Murmurs

I want to go to that place sit on the grass on that hillock, look at the expanse field that would end on a village spread like a length of a cloth, a muffler and wonder it that village really existed. I want to wonder on what kind of people lived in that village and think someday I would walk across that field past a small rivulet and reach that village. I never did, I never will. Probably I was not older than 10 years then, I loved sitting on the hillock in the evenings when me and my family went to Jhapa on Dashain holidays to celebrate the festival with my paternal relatives. We used to make a fan out of the dry layer of the bamboo, put it at the end of a handle (stick) and run to see it rotate. Those were the small things that made me happy, perhaps many kids still run with those “Firfire” and boast their fan rotated faster than others. I want to watch the people who returned home on those evenings from the small tracks in the fields. Those were no tracks for real but as people walked up and down through those field linings, the grasses would die underneath the footsteps of the passersby and a track used to be ready. Those tracks were small but they would lead to market faster, they would lead to destination faster. Human nature does not change as of these days we look for faster tracks to destination. Anyways I have no intention to discuss human nature, they are beyond my capacity. Many of those passersby might have been mixed with clay and if rebirth really happens many of them might be in their teen age, who knows many of them might have died again and taken another birth. I want to feel the whiff of air on my face like splash of water. I want to make futile attempts to hold those dry clay on my hand, I want to listen to the whistle of the bamboos. I want to say if I knew growing up wouldn’t have been fun I wouldn’t have grown up but that is not possible. Growing up is not something one does by choice, we just grow up. Mundane life…

I want to smell the smoke of the firewood that burnt to cook food for people in our village, I want to smell the wet paddy in the mills. Look for fish in that small stream in front of our house. I want to visit the garden and look at the parrots. I want to be surprised to see people climb those tall coconut trees and wonder at how the tender looking banana tree could hold such large number of bananas each facing downward.

I have only been a witness to that life never a participant, someone brought up in the city but never learned to adapt to the so called city life. My 10 month old perhaps wouldn’t even be a witness to those thing. Not every long back on the trip to Dhangadi when I visited a marsh and walked past the village I wanted to embrace the life out there, be part of it.

Those who went to see in Dashain holidays are no longer in this world or should I say in the firm and feature that I would recognize and hence no visits to that place in memory. The layers of rust in memories are thicker and I can recollect very few things. I can’t say for sure if I have a soft corner for that place though I can say for sure I am indifferent to my relatives who still make their living there. Just today out of nowhere I remembered that village, those evenings. When I touch my cheeks with my palm today there are no remains of soft clay blown by those whiffs but unfortunately those are not the same cheeks as well. They are rough not tender.

I want to hear the bells tied around the necks of cows that would ring as the herds of cattle returned to their shed guided by their shepherd after grazing the whole day in the jungle. I know the bells were tied so that the cattle would not go missing in the jungle and the shepherd could always track them but when the bells rang in rhythm it seemed they were tied to create a music. I want to look into the big eyes of those returning cows, into their fed bellies and look at the calves that would suckle the milk as if they have been hungry for years.

Life is not easy there, had it been no one from there would dream of coming to this city that I have not liked much. Life is not easy here, it is not easy there, it will never be.

Picking up a day from past

The temperature has only risen this week. Even falling asleep is difficult in the climate where the sky is breathing hot air. In the crowed concrete jungle of Kathmandu, cool breeze is a very rare commodity. That makes me sit under the clear sky in the night on the terrace of my house. Just a day before yesterday, I was relishing on the cool breeze in the night, the sky appealed me, it just lifted my chin to gaze it. Millions and millions of star hung in its expanse shawl. During my childhood, I used to read in science books and poems about the twinkling stars, I used to look at them but I never saw them twinkle because twinkling to me was going on and off the way the colorful lights do during Diwali. Till date I associate the term “twinkle” with lights going on and off. Sky specially the sky at Night has always mesmerized me; I get entangled in the fantasies, laden with so many questions. When loneliness and evening meet they make me nostalgic, so many men are reminded of pain and agony when they look into their past and luckily for me past has been wonderful, probably wonderful that present and they are wonderful because its past.

