The Spirited Shopaholic

Let me start with a quick, small rhyme

As I begin with, “Once upon a time”

I met a girl who was not so shy

Chirpy with her spirits always high

Stuck I was; with her to be,

We were as different as one can be!

I thought this will be a small tale to end

But alas she became my one true friend.

Life.

The existence of an individual.

People have their own definition of life. Some say life is like a box of assorted chocolates. Some believe it is a theatre with all of us posing as actors, playing out our roles in some grand play prepared by the unknown or better termed as God. And then some very deranged philosophical ones say it is just an illusion.

There are so many inspirational quotes lying around everywhere teaching us the meaning of life. ‘Life is what you make of it’, ‘When life gives you lemons..’ or ‘Life isn’t perfect’ and so on.

I say life is right now, right here. Life is living every moment the way you want to so there is no room left for regrets. Life is there for you to make mistakes and then learn from them and then make new ones all over again. Life is all about friendship and love.

But I never thought like this until I met her.

She entered my life as just a mere acquaintance but the bond we share now is so strong that not having her around to coax me and sometimes irritate me, is unimaginable.

She is the perfect opposite of me with her beautiful features, wide smile and really tiny eyes. I have never seen a girl as fond of camera as she is. And she prefers being in front of the lens rather than behind. Vivacious and lively, she can easily fill the room with her laughter and super loud voice. Starting a conversation is no biggie for her be it her boss or boss’s boss or a complete stranger she meets on the train. Drama, theatric entrances and perfect nonsensical jokes is what makes her so endearing. If just chatting away for hours could pay, she would be a billionaire by now. I have yet to meet someone who has so many crazy dreams as she does. She is truly the perfect embodiment of Jab We Met’s Geet; a living, breathing and blabbering example of that fictional character.

Just when I thought that she just had one passion, and that was to talk and just talk, I figured out, that she is one of the people responsible for all the fashion retails’ booming sales figures. Just one word to describe it all. Shopaholic.

So now she was Geet + Amy Adams’ character from that chick flick Shopaholic. And boy that is some combination!

You know the first time I met her, I being idiotic at times, had completely formed an opinion about her and almost made it clear that I didn’t like her. It was I guess fate’s way of showing me the finger at being judgmental that we ended up working in the same team in the office. And slowly I realized how terribly wrong I was about her.

Yes she is still crazy, chirpy and maddening to the core, but she is a gem of a person.

She values friendship so high on her relationship meter that I am not amazed she has such close friends in her life.

There was a time when I was not in any mood to let anybody in my private life, except her. She pulled me out of my shell and made me accept that I was equally silly and crazy as her (in a cool way btw)

She is my one confidante in the office; someone who I can rely on completely to get me through a bad day. Her filmy dialogues and stupid jokes completely cheer me up and I forget what the issue I was mulling over was.

We have our own routine back in office, our inside jokes, gossip to discuss, people to hate, the silly theories we chalk out, the random coffee breaks, lunches, over the top dramatics, outbursts of singing Hindi songs, goofing around and everything else friends do.

I am glad that fate intervened that day and made me meet the real her. We are not at all alike in tastes, whether it be choice of pet (her cat, me dog), choice of spending money (her clothes, me books), choice of favorite actors (her salman, me SRK FTW!) or even choice of beverage (her tea, me coffee) and yet we have been through problems and have dreams and hopes alike.

It has been a year to our slowly evolving friendship. We both know each other’s flaws and we accept them with love and affection.

People have these different labels for friends. Close friend, office friend, 9 AM coffee friend, 3 AM agony aunt friend, bar-hopping friend or even crying-over-exes friend. But guess what I got a complete package in my half mad slightly mature very sweet friend.

She taught me what “a friend in need is a friend indeed” phrase really means.

I like being organized and having a plan in head, but she taught me how much fun being spontaneous can be. This free spirited, makes-her-own-decision woman just freed that slightly nervous girl and I will always be thankful to her for this.

I will just end by quoting the Narnia world creator C.S Lewis- “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”

I value this unnecessary, unexpected, out of the blue friendship. I hope she does too.