When I moved back to the Bay after graduation, I oscillated between the post graduation self deprecating mental monologues of “I don’t have a job I’m a failure why didn’t I apply to grad school” and “oh my god I don’t have a plan and everyone around me seems to have their shit together way more than I do.” After some time in India, I decided that the best course of action was to not lapse into the inertia of living at home but to move back to the Bay and “figure it out”. For the first few weeks it was exciting, but after a few rejections, more internalization of aforementioned dialogues, a desperate realization that everyone I knew had moved away and life was different, I felt, for the first time, a sense of bechaini. It’s a Hindi word that roughly translated can mean unease with a light coat of loneliness.
Enter these two. Krishna and I have enjoyed a fair relationship through life but as distance distances, post-graduation, we had created our own microcosms. Pratyush was his best friend and roommate with a morbid sense of humor and the ability to care deeply. At first, I hesitated intruding on their lives but after some time, lots of grocery pick ups, dinners, forced birthday celebrations, terrible jokes, music listening sessions, more rude jokes, food swaps, drives and occasional quality bonding time, I was adopted as the resident “auntyji” of the group and my brother’s friends became my own.
Fast forward to the present and I could not imagine these past few years without these two. For whatever credit I’ve taken in maintaining our relationship, these two have gone above and beyond in their own way i.e., by depreciating whatever sanity I may have preserved. They’ve stood by me through heartbreak, laughed at my heartache, comforted me in sadness, rained on my happiness, employed their own unique humor to cheer me up, opened my eyes to different perspectives, permanently damaged my ears with horrible concerts, accompanied me on adventures but most importantly, have always, ALWAYS, come through. I have mad love for my bruvs and I hope I can reciprocate the acceptance you’ve always shown me, including the inevitable eyeroll I shall receive for putting my gratitude for you on blast.