Growing up, even though I was “Meha’s friend,” I always seemed to have more similar tastes (in movies and such) to Kavi. Two things that stick out in my memory: 1) when we were all still in elementary school he tried to stump me on a BrainQuest or similar game with a question he was convinced I’d get wrong–I don’t remember the question but the answer was The Enterprise (from Star Trek) and he was baffled at my ability to get it right; 2) in middle school (we must have been in 8th grade and he in 6th), we were both really excited about the movie “Undercover Brother.” Our excitement became a sort of competition, and we ended up seeing the movie at the same time, me/Meha and our friends, and Kavi and his friends. We were the only people in the theater, and naturally pretty raucous…we almost got kicked out! (Who would kick out a bunch of sweet middle schoolers?!)

In our adult life, I had brunch with Kavi (and Jacki Anderson!) while visiting Ann Arbor. It was at this brunch that Kavi first realized how much we had in common. I ordered first, and he totally copied me, down to the chocolate milk! He almost chickened out of his order, because it was too weird…and apparently debated whether he could at least make the sacrifice and opt for regular milk, but who can do that?  ❤

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.