Anyways, that night under the elderly looking sky decorated with twinkling stars, I revisited my school life in my thoughts. The breeze became cooler as if it was blowing for those days. I remembered rising up early, finishing home assignments and rushing to school, to be part of a class where faces twinkled more than the stars. I cannot extract the meaning of the hubbub but I find music in it, music with no words but with soul. My friends are chatting, running, laughing and even crying. There are so many of those students who I still meet as job-holders, mothers, husband and wives, the impression of time is so clearly visible in them. Some of them are taller, some are chubbier, some have become serious, the faces have altered but the traits shaped by the childhood are somewhere there reminding we have known each other for a long time, very long time. Few have same cunning smile, some faces shine the same way when they laugh, some hands still move impatiently as they talk and some are still children though they have their own children. I sometime feel that childhood has not vanished, it hasn’t lost but its suppressed. When its friends we forget the age, when we meet after long time we remember good old days together reminding one another moments and events that have been rusted by the mighty time. Again matured people talk silly, laugh on silliest of comments, make fun of each other trying to make maximum out of it because when we disperse a different life awaits us. The shade of past vanishes in the dazzles of present. Back at home we have a different role to play because past is past, unrecoverable but sweet, distant yet very close, dream but that was a reality. It seems as if we are just the characters of a novel who sometime come out of the books, the books that only lie in the shelf. We come out, tug the layer of dust, hold each others hand, dance and sing, laugh and cry.

Change becomes something so visible and powerful. The laziest of us are now most active bankers, the flowing and dirty noses are dry and clean, the eyes have become frail and they need the support of glasses, beauties have turned into ugliness, ugliness are now beauties, bullies are empathetic, jokers are serious, mighty have become powerless, dummies have become scholar. Its not the change that is so significant it is what has changed that is so significant and loud.

I am so much captivated by past, by nostalgia because today few of us from our schools almost 10 years back are gathering an hour later. I am pleased, I am excited, I am so touched. I am excited to meet them, to seek my friends, classmates among the grown ups who I will be meeting a while later.

Golden tooth, brown hair, fair face and gap between the teeth

From a distant I could see the dying rays of Sun brightened only my house. The evening sun looked warm and charming as if it were smiling at me. My home seemed to smile back at me. On the courtyard of the house close to the road, a smiling grandfather had stretched his both hands; his body little bent luring a toddler who seemed to have just learnt to walk to come to him. I wanted to believe the sun would have a similar face if it were to take the look of a man. On the corner where the main road bade bye to a small path leading to my home, the wall read ‘Punk is not dead’. I do not know exactly what does that mean, but I like it somewhere, I like the way ‘Punk’ is written, the way ‘P’ is bulged. If Punk is not dead he/it/she is being lived by somebody else. I read that line whenever I realize there it is written, I take ‘is not dead’ to inspire myself. ‘Long live death metal’, a line that comes attached to signature in every mail from a friend comes in my mind. I like that passion, his passion in spite of the fact I run away from heavy metal etc.
At home the living room with books spread on the floor welcomes me. The unfinished homeworks of Sarita stares back at me and I take it for granted that she has sneaked into the other room to watch tv programs. I do not know which book is that but the image looks familiar, not even the image but the color, light pink. The image of the book vanishes and there gets stuck the image of cave-men roasting meat inside the cave. Their monkey looking face, wire like beard and their eyes focused on the fire brings before me the bare nature of the man, his greed. That is the image from ‘Social Studies’ book I studied when I was in grade 3, almost 16-17 years back. I am there in the living room bent, my body resting on my bent knees, pencil moving in my hand. I remember the golden tooth, the brown hair of my teacher, the gap between the teeth. She smiles back at me, soon I am in my 3rd grade classroom. Soon the noise fills in, few known faces few forgotten faces brighten up the whole environment. ‘Tukk Tukk’ a thin stick pats the blackboard. The golden tooth, the gap, the brown hair, the fair face and the stick have become inseparable in my memories. Once my brother told me a woman had recognized him, asked him what I was doing telling she had taught both of us. He didn’t remember her name, I asked him if she had golden tooth, fair face, brown hair, gap in the teeth. I must have been silly she might be looking completely different now but deep down I thought it was her. The next day I went to the shop described by him but didn’t find her, no one knew someone like her, someone with name ‘Ambika Shrestha’, I must have gone to wrong place or I must have guessed wrong. She looked so different from my mother except that she shared her first name with my mother I found her similar to my mummy. Why are few pictures, few people, few events get permanently written in our memory. The squatting cave men, the cave with faint carvings I cannot identify, the fire, the pink color and a steel lunch box of a friend whose name was carved in it (I don’t remember the name) they wag before me. I remember few faces and remember few names. Has time treasured these things inside its embrace, I wonder. My dog who had been taken out for a walk runs toward me after smelling my presence. Slowly the noise become silent, the image of the cavemen and their cave gets wiped away, the same image that was in Sarita’s book is there again. The golden teeth, grey hair, thin stick and the gap everything vanishes. Sarita comes gathers her things and I sit alone in the empty room refreshed, rejoiced but still missing things.

