I sit at home grumpy,sad and irritated. There’s no friend in sight. Nobody. Not a soul.

Friends, colleagues families have packed and left for the long weekend. I knew this was coming. I knew I am going to feel low. I knew it is going to hurt big time and it did.

But it is difficult to reconcile with reality even when you know what is and why it is so. Except for Andrew’s long and short meows there is no noise at home. Instead of research that I should do I am angry and upset for no particular reason.

I wait for a friend to turn up. Friends have friends and families !!!! I am busy playing the victim, the god forsaken soul, left on an island… why? why?

Fine. I decide enough is enough solo is not solitude and like Matteo Bocelli I will find my way.

Besides I am good at taking care of myself. I will do it. So I set off to get a bicycle yep to ride to glory.

Its been years since I did it but it should be good. The cycle shops are not selling cycles anymore but a fashion statement and my purse is going to be stretched too far… I come back now less gloomy!

Anyways, back home I have a visitor, ‘ would you like to dance for the dandiya?’ dance, me! Well, I wanted to invite your daughter but since she is not here, why don’t you come, said the neighbour in a compensatory tone.

‘Ok!’ I say, desperate for company, ‘I would love to, nay, I will’ and end up attending 2 practice sessions and go all the way to hit the dance floor literally!

My body is not amused at such onslaught of vigor, ‘what for’. it demands angrily and sulks big time!

But dance I did in my effort to find new friends and some new spaces outside the books, research and I must say I enjoyed it.

Walking in alone into a space of families did make me feel awkward initially but soon I got over it and relaxed, I counselled myself and said, ‘its ok, afterall alone is no crime, you are in a happy space, don’t you see that!’

I did of course, and soon lost myself in the dance.

Sometimes you got to shake the statusquo! So I did!

And found a surprise visitor at home!

And a promise of a friend who said, ‘I come when I say I will’ and I had to laugh!

Then says my dear chechi, ‘Lekha come home tomorrow ok!’. ‘I will’, I say happily.

Who does one thank except the universe for such unexpected offers of good company!

Ain’t it a good life after all!