Seniors maintain 15-year friendship

“It all started one day on the playground in Ms. Linda’s class —”

“It was not on the playground!” Ashvita Ramesh exclaimed as she corrected her best friend of 15 years, fellow senior Nina Nelson. “It was in the classroom during Thanksgiving, and Nina was being forced to eat chicken by Ms. Linda.”

Both eventually came to the conclusion that after Ashvita comforted Nina, a vegetarian, about the aforementioned chicken incident with the simple phrase, “I don’t eat chicken either,” they instantly became best friends. Both girls attended the Challenger School in Ardenwood until the eighth grade, and they are now attending SHS together.

In fact, Nina and Ashvita never expected to attend Saratoga High. After they graduated from Challenger, both of their families decided to move to Saratoga. Neither Ashvita nor Nina, however, knew that the other was moving. Once Nina told Ashvita that she would be attending SHS, Ashvita was taken back with surprise, as she said she would be as well.

It turns out that the girls’ parents had spoken to each other, and they decided to enroll Nina and Ashvita at the same school so they could continue their friendship.

On the first day of high school, the pair decided to arrive to their first class of the day, Spanish 1 with former SHS teacher Andrew Narva, 30 minutes early so they could walk to class together. Nina, however, not only walked into the wrong classroom (it was a class full of seniors), but arrived to the classroom at 7:48 a.m., while Ashvita had been there since 7:25 a.m.

“She’s always late to everything,” Ashvita sighed as she laughed at Nina’s habit.

Nina simultaneously finished the story with, “I felt so bad so I [was] texting her, asking if she [was] OK, and she [was] like, ‘obviously not!’”

Instead of reminiscing the potential negatives of the moment, the two still shook with peals of laughter.

When the two were in elementary school, they were constantly by each others side. They even created a “playtime schedule” which outlined when they could spend time together, and when they had to go and make other friends.

In the sixth grade, however, Nina and Ashvita were separated when Nina moved to Los Angeles to pursue her acting career. Yet, Nina said that despite everything that was changing around her, Ashvita remained her constant because even at such as young age, their bond did not weaken.

“I am an only child, yet at the same time I feel like I have a sister,” Nina said with utmost certainty and pride as she pointed to Ashvita.

At Saratoga, Nina and Ashvita experienced for the first time what it was like to be friends in an environment where students had multiple venues to find their niche. For instance, Ashvita who enjoys science, found a group of friends who shared the same interest while Nina found her niche with her peers in the MAP program, and later within the drama department.

Nina and Ashvita could feel themselves growing apart, and their parents began noticing this too.

“[Our parents] were like, ‘We put you in this school together so you could have each other, but it’s okay, friends grow apart’,” Nina said. “But both of us were like ‘No, that’s not going to happen.’”

To make up for the fact that the two don’t have as much time to spend together, physically, they have come up with alternative ways to keep their friendship strong. For instance, they both participate in school events, such as History Day, that would allow them to spend more time together.

“We didn’t need to work as much as we did, but we just wanted to do it together,” Nina said. “It was just a good excuse.”

Additionally, the two video chat or call each for at least an hour a day. The girls share stories with each other, or just remain on each others Facetime as they attempt to concentrate on homework.

Since Ashvita and Nina have such varied interests, the girls said that they always have something to talk about, and for this reason, their friendship works really well.

“Because [we are] so different, we learn from each other every day,” Ashvita said.