Hello, good morning from Friday Harbor in San Juan Islands, our home for next four days. We arrived this afternoon and were awestruck with the view that was waiting for us. Husband outdid himself this time with his choice of airbnb❤️.

I’ll have a post up all about our trip soon enough , today is not about that. Today I wanted to start my day by thanking few of my friends, my little family away from home. My tribe, my clan whom I met in my city of Belgaum while I was studying to be an engineer.

Why ? As my milestone birthday is approaching fast I am feeling a bit nostalgic. Before the moment passes, I want to use my space to thank the three beautiful ladies, my dearest friends Kirti, Suman and Renuka my cousin.

* This post was lying in my draft folder, I had completely forgotten about it up until today when I finally got some time to write. Posting it a week later.**

My tribe in college

The four of us met as 18-19 year olds (I am the baby of the group. Difference of just few months makes me the youngest in this group. A fact and a title that I proudly flaunt 😂😛 ) while studying engineering. Suman was in Electronics & Communications, Renuka and I were in Computer Science and Kirti had chosen Electrical Engineering.

I don’t remember exactly who, how and when it happened. All I is know is that by the end of first semester we were talking to each other and by the end of four years we had forged a beautiful bond of friendship.

In those 8 semesters, through the brutal exams, late night group studies, college fests, relationships, the gossips and the scandals and everything in between we stayed true to our friendship.

And it stayed the same even after we moved to Bangalore, when we left the safe cocoons of our houses for the very first time as we stepped out into the real world.

The fact that we are all Kannadigas, who absolutely love talking in Kannada may have also worked in our favor 🙂 among other things.

From our days at college the one thing I cannot ever forget is the dancing us!! Suman, Renuka and I enjoyed dancing so much that we practically danced on stage for four years to songs like Dhagala Lagali Kala Pani Tim Tim Gala , Bumbroo and many more! We just needed an excuse to be on the stage.

We even snagged a prize in a inter college dance competition, if only we had proper costumes we would have gotten that Gold instead of Silver. Yes, we were that good ! (Alas, I have no pictures of us dancing on the stage!)

Suman

Suman and I have were the notorious duo of our group, we got into trouble more often than not. One example of our notoriety is that I ended up bleaching Suman’s eyebrows and her hair the night before our 7th semester exams during our group study. Instead of studying for the exam, we decided use our time to do this 🤣. To our surprise or rather shock we did really well that sem😊 if only we would have known earlier I would have bleached her hair every sem 😂.

The coloring may have to do with me claiming to have the skills to color one’s hair or so I think! Suman has the rights to this story so I’ll just play innocent here 😂.The next day though she had a tough time explaining her bleached golden eyebrows to practically everyone in the college 🤐😂.

The other time, according to Suman, I nudged her to throw a tiny pebble on one of our batchmates room as we were walking down the street as an innocent joke and she did🤣 !!. The pebble, the tiny bloody pebble hit the window and the whole window pane came crashing down😂🤦‍♀️ ! Who would have thought that a pebble could cause such destruction?

Omg, we ran so hard and yet got caught by him LOL! Look at our audacity, even after having being caught red handed we claimed innocence 😂. So yeah, Suman and I have had our fair share of fun!

If we had a company, Suman would be head of our creative division. I am not kidding, she is one of most creative people I have met so far and they are not many!

Kirti

Kirti was the girl who caught up to me one day as I walking down the corridor in our first semester and struck a conversation. That was the day I met the fiery petite girl from Mangalore. The girl who spoke her mind, the one who would go on to give the quirkiest nicknames to all the boys , the girl who would one day share her red roses with me because I had none. The one would end up introducing me to a boy from Kashmir. The boy who would go on to become one of my long time good friend after we passed out from college. Yes, Sumit, I am talking about you !!😉

Kirti is still same, straight to the point, outspoken , quirky, witty and the most fun dancer of our group.

Renuka

And finally Renuka, with whom I shared the last bench for four years. We were infamously famous as the sisters . The sisters who kept an eye out for each other always. Renuka and I may have been first cousins but we bonded as friends in these four years ❤️. I have written a whole post about her, read all about it here. Even today, when the time comes, I know she’ll be there for me and I for her. That is why were famous for being the sisters 🙂.

My tribe after College

Soon after college the four of us ended up in Bangalore for jobs. Some of most memorable moments are from the time from our job hunting and paying guest days.

One such moment is from our early days of job hunting, when we chose to share a Blackforest pastry among the three of us because we didn’t want to come across as girls who splurge money on such luxuries 😂 ! Yes, those were our struggling days 😛.

Our roommate days from our stay at the paying guest will need a whole post 😂. Through our first jobs, to getting married and growing our families we have come a long way.

The last two years as pandemic hit all of us we had each other! The weekly video calls that went on for two years like clock work was one of the positive highlights of this time. In our calls we caught up on Kirti’s dating experiences, played agony aunts to each other, discussed news, danced to the viral song of Kudi nu naachne de, grumbled and moaned about the life, children, shared recipes , motivated each other and talked about some very interesting topics😉. In short we had loads and loads of fun!!

Wait, the best part of this call was actually the selfie’s, we didn’t care how we looked, some days we played dress up , the other days we didn’t, either ways it didn’t matter. The selfies were taken every single time. They became a ritual of our weekly calls and now look at these memories ❤️😍.

As we grow older younger I have no doubts in my mind that we, my tribe are just going to get better and better at doing this ❤️.

Dear Kirti, Suman & Renuka,

My tribe I truly with my whole heart appreciate your presence in my life. I am thankful for having met you lot when I did. And I treasure and cherish this beautiful bond of ours. Spanning over three countries, Canada, United Kingdom and USA, we have made it work for all these years. Together the four of us have been each other’s cheerleaders through all the triumphs and trials. I may not mention you guys often on my blog but you need not know this, ✨not everything that is valuable needs to be visible ✨. Here’s to our friendship and to many more years of creating memories together 🎉❤️. My tribe, My clan, my friends ❤️.

Our Laughs are Limitless, Our Memories are Countless, Our Friendship is Endless ~Unknown