Pappu Can't Dance Sala!!!

What is eighteen years for earth but in a man’s life it’s a big span of time. Many times when I remember my childhood it seems perhaps I am thinking about somebody else’s life. How can I do that? Gauss, was I like that? These questions just never stop. In the process of growing up a man go up through so many alterations many times his life changes upside down. When I sit with a mug of tea watching the rain knocking slowly in the pane of my window, I sometime like to watch those memoirs dancing in the pain. Slowly the stream of water wipes them away; the vapor of the hot coffee makes everything so surrealist. I wish I was always like that.
While turning the photo album I encounter so many immortalized moments and one of them is from eighteen years back. The photo was taken when I was receiving an award from then Education Minister. Clad in a white uniform, the photo is taken just when I step to the podium with one leg raised little above the ground. I remember I got two prizes that day one for being the highest scorer in the class and other for being a participant in a dance show. I think there were two dances in which I participated perhaps in one it was me and some girl and the other was a group dance. That was the first time I was receiving an award, in fact that was the first time any event had been organized in our school. I do not remember the song in which I danced nor do I have bleakest images of other members of my group. I even do not remember getting any compliments for dancing but there were many compliments for scoring highest mark. I cannot imagine how a grade one child would feel while shaking hand with a minister. Probably my small hands must have disappeared inside his hand. I came home elated to show it to mummy as she had missed the program because she worked in an office which didn’t give her leave.
I never danced for many years, even if I did I do not remember. Mummy says she used to be a good dancer in school but I never saw her dance either until I was a full grown teen ager. Then I danced in the wedding of one of my cousins’ wedding. Its must have been fourteen years back. I tapped to the most popular hindi songs of that time. Everyone appreciated it and I danced for more than an hour remembering almost all the moves performed by the actors. I had jumped, shook my hip, did some trick in the floor etc. When I was doing a move which required me to raise myself on one hand moving the other pointed in the air, my uncle came running to me because he thought I had fallen down due to exhaustion. That was a great fun, and my relatives kept mentioning that dance for a pretty long time. No events followed in which I could show my dancing talent as I had now assumed I can dance well. Then again there was another wedding in the neighborhood where again I had chance to shake my body. To my own surprise I couldn’t perform any moves, I knew the moves yet I couldn’t bring it to life. To forget anything is never a relief, it usually ends up with frustrations. There were no events and I never danced at home because I had carved one thing in mind ‘Study is the first priority’ and always took other activities as waste of time. The sick competition never allowed me to pick a hobby; it was such a boring bookish childhood.
In college again I was the most boring student. If there was a decree of executing the boring people, I would have been the first pick. The people they try to depict as the boring and lousy character is no exaggeration I was more or less similar. I still look the same but not got a spring. In the undergrad I had the same image of an owl with a glass, icy bookworm. But by then I was a changed man in my real personal life, I loved to dance. Dance to me was just shaking, jumping being funny. I could remember all the steps, the movement of leg, the body posture, the expression and could actually visualize it but could never execute it. But dancing is all about enjoying oneself unless you dance to earn your living. I to date carefully watch the steps they do while dancing and can still visualize it but still cannot execute it. I have been a shy idiot though no longer any more. To kill one’s interest is a crime one commits upon oneself and I am my own criminal. Many times even when I had chance I shrouded myself and today I hate myself for doing that.
The dancing bug is still inside me in same spirit and vigor. I feel if I can completely ignore others presence and really dance for myself I can dance but no I just can’t do it. The bug had me completely in spell when I was in Trishuli, I was also gaining weight so somebody advised me dancing can help me loose weight. I got a good reason. In Trishuli I would wake up early put the head phones, pull the curtain, raised the volume of the song to its maximum and danced the same monkey dance. Whenever I listened the same song I knew what the perfect move should have been in a particular line and when I was actually dancing I danced like milk shake in the mixy. I loved to have that bug inside me, one morning I danced so much that when I completed and sat down to take some rest I could not stand up. I thought I had fainted. My whole body was aching. I was feeling terrible in my neck, my back was killing me and lets not talk about my legs. I had to take the day off because I just couldn’t move. It was so embarrassing. From the next day there was no morning dance yet I relished on my monkey’s game time and again.
During my parents’ anniversary though the most pathetic dancer I was the one who was always dancing never tired. Now everyone in our family knows about the dancing bug inside me. Then came one dashain when we had so many enthusiastic young people at our home, I danced with the kids, with the ladies with everyone like a maniac. That has gone in silver color in the history of my family. Now whenever there is any program one person is remembered when it comes to dancing. I can dance in the wedding in the streets along with the paid pipers. I am no ashamed of my interest though I wish I could actually dance. I sent one video of my dance to my cousin sister because I had never seen anything silliest in the name of dancing in my entire life. Though I should have been embarrassed for sending that video, Santosh was embarrassed.
Its been a while that I haven’t danced. I know I cannot dance but what’s wrong in enjoying the silly jumpings. When there are opportunities to enjoy life one should keep skills aside and just enjoy.

