Joey : Phoebe

Hi Aaliyah,

When you read this post I am sure it will the right of me to say that 'Long Long ago there used to be a TV program called Friends'. I used to watch it very regularly and infact watched the re-reuns a million times over. Like most of us, I too identified with one of the characters in it. Phoebe..crazy and wonderfully weird. I am sure you will find a set of all the CDs of this Serial somewhere in my old boxes. There was this one other character called Joey. An awesome character and makes you want to just take him home. Complete womanizer and would do anything for a sandwich.

When you were about to be born, your Dad and I did not want to tell anyone about it until a few months later. But Uncle Vips was one of those, who we had to share this news. I have known Vips for the last 15 years or so and we used to work/not work together. He is the best dressed friend of mine and I hope he still is when you read this. He wanted to have a rock band of his own and name it ‘SHIT’ which stood for Small Handsome Indian Teenagers and broke into the airport runway once when he was maybe 8 or so. He will have a lot of stories to tell you.

I used to be his love guru and give him tips of what girls like and some fine tuning here and there etc. Above all he was the one who gave me the name ‘Jo’.

One day when I chatting with him and you were yet to be born, and he mentioned that he is going to go to tirupati and I was like ‘Ladddooooo’. He asked if I liked the laddo and I was like 'who doesn’t!!'. It is the most divine prasadam on the face of earth and everywhere else. It used to be very tough to get Tirupati laddoo in our times, not sure how it would be as you are reading this. Maybe even home delivery I guess. :) within 30 minutes or so. Anyways, a few days later, I got a courier and when I opened it, what do I seee…a nice Laddo of the size of a shot put ball, smiling back at me. Neatly packed and sent by Uncle vips. I was dialling his number as I was polishing off the laddo. I was so thrilled and I am pretty sure you enjoyed it too. Vips then told, ‘Jo, please keep some for Kishore too’ and I looked down at the box to see some crumbs left. I said, ‘Ofcourse, I will share the crumbs with him’.

Coming to Joey and Phoebe, that is what your uncle Vips is to me. He is nothing like Joey..he is smarter and cooler, but Vips is what Joey was for Phoebe. :)