Palash
My best friend. Period. We've been talking every single day since April 2023, and the conversation never runs dry. If you want to understand who I am, look at this friendship.
How We Met
We went to the same school growing up. When life was slow and peaceful and we were just kids with nowhere to be. Those 7am meetups -- waking up early for no reason, just hanging around because that's what you did. There was nothing else happening, and somehow that made everything better. The friendship was built on proximity and boredom, and those are the friendships that last forever because they're not based on anything fake. No networking, no "let's collab" -- just two kids being kids.
The Dynamic
Palash has big brother energy with me. He'll literally text me "Go study" and call me "Baccha" like he's my dad or something. And I'll be there with my chaotic "yeah yeah" energy ignoring him while simultaneously knowing he's right. He keeps me grounded when I'm doing too much. When I was building LockIn, he was one of the first people I talked to about it. Not because I needed feedback -- because I tell Palash everything.
There's something about the way Palash holds the friendship together that makes it feel safe. He's the person I go to before I've even figured out what I'm feeling. Half the time I'll text him something half-formed and he'll piece it together before I can. That's what happens when someone has known you long enough to read between the lines of your worst texts.
The Distance Thing
We're in different places now. That should've killed the friendship, right? It didn't even scratch it. We're always either just missing each other or planning the next time we won't. The constant back-and-forth of trying to plan visits -- "Come around June", the logistical nightmares of figuring out when we'll be in the same place -- that's become its own ritual at this point.
We don't even need the visits to stay close, though. The daily texts handle that. But the visits matter because there's a difference between talking to your best friend and being in the same room as your best friend, and we both know it.
Exams and Real Talk
Half our conversations are about boards and mocks and the general nightmare of being students. "We have boards", "Screw boards", "My mocks gave it in the bum" -- we're both going through it and there's something comforting about suffering together even when you're in different places. I shared LockIn with him because, well, we both need to stop doomscrolling and actually study.
What He Means to Me
Palash is the one constant. Friends come and go, group chats die, people move -- but Palash is always there. Every. Single. Day. The sheer volume of conversations we've had is proof that distance doesn't matter when the friendship is real. He knew me before I had any idea what I wanted to do with my life. He knew me when I was just a bored kid going to school and figuring things out. And he still knows me now. That continuity -- from school hallways to daily Instagram DMs -- that's the foundation everything else is built on.