JOIN USThis photograph was taken by my father MV Prabhakar during the annual day function at Nirmala Rani High School, Malleswarm, in 1994, when I was a student of class nine.
My father was passionate about photography and he always came to my school functions and took plenty of pictures. My friends liked his style of photography and would always ask him for copies.
Every single person in this picture holds a special place and significance in my life. We were all classmates and thick friends since kindergarten and remain close even to this day.
The person in the yellow sari is Shilpa Palani. We were not only good friends but our fathers worked together and lived in the same apartment.
She always had a knack of making me laugh. She was also admired for her outspokenness and honesty.
We don’t know why we began calling her ‘Chimpu’ but the name has remained
since. Believe it or not, even after 20 odd years, she is still called by that name, not only by us but by her husband and in-laws as well!
Nisha joined our school only in class eight. She hails from a Marwadi family and we loved the food her mother made.
I still remember how six or seven of us would land up at her place with the weakest excuse and gorge on delicious ‘rotis’ rolled out by her mother. We would eat so much that we always lost count of the number of ‘rotis’ we ate.
In the photograph, there is also Deepa KM, another dear friend of mine. We used to call her ‘kulli’ and still do.
There is Smitha Rao, who is one of my closest friends even to this day. Although we weren’t as close in the beginning, a common friend’s wedding brought us closer.
Smitha has always been there for me and I think I’ve spent the longest time with her.
She has accompanied me to several of my public appearances, stage shows and even to my shooting locations. We both love travelling and our longest trip together was when I went to France to visit her, where she had temporarily relocated for a year. She and I have had the best of times together; so much so that I could even write a book on it!
Maggie Bernadette Gomes has been with me since kindergarten. Her mother taught us in class one and we were always at our best behaviour when we are around her.
We used to address her as ‘ma’am’ out of sheer respect and admiration because she was our first teacher.
Maggie was a perfectionist when it came to English and she always corrected us whenever we mispronounced a word. She was always grammatically correct.
She and I were good dancers and we always ended up being paired together for all the dances at school.
There’s another one of our close friends — Shalini — who is not in the picture. Currently an architect, Shalini takes the lead and drives us around on all our outings.
I discontinued my studies in 1999, during my first-year degree at Mount Carmel
College, to become an actor and I, only recently, completed a double degree from
Karnataka University.
It has been a little over 20 years since this photograph was taken. Now, looking back, we have all been through a lot — good and bad — but what has remained constant is our friendship and the strong bond we share.
Anu Prabhakar (actress) (As told to Nina C George)