January 16, 2013

'The People I Don't Meet'

"Classmates ke sath gye the?", asked I was, in course of multiple questions that followed up my arrival home after a ten day long trip.
"Nahi. Mere branch ka koi nhi tha unme se."

"Achchha..fir tumhare hostel wale rahe honge sab ke sab." 
It wasn't a question, yet an incorrect deduction I thought I should set right.
"Nahi. Mere hostel wale bhi nahi the wo sab."
*

I don't even see them everyday.
But then again, there are so many other people I don't see often. Yet, the daily or weekly or monthly interaction I have with them is by no means any less pleasurable.
They are the ones who make the return to the lonely hostel-room less loathsome.
They are the people who are missed when the internet is down. :P
Separated by space or owing to the changing times or both...
...they are the people I don't (get to) meet.

***

The Godmother 

'I will kill you' is her favourite line by far. Her phone calls carry that definitive threatening tone. And she makes me 'eat jaggery and die' ...again and again :D
I first talked to her when I tried to fix her up with my friend, the Godfather. It didn't happen. Not until June 13th, 2008. So, initially I used to talk to her now and then 'cause she was my best friend's girlfriend; but gradually she bullied me into believing that I should be glad to have known her. I truly am.

I wonder if Godfather realises that the things I usually do for him on his b'day or otherwise, I always have a set of instructions. She should be an app for plan-making. One moment she would be flying to Ranchi and the other moment cursing me for not materialising in Delhi along with Godfather. The next day it might all be about a reunion back at our school. She calls with a problem and then herself comes up with 3 probable solutions. She laughs. She curses. She cares.
And in all this time I have met her only twice.

Last Meeting: July 8, 2012
***

Sir Jee

'Sir, I have joined NIT, Rourkela', I wrote in his Orkut Scrapbook. I thought I would see him around in the campus in a day or two. He found me two hours later.
After leaving school I had developed the notion that there was no point keeping in touch with the people of past. He made me realise how wrong I was. All that he did for me then and in days to come will keep me forever following him. And it isn't a bit hard as he is perpetually online. :P

He ceased to be my favourite senior for a while when I received a resounding slap from him. (I was talking while he was the prep monitor.) But then he regained the position when we went for the 'Odyssey'. Today, he is the first stop to my day to day queries. And he has to bear with Godmother even more than me. Respect Sir.
Treat when we meet!

Last Meeting: Jan 2012
***

Dubs

Somehow, I always miss his calls. (And that pisses him off big time. He thinks I do that purposefully. Well, not always.)
We became better friends after leaving our boarding school. Back in Kota, his place was the only place I could go to. Supportive and funny in his own strange way, he is the person I love to irritate. You can irritate him even on chat. Just reply with one of these words : k , hmm , lol , watever. 
Now in BIT, Patna, he is not that far. Still, the same holiday timings of ours, ensures that he is at his home when I m back in Patna. Perhaps he blames me for that too.
Watever.

Last Meeting: May 2011
***

Jai Jagat

She often checked me for biting my nails and not eating properly. She told me once that if I ate properly, I would flatten girls. She knows I took it too seriously. Not the eating part though.
Like Sir Jee, she too was my favourite person back in the school. I would find her on her way around the school just to say 'Jai Jagat' (a slogan we had picked up during our participation in an outstation literary fest where we got acquainted).

I forgot her after she left school. Almost an year later, I received a good luck card from her for my upcoming 10th boards. I replied to it three months later. And this initiated the most 'intelligent' and pleasant exchange of mails I have ever had. Weekly letters, email-forwards, poems, problems, I made her listen to it all. Those initial out-of-school-stuck-in-Kota days were made easy by it all. She remains one of my favourite persons and certainly at the top of my people-to-meet list. :)

Last Meeting: March, 2006
***

అనూషను

'I don't know you, just a fellow Oakgrovian', I told her. But I knew her from somewhere. Some incident that I just cudn't recall. So we discussed how and where we might have come across each other. We never closed in on a definite answer.
The placement season was on. I was hardly doing a good job at keeping the tension at bay. Perhaps thats why Lord Brahma brought her in the picture. A week later, I was placed. Naturally, I clung on to this lucky charm I had found.
 ఏ మాయ చేసావే  :P
I may not have known her for long, but I know she knows a lot about good music. All in all, in her own words, its 'ice' to have known her.
Bagunanu.

Last Meeting: Never met
***

Sister Little

She was my brother's classmate back in O.G. I don't clearly remember how I came in touch with her. But I did and I would be forever glad for that. Her too, I never knew back in the school. (I was a dumb*** back in those times. Too preoccupied with my own self to bother about anybody else.)
She holds me in a much higher esteem than she should. I m always too lazy to follow up on the innovative ideas and interesting activities she keeps bringing to my notice.
She is my store-house of regard and best wishes. I just hope I do better by her in times to come. :P

Last Meeting: Never met
***

The Hell Boys

It was a big gang. While the ties with other classmates from school diminished, with these three the connection always remained. We shared the same corner of the dormitory, sat nearby in class, all of us were in the F.C.Stimulus main team. Two of them were the best sprinters in the school. In class eighth we could run the 4x100 m relay in 47 seconds.
Today, one of them is studying rocket science. I keep in touch with hope of getting a ticket to moon through him someday.
The second is in Bangalore and I most probably will be seeing a lot of him six months from now.
The third, perennialy football crazy, draws up a plan every year for the return of the F.C. Stimulus to Back Pitch.
Inshaallah boys. Bounce back. Soon.

Last Meeting: June 2009
***

The post may end but the list doesn't.
Abhi bhi 'dimaag pe zor padta hai to' I remember the Nablas I met in Kota. We might not meet but sharing those 'Michael memories' are always a treat.
I still knock onto my old quiz partner though he insists he has long given up serious quizzing.
7,089,360,000 of us live on this planet. There's an ancient Chinese myth about the red thread of fate, its said the gods have a red thread around everyone of our ankles and attached to all the people whose lives are destined to touch. This thread may stretch or tangle...but it'll never break.


******* 
Rights to exaggeration and bragging reserved.
No characterisation intended. 
Everything is relative to your perspective.