As I speed down slopes on my bicycle with the cold wind biting into my skin I am transported to dark alleys in a different part of the country. We didn't have a bike then and we certainly weren't in any hurry. I remember then that my mind wasn't filled with questions, a to-do list or a mental inventory of what is in the fridge to fix a meal with, it was filled with the sound of your chatter as we walked down lanes like tributaries off a road that was mistakenly called loafers lane. I still hold the opinion that it should be called rat lane to warn every other 17 year old about what on first sight looks like an earthquake but is actually a rat pack on the same prowl as us.
I haven't forgotten any of it, or maybe my mind reconstructs the portions that I have forgotten. However you see it I will always have a memory of us silly 17 year olds heading out as often as we were hungry looking for the latest to eat in the little shops that dotted Vasanth Nagar. How brave we were setting out into cold, dirty, often dark streets, looking for meaning on the pretext of finding a good meal. By the end of our year I could navigate the streets better than any auto driver, a habit we carried into the discovery of lanes behind RT Nagar filled with the mouth-watering goodness of fresh kebabs (that come to think of it I never ate!). I wonder if they would be surprised, our 17 year old-full-of-faith-in-the-future selves, that though our lives turned out nothing like we expected, so did our friendship, across geographies that span continents and multiple oceans.
Oh we were silly weren't we, forsaking the surety of a meal every night for our adventures on that little strip of networking hopes. I wouldn't change a thing. Not from that year at least.
We have come a long way from that simpler time where our greatest worries were managing a princely rent of Rs. 3,000 and waking up in time for class, or in your case convincing people that I really wasn't addicted to drugs- that sleep was my poison of choice. They wouldn't believe the horrors we now tell each other of or the depth of anger we can feel for other people who caused those stories to be each others' truth.
I still have our book of meticulously kept accounts. They remind me of a happier if frugal time, times that neither of us would have sought to add a descriptor to, consider a benchmark.
I can still hear your voice when you sent me that message- "His loss. He has
nothing. No spine, no you". It was the first time I had laughed since that great tragedy that we let seep into our lives then. I remember you telling me later about you, my all consuming worry that you laughed at and even got mad at me about. I worry because I can't confuse you with the anger I feel on your behalf, I worry because you will walk into structures with your heart on your sleeve making friends with people whom you love more than yourself- with people who love themselves more than they appreciate you and your distinct brand of care. I wonder if you remember that time on the terrace. I had just walked in and saw you crying about somebody who wasn't fair to you and took off in a range about just what would be done to that person. What I remember most bout that night, other than the biting cold, is your confusion at my anger and how that night turned into you calming me down instead of the other way around.
We have our memories don't we, that nobody else would understand; The very best and the very worst. So here's to you dear flatmate/faultmate and our plan of retiring at 30 to explore Africa as we did once Karnataka.
You bloody well make it that far if I will, we have vineyards to explore and men to heap hate on.
I haven't forgotten any of it, or maybe my mind reconstructs the portions that I have forgotten. However you see it I will always have a memory of us silly 17 year olds heading out as often as we were hungry looking for the latest to eat in the little shops that dotted Vasanth Nagar. How brave we were setting out into cold, dirty, often dark streets, looking for meaning on the pretext of finding a good meal. By the end of our year I could navigate the streets better than any auto driver, a habit we carried into the discovery of lanes behind RT Nagar filled with the mouth-watering goodness of fresh kebabs (that come to think of it I never ate!). I wonder if they would be surprised, our 17 year old-full-of-faith-in-the-future selves, that though our lives turned out nothing like we expected, so did our friendship, across geographies that span continents and multiple oceans.
Oh we were silly weren't we, forsaking the surety of a meal every night for our adventures on that little strip of networking hopes. I wouldn't change a thing. Not from that year at least.
We have come a long way from that simpler time where our greatest worries were managing a princely rent of Rs. 3,000 and waking up in time for class, or in your case convincing people that I really wasn't addicted to drugs- that sleep was my poison of choice. They wouldn't believe the horrors we now tell each other of or the depth of anger we can feel for other people who caused those stories to be each others' truth.
I still have our book of meticulously kept accounts. They remind me of a happier if frugal time, times that neither of us would have sought to add a descriptor to, consider a benchmark.
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| We're so pretty I couldn't pick just one picture :P |
nothing. No spine, no you". It was the first time I had laughed since that great tragedy that we let seep into our lives then. I remember you telling me later about you, my all consuming worry that you laughed at and even got mad at me about. I worry because I can't confuse you with the anger I feel on your behalf, I worry because you will walk into structures with your heart on your sleeve making friends with people whom you love more than yourself- with people who love themselves more than they appreciate you and your distinct brand of care. I wonder if you remember that time on the terrace. I had just walked in and saw you crying about somebody who wasn't fair to you and took off in a range about just what would be done to that person. What I remember most bout that night, other than the biting cold, is your confusion at my anger and how that night turned into you calming me down instead of the other way around.
We have our memories don't we, that nobody else would understand; The very best and the very worst. So here's to you dear flatmate/faultmate and our plan of retiring at 30 to explore Africa as we did once Karnataka.
You bloody well make it that far if I will, we have vineyards to explore and men to heap hate on.
