I had known her from Dubai. Known her in the sense…we used to meet annually at every single singing competition, inter-school, solo or group that was held in the country. We used to regularly compete with each other for the classical vocal category to be more precise. It was always like this…She used to come first, then another girl from my school second and then me with the third prize. No jokes... this happened every single time!! After a point I began telling my parents the minute I saw her at a competition…”why are we even here…she’s gonna bag first and im gonna be stagnant at 3rd! Hmph!” According to me she was snobbish, had a big time attitude written in capital letters all over her face and thought of herself as the most prettiest thing on earth!! WHAT EVER!!!
But then…we met again at another singing contest, this time we were singing English songs…and I got second in it while she bagged third!! I couldn’t believe it!!! The first time I was ahead of her!! Then she came and congratulated me and said that I really sang like Christina Aguillera ( I had sung Genie in a bottle!)…I felt elated and my opinion about her slightly changed. After a gap of a year or so we met again for Zee Tv’s SRGMP Middle-east Muqabala 2006. This was hosted by Shaan and had eminent Judges like Kumar Sanu, Adesh Srivastav, Ismail Darbar and Jatin and Lalit Pandit who judged us ( we were 32 contestants from the middle east) and while she got out at the Quarter final stage, I went up to the finals and came second. Coincidently we both lost to the same singer…that lady was horrible anyway!! Coming back to this person…by the time SRGMP was over we both had gotten to know each other a little better. Not just us but our parents too. I was invited to her place once and we bumped into each other at our college campus too if I am not mistaken. So my initial conception of her was changing with these un-planned frequent meetings.
Then we met again for another competition held by a radio station in Dubai called ‘Radio Star’ where the contestants sang over the Radio, and the listeners voted for their favorites. In that both of us were singing with different duet partners. My duet partner Karan (with whom there is a pic I have on Orkut) and I won the first prize while she and her duet partner got third. By this time we had become good friends. But the time I have most cherished with her is when we both got selected not just at the auditions but right upto the top 28 stage of Indian Idol 3…
Even though I haven’t told you guys who she is…I’m sure my readers are smart enough to have guessed who this “she” was in the above paragraphs…no??? C’mon…. how can you forget my dearest friend and oh-so-messy roomie….Panni… I mean.. .Vani!!! :-) Heheh!
The minute we both found out that we were roomies at Savoy we were the happiest creatures alive!!! For the first two days the two of us were always muttering something or the other in tam-alyalam (that’s Tamil and Malayalam alternatively) and didn’t know or rather didn’t bother to worry about what out third roomie Aisha would think about us…until the time she went…”There you go with your ‘Enna Pa…Enna Pi…Enna Po…’“ and the two of us were rolling on the floor laughing! That is was nothing of that sort in Tamil or Malayalam! Hehe!
As the days flew by Vani and I really got close. We both confessed to each what we thought of the other when we were in Dubai…and we both laughed at the others confession!! But now our opinions are no where near to what we originally had in mind…She’s worse than worse could be!!!! Hehehe!! I bet Vani’s face would be red if she was reading this!!
There were only two irritating things…no three…no actually there are a lot of irritating things she does…but I’d be inviting all of you to my funeral if she finds out I am disclosing all of it online…for Public Viewing! Any way coming back to my point…whenever she gets a new song the first thing that bothers her is the damn ‘Pitch’ of the song. Which in most cases should not and is not a problem in the first place. Pitch or Scale of the song is something we decide. It is the singer who decides what pitch to sing his/her song in. But No…Miss Vanita Subramanium has to make sure her pitch is right even before having the very first practice with the orchestra!! I can’t even count the number of times I have consoled her that she doesn’t sound as though she is screeching or that she can fix her pitch with the band members. But some things just don’t change.
The other very irritating thing about her is this nagging question she asked me from time to time whenever my facial expression changed from a wide smile to an ok-I’m-not-so-excited-now smile. “ What’s wrong Rashu? Did I do something? I know something’s not right…tell me..is it me? Huh?” GOD!!! Even if it was a buzzing fly I was angry with she had to make sure I was not pissed off with her and had to reassure her that it would in no way affect our friendship. Can you believe that?? I don’t remember how many “You are now one of my close friends and I don’t want anything to spoil that rashu” from her!! She got soo paranoid with me sometimes for nothing absolutely! Well that’s the part of friendship one doesn’t mind facing!! She couldn’t beat Aishu’s irritating “Maain”ing anyway!!
One thing’s for sure…in the one month that I spent with her at Savoy…I can truly count Vani as one of my closest friends now. We shared so many of our problems and helped each other understand others better. I am sure I would have been lost and I’m sure she would agree with me if either of us weren’t there with the other during Idol! Seriously. We had gotten so used to eachother there that we completely forgot that this was just a temporary phase and that one day we would have to go back to our normal routines in Dubai. And trust me when I say this…even though we are just about 10 minutes from each others places, meeting up never really happens, planned! That’s how it is in Dubai.
I miss getting up before she did…
I miss trying a zillion methods to wake her up…
I miss scolding her for acting like a kid at times (though she’s a year older to me)…
I miss how annoyed she looked when Aish used to call me the achi bachi…
I miss screaming at her to clear up her things…
I miss telling her to stand straight (I have never met anyone slouching the way she does!)…
I miss the warm and loving goodnight hugs and kisses we gave each other like siblings each night…
I miss the excellent leg massage both Vani and Aish gave me once… (not to forget the oh-so-relaxing hair massage both Vani & I received from Aish!! Damn…she’s god at it!!!)
I miss hearing her loving “Rashuuuuuuuuu you piece-a-shit!!!!” and calling her a “Panniii” in return…
I miss doing our riyaaz together…
And I miss our frequent fights over Shan and Chang… (Don’t looked confused folks I’ll be explaining this part soon…)
Well Vani…I hope we remain this way for ages to come and hope you do well in life…which I’m sure you will, hanging out with smart mallu friends like me!! Hehe! Luv you girl!!
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2 comments:
awesome post about vanita.. i havent seen her in a year.. i need to meet her this time in dubai..btw who is the girl from our school who used to come 2nd ? sinduri ?
I have been reading through your archive. You really write well to make the reader feel like they are right there. Aisha and Vanita were singers I really liked so I am glad you are writing about them here. It seemed like the people who did the rona-dhona were the people Sony liked to cover during the piano rounds.
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