To Niranjana Murali

Ninjumma,

I don’t really remember when you waltzed into my life; not even the time when we started talking. I don’t think I want to know either because I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Connection in the most easiest and satisfying form is something so rare to find today as we’re all evolving and meeting versions of ourselves we never think we would meet or greet. And to find it in people who look at the world like us is something we all would want. I am so fortunate I found the rarest of the rare kind of that connection in you, my Ninja Turtle!

You’re one of the best women I have had the fortune to have met in the course of my entire life, Ninju. The way you always show respect for what the other person lives through, the way you feel happy for everyone around, and the way you cheer for all of them is something everyone should learn from you.

What I am most thankful for about you is the way you never make me feel that you’re away, and that too, in a way that I cannot believe that I haven’t met you any time recently. You have always chosen to be part of my mundane life when I was going through days that were cloudy- so cloudy that even I don’t remember days going by and how I got through it.

I know it is not so easy for someone who’s finding their way in a foreign land to figure out life. That’s also why I think I should tell you more often that I am so grateful you chose to show up often during a time when we could’ve easily drifted apart. It takes work to show up for people when they need it the most, and you’re someone who is always ready for it. Knowing that I have you bring an instant sense of relief in me- my life looks less difficult when I have someone like you in it.

Forever waiting to squish the turtle in you when you come back.

Monkey vibes all the time,

Your Prikku