how i came to make friends with pasta

When pasta girl and I met many full moons ago for the first time, she was the only non-journalist friend i had in Pune. Then Ay came, then Ay left, then DD came, then DD left and then December came and then she left and a year down the line, she is still my only non-journalist friend in the city.

And this may make me sound like an anti-social, friendless person. Sometimes im all that, (and to be fair i know many journalists including my collegues who are great friends)

But while i know many other people in the city as acquaintances or sources, they would not pass the guest list test.

(the guest list test is my collegue’s invention and my axiom. If you are willing to add a name to your wedding guest  list, then it is likely that you would add them to your friend list. Collegue and i run all our sources through our guest list test. I was shocked, for instance, to learn that many of our common sources have already attended collegue’s wedding, which inversely probably explains why my collegue has so many friends and gets so many gifts – if you invite someone to your wedding, its likely that they will eventually like you and maybe even go dotty over you.)

so anyway, we met because of a common man friend. Pasta girl told me once that she was hoping i would be a man. And really, i would have hoped the same of her as well, but i knew our common man friend (who sometimes passes off as my cousin ) better – he doesnt know many men, his guest list for instance, when he gets engaged this month, would probably not feature any men. 

So anyway (again), i recognised pasta girl immediately as the other half side of me, if i came  to be compared with a shiny coin. And thats not only because we share a name. Like me  she is a whiner, a diner and an old fashioned piner. (We pine for people constantly, so much, we could grow a pine tree in our back yard and it would really drip — with pines). We dont know what we want, but like me, she ends up liking men who are not interested in us ( being fond of us does not count, we are fondable people) . Ay, on the other hand, just doesnt have to try. Ay picks up men on sundays who would pick her up from the bus station and drop her home on mondays. I mean, really, the only man I know who has done that, would do that for me is my father, and these days even he doesnt offer, says journalists should manage their bags on their own.  

So ya, shes pasta girl because she likes pasta; she likes pasta with feminist leanings, she likes pasta that is eaten by day and saves children by night, she likes pasta with violent violet salad helpings, with a dash of vinegar and yes pasta that is penne, i think both of us dislike spagetti, and yes pasta will be eaten when we go to sindudurg this year. No, we dont hanker after Italians.