This has happened to me time and again. I come into contact with a person, talk with him/her and that person starts moving up in my 'MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN MY LIFE' list. This time it happened to me just on the phone!
Her name is Akshi. We came into contact as participants of the AFS KIZUNA student exchange program and parted as best friends-for life!
It was a get-together of the KIZUNA participants' families. Our parents were discussing few important things likewise how are we going to the national orientation in Delhi and what documents etc. we should be carrying during our travel. Just then, I got a call for an unknown number- Needless to say it was Akshi. The voice on the other side of the phone said in the most lovely yet funny 'kathiawaadi' accent, " Hello? Is this Vedang?"
For a moment i started thinking who the hell is disturbing me when i am discussing something really important and i felt like disconnecting the call.
I said, " Yes. Who is this?" to which the caller replied, " Hi Vedang! Its Akshi from Rajkot chapter." The last line drew a smile on my face and I i opened Facebook in my mind, checked out her profile and recollected who she was. All in a fraction of seconds. :P The conversation we had then was something like this :
Me : Hi Akshi! How are you?
Akshi : I am fine. How about you?
Me : I am doing great. We're having parents' meeting going on at present at Shivdutt's place.
Akshi : Oh, I see. What's up with the presentation? Did you make one?
Me : Yeah! I've made a movie portraying the Indian culture, Urban India etc.
Akshi : That's pretty cool :)
We talked for almost 15 minutes about AFS and our expectations from the program and the conversation was over. As always, I was trying to judge her and thought, 'Hey! She is cool. We can be friends.'
And then there was no looking back. We started chatting everyday using whats-app Till then, i rarely used it. I had only few people on the messenger's contact list. Had no idea how to share photos and videos but one day she asked me to send her a picture of my playground. I sent her one. That was the first time i shared a photograph using whats-app.
Soon she sent me a pic of her society. Then i sent her another pic.
This became a daily exchange then. I considered this stupid at first but eventually it became fun.! I found myself going to a random place, clicking a picture and sending it her. I mean how funny :D
Few weeks later...
Everyone was learning Japanese as we were told to do so. Learning the basics of the language was recommended. I was doing the same. I had downloaded an application called 'Learn Japanese Phrases' and was doing fairly good. One day Akshi called me up and i told her what i was doing. She seemed fascinated by the way i was learning Japanese and as she told me, she had no time to learn the language since she was busy with her dance classes and exams. I made a promise or rather she made me promise her to teach her some basics. Lol.
I don't know how well did i teach her but she did prove to be a quick learner. At the end of the day, she was doing great. Better than I expected.
There are so many things I can write about her. The reason we became friends was the Kizuna project. Kizuna in Japanese means bonding. The intention behind this program was to create strong and special bonds between the participants. Now, we do share a special bond, a special friendship which allows us both to abuse and appreciate each other.
Funniest part about us is that we call each other and instead of saying 'Hello', we prefer to say 'Gadhedi-Gadheda!'
PS- Gadhedi means female donkey and Gadheda means her male counterpart. :P
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