एउटा कविताको सम्झनामा

आज अलि हतारमा घर आँए। कुराहरु मनमा खेलिरहेका थिए, पोखिने आतुरीका साथ त्यो भन्दा हतार सायद मलाई थियो, ति कुराहरु बिलाएर जानु भन्दा अघि तिनलाई कतै खन्याउने। एउटा केटौले चञ्चलपन हावी भएको थियो सायद वा २६ वर्षको उमेर केटौले उमेरनै हो। सदा झैं म आएको थाहा पाउने बित्तिकै साने (मेरो कुकुर) दौडिएर तल मुल ढोकैमा पुच्छर हल्लाउँदै आइपुग्यो अनि फेरी म जुत्ता फुकाल्ने बेला मौका पाएर गालामा चाटिदियो। त्यो उसको दिनचर्याको एउटा हिस्सै भइसकेको छ अनि कम्मर मर्काउँदै म संग संगै माथि उक्लियो, उसको रुटिनको हिस्सा हो यो र यो सकिए पछि उ फेरी बरण्डा तिरै हानियो रमिता हेर्न। मैले कोठामा छिर्ने बित्तिकै मेरो ल्यापटप अन् गरें र लुगा फेर्न तर्फ लागें। लग अन गरें र हात खुट्टा धुन बाथरुम तिर लागें।
विशेष कुरा त केहि भएको होइन, लेख्नलाई विशेष कुरा भनेको मुड हो, विचार हो। विचारहरु त मानौं लेखिन पाउनु पर्ने अधिकारका लागि आन्दिलित थिए मानौं राजनितिको हावाले तिनीहरुलाई पनि छोएको होस्।विहान अफिसमा कविताका कुराहरु भईरहेका थिए। म आफैं पनि अफिसका दुई जना कविहरुलाई चिन्छु। दुवैले आ-आफ्नो कविता संग्रह निकालिसकेका छन्। आजको अनौपचारिक गोष्ठीमा ती दुई मध्य पनि एक मात्र थिए। कविताकै कुरा हुदैं थिए, कविताका साना साना टुक्राहरु सुन्ने सुनाउने क्रम चलिरहेको थियो र म आफ्नै क्याबिनबाट त्यसको मज्जा लिइरहेको थिएँ। कविता धेरै लेखियो स्कुलमा हुँदा ‘आजका हामी केटाकेटी’ भन्ने जस्ता, आजका केटाकेटी शान्तिका विषयमा, युद्धका विषयमा कविता लेख्छन। हामिले वाल्यकालमा अशान्ति अनुभवनै गर्नु परेन अनि अनुभवनै नगरेको कुरामा कविता पनि लेखिएन। स्कुलका कार्यक्रमहरुमा पढेर पनि सुनाइयो, उपहार पनि पाइयो। कति चोटि त साथीहरुले पनि मेरै कविता मञ्चमा सुनाए। कस्ता दिनहरु थिए ती देश, आमा, विध्यार्थी जीवन, कलम, किताब वाहेक कुनै विषय नै नआउने। नबुझ्ने हुँदै कति रमाइलो थियो संसार!
अन्तिम चोटि कविता लेखे पछि एक युगनै समाप्त भएछ क्यार, कहिले लेखियो यादनै छैन। कविता लेख्न गारो छ, म जस्ता कुनै विषयवस्तुमा बाँधिन नसक्नेले कविता लेख्नै सक्दैन।