Happy Birthday Nivedita :)

“Cant believe it’s only been a year since we’ve met. You seem like my school buddy” I said to Nivedita. “Isn’t it.. it’s like we have known for years now” she replied on facebook. This blog is my first real blog and its dedicated to the birthday girl and my friend Nivedita. Nive as her close friends call her is one of the nicest people I have ever met. She has more good qualities than I can list out. She is polite, focused and humanitarian to name a few.
Already finished her master’s degree in math and set to study further. Helping out in the human rights group in whatever little way she can. I’m happy to know her and wish her a very happy birthday.

                     The things that come to mind about her are the surprise visits to the library  I used to make just to meet her and  the walks toward tiger circle near her mother’s office. I’ve also pestered her to teach me math to which she had said ok but my laziness had got the better of me, so much that although I could have learnt I still didn’t. Come to think of it I may not have spent much time with her while I was at manipal. Yet when I talk to her either in person or through texts it seamlessly goes on for hours. In reality it may be that I bore her a lot and just don’t know it, but since she is too polite to tell, we may never know.

                     Nivedita should probably be made the synonym for bibliophile. Books are her friends and you can always spot her with one. In fact whenever I asked her where I was supposed to look for her, “in the library” the reply would come instantly. Apart from her reading she writes blogs as well. Her blog is called ‘The Pensieve’ and it is exactly the reason why I’m writing this blog. I’ve read many of her blogs (mostly about people facing a hard time abroad) and have always wanted to write one. So I take her birthday as a chance to write my first blog as well as wish her through this. I am also a reader, but I can say I’ve started reading more since becoming her friend.

                              Like I said, most of her blogs are about the human rights cases that she edits at her office. She works there without wanting to be paid and brings to light so many heroic deeds of her idol Dr Ravindranath Shanbhag. I was actually touched by the ‘endosulfan case’ and then came a blog called ‘jameela is missing’ and soon I started reading most of her blogs and noticed how committed to humanitarian deeds she is. She translates the scripts there and helps editing it so that more people can know the things that needs widespread attention. Other than this she writes blogs about various other topics as well like friendship, rain and most recently about her grandparents. The one on her grandparents was touching. That one made me feel bad for not calling my grandmother on a regular basis. In conclusion she is someone who reads and writes a lot. J

                           She speaks good german and has been to german class multiple times. I am struggling to learn german and half of what I know is taught by her as we used to chat in german every now and then. She is my lehrerin (teacher) and I have learnt more from her than from any book or class I have attended so far. She understands my humor and talks back humorously a lot. She is similar to me in a number of ways. One of them is the fear of losing friends. We met thanks to my other amazing friend Archana who had introduced her to me and Valli exactly a year ago in the cafeteria unexpectedly. That was a very memorable meeting . She had given her number and we started texting that very day. It was a couple of days before her birthday that we had met. Our friendship may not include calling everyday or meeting everyday but it still is very pleasant and I just hope this stays strong and stands the test of time.

                             Honestly, candidly I would like to confess that I do regret not spending much time with her. Personally I loved my manipal life and the time I spent with my classmates is invaluable. Yet I feel I should have spoken to her more and hung out with her more. Now it’s just spilt milk as my manipal life has come to an end. One year is just not enough over there. That’s probably why I visit the place at every given opportunity and now I will surely go there for a final visit before going to Germany. No harm done in the end as I am privileged with chatting with her every other day and I feel the more I talk to her the more humble I want to be. She will not agree that she is as good as I’m writing about her but that goes in my book as another example for humility too. The reality may be different. She says she is lazy, not that good and boring. I’d just like to tell her that even if what she says is the truth, that will not change the way I feel about her. “Don’t spoil your image in my mind” I tell her jokingly with a tongue in cheek smiley, but like I said, even if you are different and have other qualities, I’m sure ill find those qualities just as inspiring and just as nice.

                             

                             I had planned to visit her on her birthday but I guess that wasn’t meant to be. This blog isn’t much of a surprise either because she was the first to know about it. So I guess although from my side I couldn’t do much, she has a very happy birthday and a good year ahead wherever she is and whomever she meets. I just want to wish you a very happy birthday Nivedita.  J