Chuddy Buddies

So last night was the shoe baroness' birthday, and me and the girlies (well some of them anyway, since whirlwind (thanks, zaphod, it's rather fitting) and pretty trophy are MIA) were out celebrating at Not Just Jazz By The Bay (aka a South Mumbai hangout that used to be about jazz and karaoke but has slowly degenerated into yet another Bollywood-ised and bimbo-ised bar). It must be noted that while I may sould like a Bollywood-bling hater, I actually revel in my ghati-ness (dehati-ness, for all you Delly people) - I've perfected my Govinda moves, and I'm a Rang-Barse dancer par excellence. And oh, my sarkailo khatiya, gutar gutar and beedi are the stuff that item girls are made of.
Anyway, getting back on track - there I was belting out my dhinchak moves, when it occurred to me (in Carrie Bradshaw, moment of revelation style) that for all my griping about the girlies and their airheadedness, I owe the fact that I'm relatively insecurity-free almost entirely to them. You see, we've all been friends since the age of five. And they've seen me go from a happy-dippy 16-year-old to an angsty, world-hater at 19, to a self-reflecting, but slightly saner 23-year-old. They've accepted me completely - from the occasional frostiness to the emotional instability, from the short-temper to the shortness - and they've never made any demands to change; they've taken the whole package and loved it unconditionally.
Now, the reason that all of this has come into sharp focus is because 'insecurity' has become everyone's favourite topic. (I think it might have to do with people approaching their mid 20s - you sort of feel too old to not have gotten over your childhood issues, but at the same time, all the impending decisions just make the vulnerablities more acute).
M has several insecurities, all related to his move from Mumbai, to Dubai and back to Mumba between ages 10 and 12, and the friendless-ness and loneliness that followed. And while zaphod might want to murder me for over-analysing, I think his issues too, are related to Boston College, and the lack of friends there, to perhaps (I'm not sure about this, so don't hate me if i'm wrong) having to move all over the place when he was still growing up. What I'm trying to say, in this painfully long winded post, is that acceptance is much more important than I ever realised. And that I've never really given my school friends their due.

I owe you so much, girlies. And I love you much much more than I tend to show you.