Jab We Met
It is 22 years and counting. I am fond of him. And he has given me wings. This week was about friends and lovers. So here's the 'friend and lover'.
“YOUR HANDS ARE SOFT. I LIKE THEM.”
I shouted in his ears making sure that my little ‘move’ isn’t drowned in the incessant honking of the traffic and the constant chatter of the capital. We were in an auto.
It was 2001 or 2002. It had been a few months since the UPSC coaching—a rite of passage for all Biharis—had gotten over and I was going home.
We were somewhere in Old Delhi between Outram Lines and the Paharganj end of the New Delhi Railway Station. My train was scheduled to leave at 8.40 pm. We still had a couple of hours.
I held his palm—his big-ish soft, chubby, safe palm— in mine. I took the liberty to hold his hands—to feel a little closer to him—and he didn’t mind.
There were other occasions when I had been closer to him. Like, riding his kinetic around North Campus while he rode pillion worried at my skills to assess a pothole or to understand the traffic light, or, sitting next to him in the class with endless supplies of Monaco biscuit, Britannia cake and water, or, simply gouging his arm with a very sharp pencil for at least five minutes (don’t ask why but it could have been the case that I wanted to see how his skin would respond to the graphite tip. DON’T ASK!).
But THIS seemed more… grown up. Like second base.
The winter air filled the auto. His palm filled mine.
Our first encounters were more like sightings (or hear-ing, in my case).
He had first noticed my feet.
I was at the reception of this Mukherjee Nagar coaching centre—enquiring about the timings, dates, fees etc—with one of the UPSC bhaiyyas. He was a cousin of a friend of a friend. They are found in abundance in these parts. Udit was sitting somewhere in that reception area.
“That chipped parrot green nail paint was terrible”— he recalls observing. I can't imagine putting it unless it was some sort of truth or dare.
“And who is this idiot she is with”— he had observed. And judged.
Having done all the enquiries, I left that day with a prospectus in hand and without noticing him. I remember neither the nail paint nor that bhaiyya.
*
I, on the other hand, heard him first.
I joined ATOM Coaching Classes (Yes! That was the name). It was day one. All the students—must have been some 70 odd—had to introduce themselves. The introductions went on for quite sometime. It was interesting in the beginning but then I started to lose track and interest. And then I heard this voice—“I am Udit. I am from D School…”
NICE VOICE. I thought. The doodling stopped, my ears perked, eyes widened, I looked up, the voice came from my right, beyond the pillar.
The voice stuck, the content melted.
There was a splutter of laughter. Udit had cocked a snook at D school—a relief, I guess, for the entire mostly Hindi speaking, non-D School crowd, after all the snobbish introductions by a bunch of his other batch mates.
I craned my neck. And peeped from behind the pillar.
Udit, still talking with a little naughty smile and a twinkle in his eyes, was in a white t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans with a light stubble.
This was his best look; on days he shaved he looked like a ubla anda—a boiled egg. In fact, since I only saw him in white during those three months of coaching, when I met him a few months later in Ranchi for a wedding I couldn’t recognise him because he was in a black t-shirt.
Anyhow, the only thought that tsunami-d in my head that day was —“Only if we were friends.”
Friends Not Lovers.
*
We became friends. And here he was dropping me off at the station.
As far as I recall he had bought my tickets from a very dodgy tout, in one of those shady first floor 2 ft by 2 ft offices in Paharganj. I couldn’t believe that someone like Udit had approached a tout for a ticket. He has problems even dealing with non-tout like people, so this was a HUGE step.
So, he wanted to make sure the ticket wasn’t bogus. And if it were, he should at least be around to take the blame!
It was a valid ticket. I was on side lower. With my luggage tucked and chained under my seat, I turned towards the window. Udit was there with a bottle of water and a biscuit packet. “Just in case,” he said. Once again flashing his little naughty smile and twinkling eyes. He stood at the window. I was tempted to hold his hand again. Instead I started telling him of the time I lost all my luggage on this very train.
We had time to kill, you see.
The story left him a little concerned. There was nothing much for him to do except perhaps get on the train. Which he couldn’t, so he did the next best thing.
He reached for his wallet. Fished out a very red passport size photograph of himself (of when he was 18) and placed it on my palm.
“This will keep you safe.” He looked into my eyes and said.
I quickly slipped the photo in my wallet.
Nothing much really happened but something shifted that day.
For Udit, this was his commitment to our friendship.
For me, it was my assurance of being in safe hands.
The train was on time. My life was on track.
*
This July it will be over 22 years of being friends.
At the Ochre Sky Writing Workshop, when asked to write about things you learned from the people you love, this is what I could come up with for Udit.
For setting the ground rule to keep ourselves happy instead of others.
For keeping the child alive in us.
For getting up in the middle of the night to oil my hair because it feels itchy.
For dropping everything (sleep, writing a piece, going for a podcast) to listen to my pieces.
For feeding me apples during my periods because “you need iron”.
For learning to make my favourite mattar ka jhor after my accident. (Sort of a green peas curry)
For being the patient receptor of my quarterly howling sessions which could be triggered by anything such as “there was a sumo in front of my car in the traffic, I couldn’t see anything …”and cue.
For saying “Better out than in”—for tears, burps and farts.
For giving me wings to fly. He was fucking scared when I was going to Kabul but not once did he say ‘don’t go’!
This is a combination of essays of two prompts by and at the Ochre Sky Workshop. Ways in which you find love!
Savvy, yaar! Why so cute 💙 my heart turned into a puddle
This was lovely! Cheers to friendship, cheers to love.