पागलको डायरी जस्ता हुन्छ मैले लेखेका कुराहरु, केहि नमिलेको, वीचबाट शुरु भई वीचमै अल्मलिएको अनि टुङ्गोमै नपुगी सकिएको। कविता कसरी लेख्ने मैले। तर एउटा कविताको खुब याद आउँछ, साथीलाई सम्झिएर डन बस्को कलेजमा कुनै टिफिन ब्रेकमा लेखिएको। स्कुललाई सम्झिएको, डेस्क अनि बेन्चहरुको नियास्रो लागेर लेखेको, डेस्कमा लेखिएका गीतहरु सम्झिएको। राम्रो भएर याद आएको होइन, चोखो भएर माया लागेको मात्र हो। कता पुग्यो होला त्यो कविता? भावना थाम्न नसकेर निस्किएका आँसु जस्ता ती कविताहरु। लय मिलाउन जथाभावी पोतिएका नभई, भावनालाई बाँध्न नियमहरु मिचिएको कविता। जसको लागि लेखें उसलाई पनि पठाएँ तिम्रै लागि भनेर लेखि पठाएँ। न खुशी लाग्यो भन्ने उत्तर आयो न घिन लाग्यो भन्ने नै आयो। आज पनि उ संग राम्रो सम्बन्ध छ, आज पनि उ नै सबैभन्दा मिल्ने साथी पनि तर कविताको सम्झना कहिले पनि भएन, बस् ठिटाहरुका कुरा आज पनि हाम्रो मुख्य विषयवस्तु। केटी अनि जागिरका कुराहरु, फुर्सदमा फिल्म हेर्न जाने योजनाहरु, पैसा नभएर गार्हो भएका कुराहरु त्यति मै हाम्रा भेटहरु टुङ्गिन्छन्। नराम्रा अनि फोहरी उपनामहरु बीच जिस्कनुको मज्जै बेग्लै छ, बाटोमा चल्दै हिंड्नुको मज्जै बेग्लै छ,कुनै काम बिना असनका गल्लीहरु अनि न्यु रोडमा केटीहरु हेर्दै राल काड्दै हिड्नुको मज्जै बेग्लै, फिल्म हल भित्र बसेर एक अर्कालाई किच-किच गर्नुको मज्जै बेग्लै छ। आजपनि हामी उस्तै, न्यु रोड परिवर्तन भयो, असनका गल्लीहरु झन् साँघुरिए होलान्, काठमाण्डुका छातीमा अझ सिनेमा हलहरु थपिए होलान् तर हामी त्यस्तै।
फेरी त्यहि कवितामा लागौं। जागिर खानु भन्दा अगाडि म एकदम नबोल्ने, घुलमिल हुन नरुचाउने, आफ्ना कुराहरु मनमै दबाएर राख्ने मान्छे। त्यो कविता मेरो डायरीभित्रै चुपचाप बसिरह्यो। एक दिन फेरी स्कुलको अर्की साथी मेरो घरमा आइन र मेरो टेबुलमा छरपस्ट भएर किताब, कापी र पान्नाहरु हेर्ने क्रममा सो डायरी उनको हातमा पर्यो। मेरो मिल्ने साथी भएकोले पनि र उनको हातमा परिसकेको डायरी खोस्ने आँट पनि नभएको हुँदा पनि मैले उनलाई त्यो कविता पढ्नबाट रोक्न सकिन। उनको अनौठो प्रतिक्रिया आयो- “तिमी त ठुला कविहरुले जस्तो लेख्दो रहेछौ” कस्तो ठुलो प्रतिक्रिया मेरा लागि, कुनै कविले नदिएको भए पनि त्यो वाक्य आज पनि म संग सुरक्षित छ। बच्चा जस्ति मेरी साथी तर पनि मेरो लागि ठुलो हौसला त्यस पछि त्यो कविता धेरैलाई देखाँए, खासै राम्रो कसैलाई लागेन तर मैले पुरस्कार पाई सकेको थिए। त्यो वाक्यको मर्यादा राख्ने आँट मलाई सायद फेरि आएन र कविता पनि सायद त्यो नै अन्तिम रह्यो।
अब लेख्दिन भन्ने कसम पनि खाएको छैन तर आँट गरेको पनि छैन। त्यो कविता खोज्ने विचार छ, गुगलले मेरो घरका पुराना बाक्साहरुबाट पनि फाइलहरु खोजिदिने भए क्या मज्जा हुन्थ्यो होला तर अपशोच…… भोलि खोज्नु पर्ला।

