Aankhein bandh kar lo jo main
Dekhon bas tumhe,
khwabon mein hi keh sakta hoon
apna tumhe
Rehne de mera yeh veham pe yakeen
Na ja abhi
Pyaar ki yeh raat hai
ab na ja
chotti si ek baat hai
ab na ja
Ab Na Ja - Euphoria
I dont even know why i started with Ab na Ja. Maybe it’s synonymous with this friend of mine. Dimple. I first saw Dimple at a Google session which talked about Awards and Recognition. We were one month old at Google and were still learning on the job and suddenly in this session I hear Dimple talking about what are the awards other than the ones listed and how he can do more and get all of them :)
That’s my Dimple. As fate would have it, we ended up being in the same team. Our interaction was minimal and we could at best be called acquaintances. He was the only one who spoke at our team meetings/ the one with never-ending questions.
Today, I can not imagine Hyderabad Google without Dimple. We have this spot, Dimple and I, every time we have to talk about anything that’s bothering us (most of the time its me) we go to this corner with Coffee and tea/Lassi in our hands. The first day we went there we didn’t work from 3-5:30 and didn’t care. He patiently heard whatever I had to say. I am sure he had to try hard to make sense of anything i said for i was sobbing. And after everything, he suddenly asks me “and then?” Like i was narrating the Ramayana to him. It made me laugh and that was I needed. Ever since then, we go and talk there. and Its not like its a planned session. Its just pure coincidence. Dimple asks me to shut up when I am getting too dramatic and asks me to speak when I myself havent heard my voice for hours. Dimple is mad sometimes and says things which could pierce through your heart and can sometimes just smile and make you feel that its completely ok. In fact Dimple and I had the most randomest of conversations on Valentines day about Love and all that it means to us. And this not in person but via messages. Man! Fun was what it was!
He has bullshitted my philosophy about life and I have bullshitted his. A bottle of Old Monk and Dimple and Nish and Me, God save those around us! When Dimple went to Switzerland, guess what he got me, a DDLJ bell! And he actually called me from there to make me listen to the cows grazing in the fields with the cow bells clinking away :) That’s Dimple for you.
Dimple has been there when I couldnt trust myself. And I remember telling him a story like a guilty child breaking her mom’s previous China and Dimple said to me “Do it again!” Thats Dimple. Oh no! If you think he said that to make me feel better you’re wrong! Dimple will tell you the truth on your face, irrespective of how much it can hurt you. “The truth is the truth, too bad” he says. But this time Dimple knew and understood that I had done no wrong. While others asked me why I was not who i used to be, and how I should get a life, dimple held my hand and helped me get out of the mess and get a life. Dimple called/messaged every night, just in case the effect of the philosophy he shared the previous night had faded and I needed another dose. Dimple, sat me across a table and looked at my teary face and held my shivering hands as i typed words I never imagined i would think of, let alone enter them in a Google Search bar. Dimple knew I was saying something when I said nothing at all. Dimple, knew with one look at my face what time i had slept the previous night and more importantly if I had or not. Dimple, understood, didnt ask questions, didn’t weigh one option over the other, didnt mince his words.
And when Dimple got fed up of making me understand the same thing over and over and over again, he asked me to ask him whatever I wanted to. He answered them all and told me to cut-copy-paste and save for future reference.
One day, I dragged Dimple to lunch and after lunch, refused to let him go and dragged him further to LandMark and we spent a good two hours if not more buying movies, me Shah and he Bengali Classics. We then go up to the books section and spend another hour buying books, from MahaBharata to Cecilia Ahern to Fairy Tales. I loved that day. Absolutely.
I dont know how Dimple still patiently hears me out and answers my questions. His tone and him have not changed from that day at our coffee corner when I first spoke to him. He knows when his answers calm me down and when I need more philosophy and he proceeds accordingly. I have let Dimple down on more than one occasions but he hasnt let me down. Ever.
He is the only person who said to me, "Shriman Prithviraj (Bengali Film character) is 100x greater than Raj+Rahul+Rizwan" And got away with that. Alive.
That’s how much Dimple means to me.
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