For Dostt

i. the voice note she actually sent

You sent it. Seven seconds. I never got over it.

Somewhere back in 2018 I asked to hear your voice for the first time, half expecting you to dodge it like always. You didn't. Seven seconds, laughing before you even started talking, and it said this:

🎤 voice message 0:07

"Ma konsi Momina Mustehsan hun."

You were wrong then, dostt, and you're still wrong now.

ii. kahan se laate hain itni baatein

Rare calls. Never short ones.

We're not great at texting every day, and somehow that's never mattered. The calls are rare, and every single one runs long enough that you eventually ask where I keep finding this much to say.

Aaj call kren?

Han g dostt, jab bhi free ho

Kahan se laate hain itni baatein?

From you, obviously. You're the whole plot.

iii. the one who notices first

You clock it before I even say a word.

A fever, a rough week, a bad mood buried under three sentences of small talk, you catch it every time, then spend the rest of the message making sure I'm okay before I've asked how you are.

the dentist

Gentle hands, honest opinions

You're training to spend your days making people less afraid of the chair, and you already have that exact effect on everyone lucky enough to know you outside of it.

the friend

The one who checks in first

Fevers, late nights, bad days, you notice before anyone has to say anything, then quietly make sure the person is okay before asking for a single thing back.

the budhu

Yes, that's you, and it's affectionate

Seven years of calling you budhu and it has never once landed as anything other than a compliment. Some nicknames just work like that.

v. a few words

Something I actually wanted to say.

Dostt,

You once asked where I keep finding this many words. Honestly, most of them are just about you, said in different orders. That's the whole trick.

You carry one of the biggest hearts I know. Not the loud kind that announces itself, the kind that just shows up, remembers, checks in, and somehow always makes room for one more person, one more late night, one more favor you didn't have to ask twice for help with.

You're going to spend your career making other people's smiles better, and you still haven't noticed what you do for the people around you in the meantime. So let me say it plainly, for once, without a joke attached.

I'm genuinely happy for you, dostt. Watching where your life is headed, the work you're building toward, the person you're becoming along the way, it's the kind of thing that makes the rare, long calls worth every bit of the wait.

Lucky are the people who get your presence, dostt. Life is better with you loud in it.

Happiest of birthdays, Inzah. Have a wonderful year ahead, dostt.

Turn It Up, Dostt