It was a particularly raging Kanye-themed house party in Ann Arbor. One of our friends — identities hidden to protect the innocent — had brought a girl none of us knew that well and, when we weren’t looking, they commandeered the couch by the dance floor and started making out. And kept going. And going. “I’ve got an idea,” Kavi said. He went into the kitchen and raided a bag of microwave popcorn from the pantry, heated it up, then brought the bag next to the happy couple and had me take pictures of him munching on popcorn, watching the show, with this giant, crazy grin on his face. They smelled the deliciousness and tore away from each other long enough to see what we were doing. Very quickly the party became a massive popcorn fight. We were still finding kernels days later.

In the glorious days of pre-school or Kindergarten was when I met Kavi. We ran many relay races and competed in many wrestling matches in his living room. We spent many hours after school trying to beat Donkey Kong Country on his Super Nintendo, and when we did, he got Donkey Kong Country 2 for us to try and beat. To this day, I am not sure if we actually beat that game. We hung out a lot in his basement playing with his action figures. Once his parents built the upstairs wing to the house, I remember watching many movies and having a lot of sleepovers. It was with Kavi that I first watched Shanghai Noon and Rush Hour and learned to appreciate the greatness that is Jackie Chan. Kavi’s love for movies started at a very young age and I told myself if there was one guy who would end up in movie production in Hollywood, it would be Kavi. How majestic was his giggle? His laugh could brighten anyone’s day; it was contagious and no matter how I was feeling at the time, it would never cease to make me smile and laugh along.