Power puff girls, Angels, Besties. These might have been your group names during your school days, a group of peppy girls in short skirts or a group having class toppers wearing big glasses always found with their heads buried in books. What about a group named “MOTUs”
This is what identified Fatima, Aashima, Riya and Dwiti, who have been friends since last 7 years.
Fatema is a bold, fun-filled girl studying dentistry. She’s tall, and has a tattoo on her hand saying “live laugh love” written in Chinese. She loves making friends. You’ll find numbers of an architect, doctor, lawyer, engineer, CA, teacher, painter, fashion designer, cook, tailor, lab technician, compounder, street cleaner and they are all her friends (thanks that her dog does not have a cell number otherwise she would have saved that too!). If you are searching for any number, you will get it faster from her than from Justdial.
Aashima is smart. She loves challenges. There was a time when she used to fail in her physics exam and today, she is doing Masters in Applied Physics. She loves brands. Ask her about the latest sale of clothes by Versace or about Elle’s new shades of lipsticks and nail paints. You can even talk to her about Tiffany’s diamonds, perfumes of Tommy Girl or Hublot’s watches. She knows it all.
Riya is a shy girl. She has a perfect figure and is very pretty. She’s doing research and is interning with one of the pharmaceutical companies. She loves reading. She has her own set of principles to live a simple life.
I am Dwiti. I am a graduate in Engineering.
“Dwiti, where the hell on earth are you. You were going to reach here before an hour and where is Aashima? Why is she not receiving my call?” yells Fatema.
I put the phone on speaker and answer “Aashima is driving……. sorry we were finding cheese cream. I can’t listen, there’s lot of traffic. Reaching in 15 minutes.” I lie. Aashima and I are trying to find cheese cream checking out all the stores in town.
We reach Fatema’s house after an hour finally collecting all ingredients. Tomorrow is Riya’s birthday and we are planning to make a red velvet cake having chocolate and cheese cream icing for her. Fatema welcomes us, but is quietly expecting whether we have got anything for her to eat. She gets tired cleaning, washing and drying teeth of patients the whole day, just managing to eat 2 burgers and a sandwich.
Excitedly, she opens the bag full of ingredients and sees butter, corn-flour, baking powder, chocolate powder, cheese cream, bottle having red edible color, eggs and bill. Her eyes turn wide open when she sees the bill. Forgetting her hunger she says “Are you kidding me, Rs 700 only for cake ingredients? Dwiti, I’ll kill you if you don’t bake the cake properly.”
I am the head chef for the evening. My hobbies include learning new languages, dancing salsa, gardening, taking tuitions, going to gym, cooking etc. My hobbies keep on changing every month just like my crushes both being unpredictable. I learnt baking eggless cakes but, a red velvet cake was something new. We Google it up. A small advice: if you ever need help in solving a problem – be it a math puzzle, finding a place on map, proposing a girl or cooking, God Google always helps.
I start mixing the ingredients, trying to be careful. Aashima is breaking the eggs and Fatema is helping us by playing some good music from her playlist. She wishes to help more. She has learnt how to boil water recently and so decides to make Maggi (as she is hungry). We finish mixing batter and pour it in a heart shaped container. The batter tastes perfect – since it has proper quantity of butter, sugar and chocolate powder. Fatema is scared about the proportions of baking soda. With her eyes, she warns me neither is her kitchen insured nor her oven.
We put the batter inside the oven for the baking process, set the timer for 40 minutes and start talking. Strangely, we find better topics to discuss then blaming the Prime Minister, being jealous about Ranbir Kapoor’s new girlfriend or the sky rocketing onion prices. We talk about the latest sale in town, parties, road accidents, boyfriends, gym sessions, kisses, clothes, beer (how to get beer in a state where alcohol is banned) and my crushes like the handsome football player to the sexy looking writer.
Suddenly the room is filled with a strange smell of barbecue grill without vegetables. We rush in the kitchen. The oven looks like a devil dressed in black flames having a red burning face with heated golden teeth. We had forgotten to keep a check on the watch. Feeling guilty I look down like a small kid staring the floor innocently after eating chocolates.
We take out the mould and see it turned into a cake with the upper surface burnt. We check it to realize it’s unbaked from the bottom. We turn the cake up-side down and keep it in the oven. After 20 minutes the devil oven again cries out. We take the cake out and notice the red colored, soft batter baked into a black-brown color cookie for a big sized gorilla.
An advice for making a burnt cake look pretty and edible which even God Google might not be able to give you : Spread the cheese cream on the upper surface, pour chocolate syrup on the borders of the cake making the heart shape look elegant, use rolls and colorful toffees to make it look tempting and write a big “Happy Birthday” on it. That is exactly what we did. According to the Tradition of birthday there’s a new rule formed. The rule states that you cut the cake at midnight. Not wishing to break any rules we leave for Riya’s home. It’s dark outside.
Finally we reach her place after a drive of 15 minutes and wish her. She’s happy to see the cake. It looks perfect. We feel satisfied for the efforts after seeing the smile on her face.
Last night I didn’t bake my first cake perfectly but, I baked a perfect relation having 4 friends, 3 cups of trust,2 spoonful patience,1 pinch of anger and the unlimited sweetness of love.
Friends….
You’ll find them when you wish to watch a cartoon, when you are shopping for your ball night, when you fight with your parents, when you go for your first date, when you fail a test, when you try out the latest collection of clothes.
We laugh, we cry, we share, we care. Our life looks complete being with them.
This is dedicated to you if you have been a shoulder to share a tear (even if you don’t have a clean hanky in your pocket), a hug to warm the heart (provided the heat is from a heater without flames) if, you have been a friend.
– By Drashti Trivedi ©2013
Drashti 