Today, my wonderful friend turns an unstated age. Lets just say she is older than 21 and leave it at that. But i was a bit disappointed that I did not get to make a speech at her 21st, as she very wisely decided not to have a 21st birthday party for fear that I might leak a few of her well-kept secrets. So, today is my chance to leak those well-kept secrets anyways. Let me introduce you to her

She is a nice person: Nice is the first word that comes to mind whenever anyone thinks of her. She is not nice by choice, she is nice by compulsion. She has an inherent inability to be un-nice to anybody. I remember this one time when we were in final year of high school, and I had borrowed an assignment from her to take a look at it, and then forgot all about it. The assignment was sitting at the bottom of a huge, unattended pile, and luckily, i found it a few days before the exam to return it to her. But she never once asked me to return the assignment to her, “coz she didnt wana be rude”. Wonder what would have happened if I had ignored the huge pile on my desk until after the exams….

She has a way with words: Of the written kind, not the spoken kind. Putting her thoughts into words and VOCALISING them is a bit of a problem, but then, the moment you are fortunate enough to read something she has written, you forget about everything else. She has a brilliant way of writing things, the kind that reminds me of great authors. She used to closely guard everything that she wrote, for she wrote more for herself than for others. One year, for her birthday, we got one of her poems (that I had covertly obtained from her) engraved on a plaque and presented it to her. But to my knowledge, no one has ever seen that plaque since, for it stays well-hidden with all her other written work. But one day, she aspires to write a book, and I cant wait for that day. I just hope that she will get that book published.

She teaches me: About patience and perseverence. And I, in turn, teach her about being impatient. Truly, her ability to stick to something, and keep sticking to it is amazing. Its been almost three years now, since she decided to stick to something. She will say I cornered her into sticking to it. But I look at how she has stuck to that task so admirably, despite the numerous hurdles along the way, and I cant help but admire her style. I would probably never be able to do things the way she does, and most of the time, I never agree with the way she does things, the way she sticks to this task. But I do admire her for it. I know that had I been in that kind of a situation, my patience would have run out a long time ago. But not her. She has been a real trooper, staying and fighting for what is hers, sometimes patiently, occasionally a bit impatiently. And she gets better every day. If only I had half the amount of patience that she does….

She cooks: Anyone who can do that gets my immense respect. She cooks, and she enjoys it (gasp!) I remember the time she cooked chhole and rice for me. It was amazing! I bow down to you and your supreme powers in the kitchen!

She plays: When she is not busy doing any of the above, she plays with fancy high-tech lasers and equations that I understand nothing about. She is a brilliant physicist, on her way to enlightening the world of physics. She is smart in a way that most non-physics people dont even understand. And as far as the physics people are concerned, they consider her smart too, for she won a scholarship to do her PhD even before she graduated with her bachelor’s degree. And she is the only person I know who has a poster of Albert Einstein on her wall! A much higher state of evolution than my poster of Eminem….

She is my best friend: She was the first person I met at school when I moved to NZ, and she warned everyone to be nice to the new girl. Since then, I have hassled her, told her off, stuck her to something that she cant unstick herself from, tried to repay her hospitality with shampoo, and other things much worse. But throughout it all, she has remained my best friend, someone whom I can rely on, and someone who can rely on me to do devious deeds on her behalf coz she is too nice to do them herself. Its a great partnership, and I hope it continues for the days to come.

Hope you have a wonderful birthday, my dear friend! I wish I could have been there to celebrate it with you.