Sarah - The richest girl of the world.

Sarah is my friend. Not actually, I think I can best explain my relationship with Sarah as an acquaintance, may be. I dont know. But yes, Sarah and I had been room mates for almost a month, about 13 years back. And we grew pretty close during that phase. It has to be. Two girls of the same age, spending 24 hours together for almost a month. You have to be deaf, and dumb and blind not to be friends in such a situation.

It all happened that I was proposed by my college to attend a special training for a month in Mumbai once and thats where I met Sarah for the first time. Tall, slim, black anglo girl with the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. She was not beautiful, in fact she was very ordinary looking, but her eyes! They speak. They tell you what Sarah is thinking at any point of time. The day I first landed in Mumbai, I met her at the airport itself. She was from Chennai. We exchanged profanties. Even then I didnt have the faintest idea that i would be spending the next one month with this girl. I was sad, and depressed that I was away from my family for almost a month, and more so, because, my birthday was also within that one month. The whole idea of spending the birthday all alone in an alien land, was killing me. In such a frame of mind, both of us boarded the same car which took us to the college campus where we were to take our training from. At the registration desk we were told, that we would be sharing a room. Initially, I didnt like the idea of sharing a room with a stranger at all. I prefered to be left alone. But ofcourse, I had no option. Sarah, on the other hand, seemed to be very please to have got a room partner. She did all the talking, from the time we left the registration desk till the time we found our room and got settled in there.

The room was neat and clean, very well maintained, and having a very beautiful view outside from the window. But nothing could perhaps make me happy then. I was cribbing and complaining about everything from the curtain to the bed sheet to the colour of the bathroom tiles. The fact was that, I had probably pre-programmed myself not to like anything I was offered. I was missing my family and my own room the most. Sarah probably realised and tried to make me feel at home by being more friendly, but with the frame of mind i was in, I wasnt really appreciating her intrusion much. It was a Sunday, and we spent the rest of the day in the room itself, only venturing out during the meal times. Dirung our college days, we didnt have mobiles, so in the evening I went out to look for STD booth to call up home. I asked her if she would also like to go, to which she said, her family only consisted of her mother, whose line of work is into sailing. For months she would be out of contact and the ony way they would interact with each other is through letters (even e-mail was not a very in-thing then). Thats when I saw Sarah's eyes for the first time, may be. Her eyes were sad. Thats when she told me that she had been in a hostel from her childhood, and would only get to meet her mother during summer vaccations. Her eyes told me how much she missed her mother, missed having a proper familly, but explicitly she said none. Thats when I took an immediate liking to her.

Our days were pretty hectic there. We would get up in the morning, get ready, have breakfast by 8am everyday and would go the main college campus. Our classes would resume sharp at 9am. We would get a lunch break from 12:30PM to 1:30PM and the classes would continue till 6PM everyday. After that we would come back to our room, freshen up a bit and do our studies etc. Followed by that we would have our dinner and go off to sleep. This was our regular routine for the next one month. Over the wekends we would explore the city, but not every weekend.

Sarah and I were poles apart in terms of our lifestyle, experience, nature, characteristic - infact everything. Even then, we bonded pretty well. May be our differences brought us closer to each other. I used to tell her about my family - my extended family of 34 members excluding the maids and servants, who were very much the part of our family. i used to tell her about my life in Kolkata. How pampered I am. How lazily I spend my life amidst my uncles and aunties, and cousin brothers and sisters. I used to tell her about my loads of friends, my social life, my neighborhood etc. She would listen to everything i said, with a lot of appreciation and amazement, because her life was entirely different. Her father fled away when she was a little girl, and she absolutely had no idea even how he looked like. Her mother was a strong woman, fighting all odds to bring her only child Sarah, up. But in trying to maintain herself and Sarah, she could never give quality time to Sarah, as a result of which she was always lonely. This probably made her an introvert. She didnt have many friends. She was fiercely independent right from her childhood, doing all her things on her own. And there I was - so dependent on everybody. My life would be a standstill if i didnt have my family and friends around me.

Every evening I would get loads of calls from my parents, family, friends, and they would tell me how much they were missing me. My mother would speak to me for hours. They would courrier me gifts to cheer me up. And Sarah would appreciate all these with her eyes. I always felt bad for her. No calls, no letters, no gifts, nothing for her.

During this time only, we discovered one very significant similarity between us amidst so many differences - that we share our birthday!!! Yes, and as luck would have it, our training was getting over just one day before our birthday, and both of us got our tickets to our respective places on our birthday itself. Sarah's flight was early in the morning, and mine was in the afternoon on the 19th of June'1995 - our 20th birthday!

From 4-5 days prior to my birthday (and hers as well), I started receiving gifts, cards, flower bouquet, chocolates etc from my firends, relatives, family members etc. Our room looked like a little gift shop and flower shop with so many packed gifts and flower bouquets around. She would be so excited to see them. And she would decorate our room with those received gifts - ofcourse only my side of the room. Her side was empty. I made a note of buying a gift for her for her birthday. But the training got stricter and absolutely left us with no time to go out for shopping or anything else for that matter. Then I decided, that I would give her something from what I have received in all those days. But each and every gift was special to me. So I couldnt make up my mind as to which gift of mine i could part with and give it to her. Everyday, i promised myself, that next day I would decide on which gift to give her from the ones I had received.

On the last day of our training, ie, on 18th June she received a package. It was a gift from her mother on her birthday! She was escatic! She was so happy! That gift made her so special, her eyes spoke again, and this time with tears of happiness rolling down her cheek! I was very very happy for her. And amidst that happiness, I absolutely forgot to give her a gift from my side, which I was procastinating for long - unable to decide which gift of mine i should part with...

On 19th June, I woke up late. By that time, Sarah had already left. But before leaving, she packed my baggages (by then she knew me well enough to have understood that i never did packing on my own ever in my lifetime). So she took the trouble of packing all my suitcases neatly. She did her own bed (everyday she would do both our beds), and left a letter for me there. Alongside the letter was a packed gift.

I read her letter with sleepy eyes. She had wished me a very happy birthday, and a life ahead. She mentioned there that this one month that we had spent together was the best phase of her life, as she realised what having a sister, a family meant! Each of the words in that letter was so real,so genuine, and so from the heart... I started crying. In the last sentence of her letter she mentioned, that since it was my birthday today, and since she didnt have the time to shop for a gift for me, she is leaving the gift that her mother had sent her on her birthday, for me! As my birthday gift!!!

I didnt know what to do... there I was, unable to decide which gift to give her from so many of gifts I had received... and there she was, without any hesitation she had gifted me the only gift she received on her birthday! i was standing there speechless, cos thats when i realised, that Sarah is the richest girl of this world. She has a heart of gold. And that she taught me the Art of Giving.