Happy Birthday Kestrel

It was the fag end of a long day and I was bored. I'd heard of this site called Omegle, where you could meet strangers and without revealing your own identity, have conversations with them. I logged on.

After a few uninteresting chats, I found someone who didn't ask the usual "ASL?". I thought I was onto something and started talking. An hour and a half passed and I realized I had found someone intelligent at last. Then we swapped email IDs. She was in the US and I was in exotic India.

Believe me when I say my friendship with Kestrel, or as I call her K, started out with us swapping emails. In this day and age, there we were writing letters  to each other. It seemed to me to be a story that RK Narayan would have liked to write and there I was living it!

At the time, she was on Twitter and I was on Facebook. So we couldn't connect over social media just then because I saw no reason to create a Twitter account. So for almost a year and a half, these letters continued. I learnt that she was doing business administration, she liked her mom a lot and they would have wine dates from time to time and that she was in a band called LAOD with her friend Jenny. Not all our emails were beds of roses-we also shared problems we were having with each other. Again, in the age when letters were archaic, we were just two kids swapping emails. 

We had each other and somehow that was enough.

LAOD went on to compose a single called Storm and when it came out she excitedly sent me a link to hear it and I really liked it.

Then, someone told me that I would get a wider audience if I joined Twitter and so I did, just to promote my blog. I told her in an email that I had joined and she immediately replied that she was "off to follow me". Our emails dried up but we kept in touch through Twitter. Then she joined Facebook and we connected over Messenger.

I have known Kestrel Van Der Mark for over three years. She is sassy, confident, has a good voice, loves to play guitar and if you check out photos you'll find she does a lot of impromptu yoga. She is kind, helpful and adorable. If you ever do meet her be sure to notice that her smile lights up a room.

Today is her birthday. This is our story.

Here's looking at you Kestrel!

The Bilge Master