This Is For You, Sumit

Sumit is one of my dearest friends ever. Today I am missing him for an odd reason - for the first time since I started going out with friends for movies, I watched one today which was a major disaster and Sumit was not one of the friends I watched it with. Well, actually, there was also the Bhagam Bhag fiasco, but that one was on Sumit's birthday so that does account for some influence.

Sumit is one guy who is known among all his friends for meeting with misadventure after misadventure (kela, as he calls it). If I were supposed to fly and I missed my flight, that would be a significantly catastrophic occurrence. If the same thing happened to him, it would probably be written off as just another day. By the way, I just looked up 'disaster' on thesaurus.reference.com in order to avoid using the same word a dozen times in one post. Because it is a word closely connected to the subject of this post.

I just randomly remembered the time when Sumit told me that he bugged his colleagues on a particular day by playing Tu Jahaan from Salaam Namaste in a loop, all day long. I love that song, but until quite recently I just could not get how somebody could listen to a single song all day and not feel sick of it. Right now it's playing on my media player on repeat.

I could also never get how somebody could house a zillion black shirts in his wardrobe and not get sick of wearing the same colour to every wedding, every flight, every tragic movie watching experience, and every non-tragic movie watching experience. Sumit actually has an inordinately large collection of black shirts, most of which are jet black, except perhaps a sweatshirt which is black but has some squiggles on it which remotely resemble a frog. There was a time when Aditi and I tried to make him wear a bright red kurta, but to no avail.

Okay, enough leg pulling. Sumit is one friend who's always been there for me whenever I've felt low and needed cheering up. Whenever I've needed a guy's perspective on something. Whenever I've needed a sensible, objective perspective on something. Whenever I just needed a friend and didn't really know why. Or didn't really know whom to call. Or mail. I love writing to him, and correcting the grammar and spelling in the replies he writes. The habit of correcting grammar is not as prominent these days as it was when we were in school or college, but it's still there.

I could probably go on and on if I decide to put down all the good stuff about Sumit. But I'm in more of a mischievous mood right now.

This evening I was trying to remember the first movie that Sumit made us watch that turned out to be a major debacle. I just remembered that insane movie. It was the first movie I watched with my friends from school. But you know, it's the debacles that remain firmly etched in our minds and give us something to smile or laugh about every time we think of how frustrated we were when we were trying to sit through the movie. The ones that turn out to be nice are not remembered quite as fondly, or quite as often.

Lots of beautiful memories to choose from. Lots of great things to miss. Thanks for being the terrific friend that you've always been. Love you dude. Always have, always will.