I reach for a bowl of water and carefully plop a tiny drop of batter in it and watch it sink like lead. This won’t do!
Shaking my head, I get to the batter again and try to keep my whisking ‘light,’ and after a few minutes of vigorous whipping I do my drop-test again, and this time the drop floats up like a veritable mermaid! Voila! Now my dahi-vadas will be perfect, I know for sure.
Sisters. Not in-laws. Madhumita and her sister-in-law (image source: Madhumita Gupta)This foolproof tip came from a childhood friend and has never, ever failed me. “Start with an anecdote,” an editor, since turned a close friend, had advised when I had ventured into the field of writing without any experience. That tip made all the difference to a newbie trying to navigate a new field.
From cooking to taking care of plants, to writing, to that panic call at 3 AM, or when burning with fever, it sometimes seems to me that whatever I know today, whatever I am today, has been in no small measure thanks to my gal-pals.
When I say gal-pal, I use the term loosely. They include my sis-in-law, my mother, grandmother, aunts, cousins, friends and their mothers and sisters, my teachers and even some ladies I’ve met during journeys and have remained friends with. In fact, they are all the women who have left an indelible mark in my life by way of a secret recipe, a tip to do something better, share some juicy gossip, or the reassurance of just being there.
We know for sure that no matter what the hour is or what the circumstance, we can reach out to each other anytime.
I count myself among the lucky ones to still be in regular touch with my oldest and closest friends from school. We have known each other since our pinafore and ponytail days! And we can still get the giggles reminiscing about the scrapes we got into, the idiocies we still remember. A chance word can instantly transport us to our school days.
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1982 and still each other’s 3 am buddies (image source: Madhumita Gupta)Anu and I still remember fondly how we sat on her father’s stationery, ancient Vespa scooter, one facing front and the other the back, and then tried to sing two different songs at the same time, our madcap version of ‘antakshari.’ Invariably we’d get muddled by the first stanza and sing each other’s lyrics incorrectly. The results had us in splits.
Our long chats on the phone range the gamut from nostalgia to our present lives, sharing our heartaches and joys as we grow grayer. Whether it is Jyoti, Anu or Poonam, we just pick up where we left off.
I wouldn’t know who I was closer to, my school friends or my soul-sisters whom I met at times when it’s supposedly difficult to make new friends. Our Trinity is close. I met the other two via my blog; they’ve been my beacon and sounding board for years ever since our first interactions.
How did we find each other in a crowd? How did we start meaning the world to each other? Our days are incomplete if we do not exchange messages, even about the mundane.
2016 – The Three Musketeers (image source: Madhumita Gupta)We spend our lives looking for meaningful connections, but for me, these ‘luck by chance’ encounters have given me that.
What else can explain meeting a soul-sister who became my lifeline in a foreign country? I treasure her enthusiastic yells punctuating our games of ‘Taboo’ and her andaa-biryani? What could I possibly have in common with Isabel from Mexico? As it turns out, a lot, so that my go-to-formula in a dilemma is now WWID – What Would Isabel Do?
This sisterhood has contributed to making me who I am today. As long as I keep the door to my heart open, and the fact that we’re there for each other no matter our geographical distance, makes this friendship something I cherish.
Cousins, almost twins (image source: Madhumita Gupta)As I add salt while washing cauliflower in warm water, I remember Nidhi; as I gather the spices for mango pickle, I bless Amisha; as I add a dash of white to red when painting a rose, I remember Mami; and as I remove an exclamation point from my fifty exclamation points, I remember Mira who warns me about using them liberally!!
And I pray that this hedgerow of sisterhood remains around us.
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