"Surprisseeee....!!"

Yesterday I nearly forgot that it was one of my close friends' birthday and I remembered it only around 5pm. Her name is Sita and she is from Bangalore doing some fashion designing course. Her mobile was off when I called her up and so I called up all my other friends. We quickly decided to give her a surprise outside her college since we knew that she had classes till 7pm. It was all a bit of a hurry and I was charged with the responsibility to get the cake and candles and stand in front of the college.

So I buggered off and by 7:00pm I was juggling at the corner of busy Oxford street station with a cake in one hand, umbrella in the other and a bulky jacket weighing me down. The others soon joined and after 15 mins this gal crawls really tired out of her classes to be shaken by our "Suprisssseeee!!!" cheer right in her face. She literally jumped out of her skin and was literally in tears when we sang her the birthday song and asked her to blow the candles out... all this right on the street!!.

After the usual pleasantaries we decided to go to Wagamama in Soho to have dinner. They serve Japanese style food but also include other types. We were all famished by the time we got in and so ordered loads of stuff. My order came first and everyone dipped their chopsticks in the bowl of ramen. Japanese food is a bit bland so we had to add quite a bit of chilli sauce and stuff like that to build it upto our taste. All in all - a great evening.

But one thing made it really special. When we all left - she hugged all of us at the same time and said "Guys, thanks a lot" and you could see she really meant it from the light in her eyes. I think friends play a really big big role in bringing smiles when we are far away from home :-)