LPM -the 8 am friend

 "Yes, that's it," said the Hatter with a sigh: "it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.”

I used to believe that eulogies were pointless after the person was not there to hear them. But a person ceases to exist only when the people who loved them no longer remember them.

Oscar Wilde famously said "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

How will her kids know what a badass their parent was? How will people who met her later in life and who probably saw her when she was a responsible member of a functioning society know that she was capable of flinging lemon juice on friends and be gleeful even thirty years later? 

But where does one start with a girl who was a mass of contradictions? First of all she would object to the usage of the word mass, neither was she obese nor did she belong to the cattle class, she had royal blue blood coursing through her veins of course. 

She was authoritative and definite about what she liked or didn't but able to keep the peace and make adjustments when circumstances demanded it. She naturally annointed herself the hostess even in a restaurant setting where for some bizarre reason the waiters danced to her tunes and made fresh pots of tea even though the buffet service had a ready one available and where she poured it out for you as if she had made it lovingly for you, and you were the most important person there. 

If there was someone who enjoyed baking, cooking and feeding, it was Priya. She knew almost everything there was to know about food. Heck, she had ideas for table settings, party decor, birthday themes, playdate nights, which text book to consult while preparing for the board exams and where to get the best brownies. The only topic that didn't interest her much was politics. 

She had a sharp mind and made such tangential observations that we would always be cackling. While following every stereotypical notion of a homemaker, she abhorred the disdain attached to it. She made it into a classy project and set standards that were hard for normal folks to emulate. People like me didn’t even try. But imagine Usain Bolt on the racing track, would you bother to compete? You know you are beaten before you start but you are able to appreciate the gollus, the panacottas, the birthday hampers and the saris and feel a touch of pride that maybe something in you attracted this amazing human being to call you a friend.

Will miss you my dear friend. May you dance with the stars.