About a Friend

As my blog celebrates its first birthday today, I would like to write something about a very special person in my life. It was that person who introduced me to the blogging world exactly a year ago. That person is none other than my cousin, whom you all know as Woodsmoke. She is the sister in everyone’s dream.


But for me, she is not Woodsmoke. She is ‘Tanni Didi’. And, ‘Tanni Didi’ is what I have been calling her from the very moment I have known her. I met Tanni Didi for the first time at a Kolkata restaurant in around 1995. I must say that I was not at all pleased to see her because she had hugged my mother. That had made me feel very jealous. “How dare she hug my mother”, is what I had thought.

But, gradually, I realized that she was not such a bad person after all. I slowly began to like her. I don’t remember a detailed account of those days now. But, I know that I used to irritate her. At our grandparents’ house in Kolkata, I used to force her to play with me after lunch in the garden. Under that scorching afternoon sun, she would be forced to play the ‘ Find the cat’ game with me. Cats frequented (they still do) our grandparents’ house. So, Tanni Didi’s job would be to find out where the cats were hiding! But, she was such a darling. She would never refuse.

Tanni Didi had even slapped me once…..in a taxi because I had been continuously crying and she had been trying her best to make me stop. But, when I refused to listen to her polite requests, she just lost her temper.

Our relationship became stronger in 2001, when Tanni Didi came to Kolkata. We (along with our other family members) went to Digha and we simply had a blast. Those moments with Tanni Didi were just wonderful. In that period, she taught me loads of things—new English words, new games, and drew my attention towards the Enid Blyton books. We also discovered that both of us were huge fans of Shahrukh Khan. Later on, that is presently, we both are huge Harry Potter fans.Anyway,when she went back to Delhi, she started writing letters and emails to me. She taught me that when we get a letter from someone, we should reply to it. And, each of those letters had something special about it. She would make fun of my friend Debarati, calling her Debarati Subramanium. In one letter, she had actually drawn pictures of Debarati and her family members in a way that suggested they were South-Indians.She would say that Debarati was actually a “Jhinge-seller”(Jhinge is the Bengali word for a certain vegetable). Needless to say, our communication through email was equally exciting as well. She had once sent me an e-card showing the picture of a huge bear hugging a small one. In the same year, we all visited Rajasthan. In Rajasthan, I don’t remember having spent a single moment without her, except during nighttimes.

A time came when I began to be inspired by Tanni Didi’s success. She began to get such good jobs. Well, she was always so determined to do something really good. Although she says that I will make our family proud too, I feel I lack certain things like determination. I am determined, but not as determined as her. It’s difficult to be like her. She is presently in Idaho in the US and she is managing everything so well. It is obviously very difficult to live in a different country with different type of people, so far away from home. But, Tanni Didi is so brave. She is studying and earning money at the same time. And, she is not doing something ordinary. She is teaching the Americans!

But, till date, the most wonderful thing that she has taught me is blogging. It was she who suggested that I should open my own blog. It was because of her enthusiasm that I opened this blog and made so many friends. For the first six months, I would not receive any comments on my blog, except for Tanni Didi’s comments. So, again it was she who requested everyone to read my blog. Now a days, my family members praise me so much for writing these posts on my blog. My fellow bloggers praise me so much. I have found such good friends in them. But, would all this ever have been possible without Tanni Didi? No, obviously not. Who else would have taught me all this? I don’t share that sort of a rapport with my other cousins.

So, on the joint occasion of Tanni Didi’s birthday (19th July) and my blog’s birthday (15th July), I would like to thank Tanni Didi with all my heart. I want to thank her for being such a wonderful friend. I want to thank her for making my life more colorful. I also want to tell her “Please come to India as soon as possible. I am waiting to eat beef prepared by you.”