Tuesday with Chandra: The Story of US!

It is “us” time and here is an anecdote from last afternoon that precipitated the emotion in me and propelled me to write about our discovery and recovery. We were at “Rolls United” over at the first block in Koramangala for lunch. Nothing fancy for lunch, just rolls from all different cuisines in the world. We dropped the conversation abruptly and sifted menu card hoping to find what we wanted after an earlier disappointment from looking at the list of crappy movies playing in the city. I flipped the pages and fervently looked through from cover to cover only to find a nice salad, but to my disappointment it was parked under Monday’s special.

Hardly had the chalk dust settled down on the floor or the manager had come closer to the take the order, but my friend instantly ordered “Moroccan Eggplant Salad” while the manager was still filling up the empty space under the “Today’s special” column. We both came back to the menu, scanned through the remaining items and found our eyes transfixed on the same item and that is when she looked at me and said “they are going to think you are my husband” and I said “just because you know I was going to order some homemade lemonade and I know you would order Moroccan Eggplant Salad”. Some serious giggles were a part of our starter menu until the aromatic and intoxicating tomato basil soup and bouquet of Goodmorning Vietnam - shredded carrots and beetroot wrapped in rice paper and garnished with peanut sauce arrived.

When I moved to Bangalore she had just moved in and was still living a hotel room. Everything about the city was still new and unsure, but what made our lives easier was the friendship and stories we shared at the end of each working week. There was more than the lemonade and eggplant salad to make it all look scandalous. We made sure the new living room furniture went well with her existing furniture; we lay down besides each other and tested the comfort of the mattress while we recalled Charlotte and her partner testing the mattress in of the SATC episodes, and we sat in the dining chairs to ensure they were strong, comfortable and entertainable. Every trip of ours to the shopping mall or to the movie theatre was fun filled..

Two friends leaving their family behind, boldly embracing changes in their lives, moving into the new city with hope, helping each other settle down, and courageously facing challenges thrown by life isn’t new and caring about each other’s small comfort and happiness in many ways, sound scandalous, huh?

When I had to go through my extended diagnosis and tests in Bangalore she offered to take time off and stay besides me during the tests and send her car to take me back and forth from the hospital. With mom completely busy with dad’s broken hip in a different city, I thought my friend would be around me on the day of surgery. But all that changed when I received her sms last Friday afternoon, but that didn’t change our Saturday meeting. Our Saturday meetings were fixed – it was lunch at a nice restaurant, maybe a movie, but definitely a coffee shop followed by some errands and prepare for the week. This Saturday was no different, and we both had something in common and something soon coming up and we were out together checking each other’s to-do list.

Even before her SMS arrived on that fateful Friday afternoon, our plan to spend the last weekend together before my surgery was all fixed. But SMS made our Saturday meeting absolutely mandatory. When I mentioned the contents of the SMS to a colleague cum friend at work she was afraid to call her my friend and was ready to relinquish our friendship!

With my dad breaking his hip and giving me a stiff competition for surgery, my friend’s SMS only turned the surgical race more nervous and nail-biting. I couldn’t digest the fact that our surgeries would be just 24 hours apart. I was expecting to see her when the effect of anesthesia wanes out but now we were going to spend our days in different hospitals. But still we plan to keep texting each other from respective hospital beds complaining about nurses, doctors and our pain!

During the lunch break at Rolls United she mentioned about signing another year’s apartment lease during the week. A year was almost over and we were still shopping for some more furniture for her house. Thanks to my dad’s fall, it helped me come to speed on the hip stuff and now I was a self taught expert and ready to help my dear friend on a different kind of shopping trip. The ritual was still the same, we tested to ensure the chair was comfortable, the potty seat extension was safe, the walking aid was sturdy and we all ensured that all these were home when she returned from the hospital. There were a few things that I had to go around and check before she goes under the knife, while she had a check-list for me. We even checked on each other will – life support system, property, etc. Sounds like a friendship in geriatric years?

My friend had been suffering from a bad hip and a replacement surgery was imminent. In our earlier Saturday meeting I asked her to schedule the procedure after I had fully recovered so that I could be around her. But the Friday consultation with the doctor revealed that her hip needed immediate surgery and medical attention. Though we couldn’t be in the same hospital or be besides each other during hospitalization, but we have decided to join each other in recovery. As of now we would come home the same day and the spare bed in the other room was ready for me. Over a piece of cheese cake and coffee that evening I was telling her how we could spend time sculpting the head of her femur, while she was making ideas to stitch frock and make a finger puppet out of it, and do shadow plays. Then we discussed how to make SOS calls between two rooms, and how we can watch all episodes of SATC and Desperate Housewives back to back! Food was always a part of our conversation and she said she had a copy of the menu from Rolls United and they did a home delivery. In pain, pleasure, party and in recovery we are together as friends!

You can’t choose your family or relatives, but you can choose your friends. And I have had friends  with whom I had studied, shopped, partied, toured, but not the ones who would go together for a surgery. Sounds weird, huh? Every dot that appeared on our pages of life, we were connecting them and coloring them with hope, happiness and trying to discovery new meaning very often. It was not fun, but we made it fun and next few weeks will be the Koramangala  way - The Rolls will be united in recovery! Thanks Bangalore! We were making more than lemonade from lemons! And that is the story of US!