Friends,farewell and memories

Yesterday’s Saturday was quite an event. In spite of the mist of uncertainty we had a small get together of few friends. After getting out of the college two years back, there was no formal event when we had gathered to sit to bring the old days back to life. Bringing back the college days back to life does not mean we should sit and remember what we had done, how were those days. This is however a way in itself, but just a small gathering of faces that have been lost in the hastiness of life and in the struggle to seek an identity that is different from that of a student, can itself bring those old days to life. We did not sit to look back those events bringing the moments that from the mysterious dark into the flashes of today; neither did we try to formally miss the friends that couldn’t make it there due to several reasons. Even then the gathering itself was capable of simmering nostalgia. The other reason being to bid bye to three friends who will move on in their life to seek a destination of their own. We again did not make it a farewell gathering that will remind us of the crunching number of friends in the city. When we started our undergraduate degree we were almost thirty in numbers. When we were in the last semester there were around twenty seven and when we had gathered there we were less than fifteen presently in the country while only seven of us could make it to the gathering. Pushing the responsibilities, work and the chaos behind we were just jubilant students there with no care to the world yet with the desire to conquer it. In spite of a different truth we were exuberant about life. If next time we plan to sit we will have three people less, yes our presence is reducing. While two among us will fly abroad to pursue higher studies one will be married to India. Though we will have constant touch with the former two, yesterdays’ meeting with the latter could be the last one and we will miss her, miss her mischief, miss her accent, miss her contagious laughter when we will drown in the nostalgia of our college days. Those flying abroad will come back may be just only on vacation but we will be able to meet them and someday a similar day as yesterday could be arranged but I doubt if the three girls will be able to make it. We tend to expect what we think is most likely to happen; probably this was too early to sit back and remember the moments that escaped into the womb of unforgiving time, indifferent time. The fact is still there in the quest for survival, in the shackles of our own responsibilities we might not get bountiful of time to look back into the memories, but even if we managed to remember them once we will miss those faces, would loose ourselves in assumption how would they be doing, where would they be and how would they look. If we are old enough we might drop tears out of compassion even if not a bleak smile will compliment our aura. In my college years I never got close to any girls, this was not a conscious act, it just happened. With boys my relation was same to all and I never belonged to any group which we had in our class. Not belonging to a group can sometime be painful specially when there are events, in the break, in any other programs while most of the batch-mates will be busy with their own group, I had to behave as if I were an outcast. I would never fit in to any groups, especially in the earlier days when I was a recluse. Though I could mix up well with few class mates very well, I never thought I will ever miss the college days. I had my own reservations against coming closer to any class mates. I must have been happy with few friends I had. In fact I had only two friends, apart from them I was alien to most of others. I was tagged arrogant, aloof and an introvert; I never tried to break this image, I never cared to. Even when I was all of sudden a funny creature it was never a conscious decision.
Seriously, I never thought I would miss faces from my class. I never in my dreams imagined that I would like to be in touch with many of them even after the college. I never doubted I will ever write something like this in my entire life. Today as I write this, just the feeling of the fact that I will probably never see few faces my entire life is making my heart feel cold.
Actually I have always been very sensitive to departure and once I told a friend that I must have lost someone in my previous life (I don’t think I believe in previous life) who I loved the most and my life must have gone out of track because of that, so even in this life departures chills me to bone. They actually do. I have always treasured memories and whenever someone passes into memories they become special in their own way. Either you love them too much or you hate them to extreme. I might take days to find a one particular person who I hate but there are innumerous names and faces I love. I have always had friends who were very close and very special but they have come and they have left with no thinnest string of connection between us. In my higher secondary I regarded few friends as friends for life but they slipped away just like dry sand slips away from fist. Time acted like a whiff that blew away that sand, they blew them far away to their deserts I might never navigate, even if I do they will be different altogether. The number of friends has grown from two to higher and I know most of them are friends for life now. Even then I will miss those who had gathered yesterday. One day or other there will be only memories left, communication will reduce and eventually it will lose with most of them though not will all of them. If anything will be there then it will be memories, sweet memories.

