Sure, yeah
It was a cool Monday evening. I had just sat down with my parents to have chai when my phone rang. It was Sahil (name changed coz he shy): a dear friend of mine from school, who is notorious for disappearing off the face of the earth whenever he feels like it.
In school, Sahil was a skinny, fidgety, mildly socially awkward lad. Something about him reminded me of Sid from Ice Age. His brain made him stand out: being a serial quizzer, our man was famous for being extremely well read. I guess this was the foundation of his belief that knowledge should be easily available to everyone: he now spends time uploading titles onto free online databases. In the last several months, I have appointed him my personal digital librarian; he has a knack for hunting down pdf versions of sought-after books and papers in the wilderness of the world wide web.
I did beat him in quiz once though. During library period one day, the librarian was conducting a quiz for the class, as she often did.
“Which islands off the coast of Africa are named after dogs?” she asked.
“Canary Islands,” I answered.
Sahil whipped around with a “How did you know?” that he pestered me with for the remainder of the day as well. Apparently, my shrug wasn’t a satisfactory answer.
Soon after we completed school, his father got posted elsewhere and they moved out of the city. Our physical separation was eased by the common thread of us both heading into law school, albeit different ones. I made sure we kept in touch. But it was difficult.
I’m a self-proclaimed texter. I am very comfortable expressing my thoughts through the eloquent dance of my fingertips across the keyboard. I often prefer texting to a phone call because it gives me the opportunity to properly frame what I mean to say, and respond at my leisure. Sahil, not so much. He’s very iffy when it comes to text messages and will often leave people on read, a habit that drives me up the wall.
It took me a while to learn to not take personally the blue ticks I received in response to my concern. I took time to understand that my longing for connection was not unreciprocated. The rules regarding the concept, means, necessity and frequency of communication were written differently in his head. I learned that the pain caused by his lack of response was unintentional. He was just wired differently: though he felt bad that I was hurt, he couldn’t really help it.
Over the months of lockdown and quarantine, I learned to forgive these ‘sins’ of his, and to truly accept him as he was. We made up for the years we’d been out of touch. I would message him, and he’d reply a week later. Or sometimes not at all. And then call a month later to apologize for not responding. As I found out, he was more than willing to speak on call, and could regale me with his tales for hours. He also randomly sent me YouTube links to songs that we’d vibe to, and suggestions on what to read next.
While I usually consider video calls an invasion of privacy that cause unwarranted spikes in insecurity regarding one’s appearance, I had no qualms video calling Sahil even while half asleep. There’s something comforting about being with a person who’s so aware of his own ridiculousness that he’d never judge you for yours. It’s easy to let your guard down around him and be your own weird self.
Sahil is one of my favourite people in the world.
So when he called out of the blue and asked me to meet him at the signal in ten minutes, I flipped. We hadn’t met in years! I hurriedly gulped a few sips of my chai, donated the rest to the needy/willing, changed and flew out of the house.
Walking down, I spotted a wiry lad wearing large black headphones on the other side of the road, curiously checking out the ‘novelty’ shops he passed. I called out and waved, and in trying to cross the road our man was nearly run over by a tractor, owing to the aforementioned headphones.
I suddenly felt small beside him; maybe I had forgotten how tall he was. He explained that he used to slouch in school but now walked like a baws. It made me happy to see him at ease in his skin, and I admired how much he’d grown.
And yet, sitting across him over coffee a few minutes later, I realized he was fundamentally still the same. His sense of humour, bordering on the offensive and laced with self-deprecation, may aptly be described as khatara. His laugh is even funnier than his stories. I’d missed him so much.
It was soon time for him to leave.
As we made our way out, Sahil put his arm around me and said, “Nice meeting broo.” My arm too went up in response, and we traipsed down the stairs in ungainly step. Once outside, the side hug turned into a full hug, and it hit me how long it had been. “I’m really glad we got back in touch, you know”, he said into my shoulder. “I love you.”
It’s so refreshing to spend time with someone who freely expresses what they feel. In a world where burying feelings and presenting a clean, unruffled façade is idealized, it is common to see emotional expression dialled down to a suitably insipid level. Not Sahil though. It’s thrilling to find someone who loves equally fiercely, and does justice to its expression. The purity and simplicity of his love is so endearing.
I often wonder how I can love so many people, and each so much. How can so many wonderful humans fit inside my little heart? I am sometimes so full of love for someone that I think I will burst. And yet, somehow there is always more love to give.
I found Sahil an auto, and we said goodbye with another tight hug. I remembered to take a hasty selfie, only the second picture of us in nearly seven years of friendship. Before either of us got too emotional, Sahil packed himself into the auto with promises of meeting again soon, and it frrrrr’d away into the night.
An additional benefit of wearing a mask was that nobody could see me walking (bouncing?) back home with a stupidly wide grin on my face.
