Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Weird place this blog is. When I first started out, rather warily as a novice, it was only to comment on Urmi’s blog. Yes, it was that specific. Because, all these years that I’ve known her (sorry can’t really give the numbers, I’m severely mathematically challenged), we’ve only verbally interacted or at most chatted. So I had no clue just how well she wrote, when she deigned to write, that is. Purpose clearly defined, I had to set up a personal blog since, madam wouldn’t allow anonymous comments on her’s.

Once into blogosphere, like a toddler in playschool, I started discovering the wonders of this world. Since I’m also seriously technically challenged, I made Urmi’s blog my centrepoint from where I could branch out to read several others, most of whom were nameless heads, some merely names and some pseudonyms. To me of course, except for Urmi, no one really mattered. I simply dropped in to read good writing, because I couldn’t write to save my not-so-blooming life. I soon realized, it wasn’t all that easily to be an objective, emotionally uninvolved, casual reader. There were people out there who seemed like they read my mind, wrote about things that affected me, made me happy and even terribly annoyed me. Hellooooo. This is the kind of emotional bonding one feels for people. Not inanimate objects like a web log, for Heaven’s sake!

Upon some introspection, I realized, there were some blogs I got badly hooked on to. And these were the ones where I found some similarity with either my life or the way I thought about certain things in life. And, much to the utter surprise of some people who claim to know me rather well, they were blogs written by women. (I did read the men, too, so stop raising your eyebrows, right now!)

It must’ve been the subconscious, which unfortunately I still don’t seem to have any control over (damned, where are my powers of wizardry?). In spite of staying away from typically soppy, bitchy and opinionated women in real life, I was being drawn to mellifluous, pellucid, vitriolic and rather conceited posts! Damn! Damn! Damn!

But they were fun. To read and to comment upon. And thank God for the comments, that I developed a kind of familiarity with some of the people I read. Dawn of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood!

M(tread softly upon), being among the first such. Again, I’ve forgotten when I first read her, but it was an instant liking for this mysterious woman, who seemed to read my mind just too spookily well. Every time I read her, it is as if I know, I realize a little bit more about myself. I don’t know why or how, but somewhere along the way, she felt a similar closeness and we bonded, like reunited old friends. Or was it like siblings? Naaaaah! (Holding hand down and telling self, “Don’t get carried away, not just yet. Long way to go.”) Ok Clarification. So M’s a doc, she knows a little bit about psychiatry (you know, must have been part of her medical course) therefore, she just knows how the mind works and writes about such things fluently. And I, the emotional fool, like many others, only am drawn towards such spontaneous outburst of emotional feelings. Right M? (Winks)

Then there’s Princess B(itch). Let’s just say she’s just too much fun to ignore. She’s too old to be my daughter, and too young to be my sister, really. But the babe has just the kind of spunk and sweetness-tinged vitriol that excites me. Oh and yes, there’s something about the bandwidth too. 440MHz, Love?

And, finally a few months back, Urmi directed me to a certain lady who shared her surname, she told me. And was it a pleasure to discover Missus Em or what? A self- proclaimed dinosaur but with the zest of a twenty-year old. Not a glitch between the heart and the head in what she writes and how she writes it. The mistress of pickles, Lali emanates a warmth that can melt the most frozen person. For me, of course, she’s now my dictionary, encyclopaedia, agony aunt, my personal therapist, friend, sibling all rolled in to one. Phew, that lady knows how to juggle her roles, alright!

I can’t really say what Urmi means to me in a paragraph or even a whole book, so I’ll desist. Suffice to say, she’s a part of my existence.

Apart from Urmi, these are people I have no qualms sharing a bit of my personal self with and vice versa. These are my much needed girlfriends who I can virtually go off on trips with, fall back on or look up to. We each have minds of our own, we agree, we disagree, we agree to disagree on issues, we whine, crib, bitch, pat each other’s backs, we sympathise and empathise with as well as choose to ignore attention seeking behavioural disorders. We have the panacea for each other’s ills and we serve as an elixir of life. And of course, we share our little secrets of a happy, healthy and long youthful life.