Something of Myself

These are the things that you missed...and I just wanted to set the records straight, so that if you bumped into me some years down the line, we could just begin the conversation where we left.

But then I thought if I put it over here, you'd be a bit miffed - ours was a special relationship and it will always be. So try as I may, I won't be able to unpack the stuff before all and sundry.

Suffice to say, you've missed a lot and you were missed all the way. I wish you were here. I would need so much from you. Your smile, your laughter, your tears, your voice, your smell, your touch, your being you, your being tough, your being annoyed, your being sentimental, your being different, your being exclusive, your being unique, and many other sides of you is what I miss the most. But then, somewhere I have convinced myself that you are with me always. Within. Inside. Away from the rest. Only for my consumption. Feeding my desires, backing my back-up plans, and springing up like mushrooms in the face of adversity. You are the reason I am witnessing everything that you are missing.

Ironic. I am not melancholic. Just this: every corner, every inch, every singular detail seems incomplete without you. Even my name. My identity. The very words that etch the 'I' and the 'Me' and the 'Us' to be...I hope you are listening, somewhere, just like I feel you around me.

Please note that you left not one, but two widows behind. They wait, till this day, for your return, knowing fully well that it is not to be. But hoping that you will pass by them, like a stranger who wears a familiar perfume, and smells like God.

He was no more than 14. The yellow tee he was wearing had the company's logo printed on it. Together with it, he was sporting a half-torn khaki. He was selling a business weekly at the traffic signal. He approached me as I waited for the lights to turn green and requested me to buy a copy.

'It's only 10 rupees babu', he pleaded. And when I told him that we get such mags free at our office, this is what he did:

He leaned on the window and gave me a huge smile. A smile which instantly made me feel like his friend. It said too many things at once. Like, 'please buy a copy.' Like, 'can you give me a ride?' Like, 'can we be friends?'

Strange but true. Then he went around the car and curiously inspected the 'Press' sticker and tried to match the alphabets that spelt my company's name with the mags that he was selling. He stood there for a minute and realised he would not be able to sell me a copy largely because I worked for that very magazine.

He came around to me and gave me another smile.

There was something about this kid - not dying out of hunger or anything but sheer innocence. His smile was not a sales gimmick. It was REAL. It came from his inside.

It made my day. Something about his smile. It was wonderful to know that someone, a total stranger, totally different in every way, made a little effort just to reach out to me. It never appeared as a big deal as I waited for the lights, but when I drove past him and saw him in the rear mirror (as he was running towards the footpath), I wished I bought a copy.

It would have made his day. Easily. Because my smile lacked everything that his smile, so effortless captured.

I wish we could be friends.