Desperately Seeking Sonya_blade

Hi. My online name is Sick_fella. Round about 10 years ago during my stay in Bangalore (now called Benglaru?? Yikes! For the love of God) I met an amazing person on a chat relay called mIRC. Then, Shillong had just started to emerge in the ever diversifying and ever growing web of information and exchange called the Internet. It all happened when somehow, someone using the same chat relay decided to form an online chat channel within the mIRC called #Shillong. Strangely, almost 70 percent of users in the #Shillong channel were all students in Bangalore. The channel somehow united all the Khasi students residing in Bangalore by being the sole entity that somehow virtually networked the people from area to area.
The #Shillong channel, to most users then, was a comfortable little place that anybody could just drop in and quietly sit on one corner of the room and lay back to the noise of people meeting and parting. It was more like a little shack that was located just where you'd love to be, with just the right type of beer flowing, and just the right friends sitting on the high stools, leaning on the bar counter and noisily cranking up new stuff and information. It was something like the set of Centrel Perk in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. somehow got plucked out and put in this virtual world that somehow seemed more homely than your average corner Chapel around your block. The channel would come to life every Bangalorean afternoon after colleges had just distributed evening tea and snacks in their respective hostels. People in the channel had no faces; instead their nicknames/ nicks would loom quietly above their heads. Everybody would chatter loudly in the main room while private whispers would ensnare the users into the most valuable, to the uttermost wickedly insane and radiantly bountiful relationships ever. People barely knew each other yet had the most stringent and emancipating bonds ever.
The #Shillong channel was a good place. It was a nice little place where my best friend and I had the best laughs and online rivalries with the rest of the users on the channel. While others in the room would blatantly have a verbal dose of fencing, others would simple look on, laugh at, or simply comment on what is going on in the main room. Lost_22 and I, Sick_fella, somehow gave off highly repulsive and irritatingly allergic nuances of virtual existence within the room and I so vividly remember the number of times he and I would get "kicked" out of the room and sometimes "banned" entry. It was all along such ludicrous and seemingly insane online battles of wits that I somehow met "Sonya_blade".
"Sonya_blade" was among the few Channel Operators in #Shillong and upon noticing the @ sign beside her nickname I used to think that she was just another one of the online daddies and mommies who'd usually do nothing- neither chat in the main room nor private message any other users, apart from monitoring discipline and online etiquettes. A single swear word and she'd "kick" you out of the channel. It was this disparaging behavior that somehow got lost_22 and I, Sick_fella, glued to the channel every evening. Sonya_blade, as she was widely known, was one of those people in a masquerade- vivid and radiant on the outside, with a pall of history behind her unassuming face. I really do not remember how I got to know Sonya_, but I do know that I was introduced to her online, in the chatroom, through my buddy Lost_22.
Being outside my own home and in a place very new and distant from where I belonged, there were many isssues that somehow troubled and sometimes got the better of me in college. I went through a somewhat bitter time and I guess it was the somewhat likewise apparition of Sonya_ that really helped me associate myself with her. She was a deviant and rather eccentric little entity of wit, laughter, giggles, maturity and audacious friendship. We'd talk to each other way past midnight or however our cellular pre-paid tariffs would entitle us to.
I had never ever met Sonya_blade in person all the 3 years that I was in Bangalore. It was only sometime towards the end of the year 2002, when I had moved to New Delhi that I met her. I'd moved out of Bangalore and was already putting up with another of my closest friend in South Delhi. Sonya_blade had completely skipped my mind and I was more focused on getting by the new city and my Post Graduate degree. I was out alone one evening and on my daily evening coffee and cigarette with my buddy, I noticed a nonchalant and cramped little Internet Browsing point. Having stayed away from my online acquaintances for quite a while, I decided to hit mIRC once more and see if any of the people I knew still frequented the little chatroom. I had already completed my semester and was almost on my way home for the holidays when I got online that evening and entered #Shillong one more time. I logged in as Sick_fella as usual and to my utter disbelief and excitement, the first person who greeted me was Sonya_blade and strangely to everyone's surprise, "Sick!!!" was how she greeted me. It was amazing talking to her again. Somehow I felt like I had subconsciously missed her and pined for her all the time that I was away from her and meeting her on that chatroom suddenly liberated all these mixed emotions of joy, friendship, love and belonging that I never knew existed.
Meeting her again was like one of the best, warm cups of Cappucinos ever. I re-routed my itinerary and arranged to finally meet Sonya_ in person, in Bangalore. I flew down to Bangalore and arranged to meet Sonya_blade in Food World on M G Road. The huge, white letter "R" on my black T-shirt was agreed to be the thing that would help Sonya_blade trace me. I remember sitting on one of the benches outside Food World and with my heart in my mouth, I waited for the once face-less woman who had suddenly managed to turn my itinerary upside down. I didn't have to wait long before a pretty girl in tees and denim, with a tiny mole near her upper lips emerged from the crowd. I'd met the somewhat elusive and candid Sonya_blade.
It was a beautiful day, the afternoon that we met. We were good friends, we'd just met after a long break, we ordered excess vegetarian pizza from Pizza Corner and landed up giving away one medium pizza to a child begging on the bustling Brigade Road. I do not remember where Sonya_blade studied; Oxford College or Christian. I remember dropping her off at her hostel late in the evening and flying from Bangalore to Guwahati with her by my side. As we landed in Guwahati Airport late in the evening, there were no more taxis, except for one shabby, black Ambassador looking out for any last Shillong bound passenger. I was excited to be on my way home- and deeply grieved to have to leave my Post Grad semesters for a full time job in Shillong. I knew I'd be busy from the day I join work and I also knew that I'd not be able to see Sonya_blade again. The road from the airport to our homes was long. The silence that suddenly crept into my mind was periodically broken by Sonya's tales of her childhood days, her head on my shoulder and her hand in mine. Sitting in the back of that Ambassador, looking out of the windshield at the darkness illuminated by the weak headlamps of the car, I cried deep inside.
I dropped Sonya_blade to her home somewhere around Nongthymmai and was off to my new job and a life where Sonya_blade would not be a part of anymore. I stuck to my job, its rules and principles, I hurt Sonya_blade with my indifference and now it's been over ten years since I last heard from her. I cannot recall her real name. I cannot remember her address. I have no news about her, her whereabouts or her life. I have often tried many ways to look her over in the internet through people searches or alumnis. I have absolutely no idea how she looks like or if she's married and is raising a family. Like many countless things that I've regrettably had to give up, she is one whose memory somehow lingered on. I'm frantically seeking Sonya_blade. If there is anyone who knows her through her once chat alias, Sonya_blade, I'd be incredibly thankful and obliged if I could know her whereabouts and how to reach her.
I may seem like one of those nasty little leeches on the internet, hell bent on breaking private codes, but I'm not. I am somebody who just wants to lay back to the noise of the chatroom one last time, sipping one of the tastiest, warmest Cappucinos ever, going over the routes of our not so distant past and an opportunity to say I'm sorry.