Friends

While returning from airport after seeing off a friend, I realized that now there is one person less who I will call when feeling bored at office, when thinking about talking to someone. I knew I will miss those long chats without head and tail, laughing without reason and seeking naughty meanings in every sentence. Another thing was just denying leaving my thoughts, while getting in my friend had tried to seek something in the eyes of his father. The look was serious as if they were drenched in pain to leave the beloved home. Possibly seeking advices from someone who has always been there to advise on what to do and what not to do. I watched the eyes of his father which took an excuse to look into the eyes of his son. He pretended to have missed the look of his son’s eyes but I can tell for sure he had seen those eyes. Though with best wishes for his son, there must have been pain to see the departing son. The fact that he will return does alleviate the pain but still parents are parents. When one needs eyes to speak, then there is always something that human vocabulary fails to cover.
Just a moment later the friend who was at the distance of a phone call was to land into the unseen world, to seek glory for his career. Of course he can still be reached with phone call but emotions fall victim before the prowess of economy. We console ourselves with remembrances and memories. When I was strolling back to office, his face and his smile refused to exit from memories. A whiff of his gestures, appearance, words, wit and wisdom took my mind to an entirely different state. I have always been sensitive to departures and more than that he had been a very good friend, a caring one and also the one who had advices when I needed it the most. Even today I tend to dial his number forgetting he cannot be accessed thus. Then I think he should have got to his place by now and he could send mail anytime. But yes as stated earlier, I have bid bye to someone who I regularly called and talked. Best of luck to my friend!!!
From his very early history men have loved to be with creatures like himself i.e. with other men. It must have provided them security and help. When they invented agriculture they needed help as farming individually was not possible. Man has always been emotional; he has always needed love and support. From very early age children prefer to be with someone like themselves. Yes, man is social by instinct.
I have had good friends from early years of my life. As I gaze the 26 years I have left behind, I remember many faces that I liked. In spite of this I have never been someone with large number of friends. I can call it a complexity in my behavior or personality though having good terms with every class mate or colleague and with amicable mannerisms I felt free with very few of them. No-one chooses friends with care or with plan, friendship just happens. When few of my friends get numerous calls everyday and have loads of people around them; by calling people not greater than 5 I finish my list of friends who I have to wish a happy new year.
I am basically a loner, someone who enjoys talking to oneself more and pushing ones thoughts to limits than chatting with others. Few days back I was contemplating on few wish lists as the curtain of rain veiled the horizon from my sight, in most of them I didn’t want to be with anyone but just with myself. Maybe I am a sadist.
I have had best of friends and we being utilitarian just lost the hold once we parted ways in life neither swearing to forget nor promising to be in touch. Had there been promises and if breaking promises are sin, we would have been the greatest sinners. Friends at schools, at colleges etc. have come to life and have gone and countable few are in touch. With few the strings of connection so gaunt that they are in the verge of breaking and with least it is as strong as it had been.
Though the need for friend is independent of age, I believe teen age is the time of life when the most important people in life are friends. The world is so beautiful in their presence; everything is so helpful and easy when they are around. They know the girl you like, they know the song you sing, and they know everything about you as if they live your life more than you live it yourself. I have been to that phase. I had just one friend who I cared like I cared no one in the whole world. I still remember the evening gloomed in tears when I bid him farewell at a local bus station. Waiting for his letters was so much a pain and I expected every day this is the day when I will have his letter which never came. I had become more of a recluse while my friend was struggling with his own problems. Memories of those lonely days still torment me. The only thing that I know now is that when he was in the country last time I couldn’t even manage to meet him, he was no important any more. We learn to live life as it comes because deep inside us we know there is not much we can do.
When college grew familiar I thought I had friends with whom I will never part ways. Time proved it is mightier than anyone and today I don’t even know where they are. But there are people from your schools and colleges you are always in contact not because they are special but because you keep meeting them. There are few friends from school and colleges I have been with me though not by choice. Yet my best of friends are from my school and college who I am proud to have.