all of us and I can say that my first kiss was from someone who would be pretty now. It was a friendship which we thought would never end like all 7 year olds do.

That day I heard a loud scream outside my house, Anu “, Anu” (That was what im called at home). I ran out to see Nalini standing there aflame and jumpy. She gesticulated towards a new Enfield Bullet her father had just bought. She wanted me to accompany her on her first ride on it. We clambered on top of the machine, and we beamed proudly at everyone as we rode the goliath on the deserted roads of Koppa, a town in Malnad which to date sports a concrete road which was built during preindependence era. May be our present engineers need to go through the annals of road construction of those times. Beauty comes in all measures, life being the biggest among them, is something I learnt early in life. But not everyone’s is so satisfying.

Nalini’s father, a money lender by profession had amassed a considerable amount of wealth by the small town standards. Kaas baddi was the term they used (colloquial term for money lender) to refer to him. We would see a long queue in front of his house, mostly workers from the local estate to barter whatever they have for some money. But he was a good man said people who knew him well. However the little dream that family had woven came to an end when he succumbed to death to what I now know as cirrhosis of the liver. Another week or so passed by after that incident, I was too young to understand the implications or the gravity of the incidents which had unfolded in a week .I concluded life would continue as usual, mine did but Nalini’s did not.

One day morning Nalini did not come to school. When I came home, I heard that a lot of her relatives had come home and they would be taking my best friend away from me. Strangely I felt nostalgic or bereaved of that only about fifteen years later. The next day was pack up day for Nalini , I entered her home , to see a few men sitting on the floor counting money , Some one was packing things , it was basically bustling with activity . I searched for Nalini and found her in the kitchen with her mother and a neighbor. She was crying, may be because she was leaving, may be because she missed her father, an analysis I arrived at only in reminiscence 15 years later. May be if it was now I would have consoled her , may be given her a hug , but not the 7 year old ‘Sanu . I just called her out to play as usual and she followed me. We played and played to our heart’s content that day , sports I would never see again after I left Koppa (kunte pille , eyes spies , lagori to mention a few) . She wanted to apologize for stealing Pomegranates from a neighbor’s garden, an idea which was scrapped by me, saying sorry is something I had not yet learned plus I was the mastermind of that operation. We trotted to a local sweet shop bought a few sweets. Then we went to a stream nearby, fondly called Musare halla (basically sewage) by locals. A place we frequented inspire of our parent’s warning. When dusk started falling, we decided it was time for us to leave. At that moment, she pulled me close to her and kissed me on the cheek and affirmed that she would miss me. I was not surprised , neither was I excited , neither did it dawn on me that I was just about to lose my best friend , I just smiled . The fact that it was my first kiss dawned on me, about fifteen years later while contemplating on my little life. Some moments in life are never missed yet you treasure it nostalgically much later. Nalini would probably married now, or may be still studying .Life went on for me as usual; I never quite missed her, may be I did and can’t remember. I wonder if life has treated her fairly. But I sure hope wherever she is, my first best friend is Happy.