Yours Sincerely

Dear Gupta,

I remembered you over the weekend, thanks to a conversation with someone[1]. When I did that, I went into an ironical tight loop – I wished I remembered you more often, and at the same time your memory evoked a deep sadness inside me! Why am I wishing to evoke sadness more often? I wouldn’t know.

The way you left us (myself, Mu, Ma, Noo) was shocking. We four weren’t the closest friends to you. It was more of a distant friendship and admiration. Ofcourse, a good deal of tutelage from your side. It is safe to say that what I have become in life as a human isn’t something that you (or anyone) would have imagined me to become. That doesn’t change the fact that you gave me at least an year of head start in my development process. I am not making any claims that you changed my life – you did not. You did accelerate my development process by helping me cover my basics when I had to. That apart, you taught me humility on the way back from Trichy to Chennai after our successful participation in Festember (1998?) in NIT, Trichy. The question that you asked “What if that was my father? Wouldn’t you have done the same?” humbled me and that’s the most painful question I have ever faced. As I said earlier, I would have reached the same realization eventually.

We might have failed in sustaining the award we created in your memory. We did manage to do that only for 5 years or so. That doesn’t imply that you aren’t in my memories anymore or that I am not indebted to you.

I did not get a chance to convey this to you or to anyone in the past (I did convey this to some extent to that “someone[1]” though). Hence, I am keeping it here for my record.

Yours Sincerely,

~A

[1] – is someone whom I have come to know and respect in the very recent past. Whom, i hope, will at least be a good friend for life.

Few tables away

It was a guys day out.

We had made a pact not to talk about anything related to fairer sex – yes, that forbade talking about respective wives as well. And, I found our discussion to be amusing and eventually boring. Curiously, nobody talked about their kids! I wondered whether the wife-talk and my-kid-is-sooooo-clever-talk had any connections. I still do.

That’s when I noticed them. They were sitting three tables away from me and two tables away from each other. She looked as if she was going to have a lasagna and glass of red wine and he a cigarette that was too lean for a guy. I guessed he was drinking an imported Scotch.

She was sitting alone and immersed in thoughts about something or possibly about someone two tables away. He was in a group, probably his wife was also there, but so disconnected from his group and looking in her direction. They both seemed to be in some kind of intellectual tranquility. He was more direct than her in observing her. I wonder whether he even knew that she was observing him! It wasn’t the usual “exchaging looks”, it was far deeper. She seemed to want him to be puzzled and he was. I felt the peace that they seemed to share. Without their knowledge, of course.

She left without eating anything, but did finish the red wine. He did the same after her, with his wife. I felt tragic and that feeling lingers.

Update:

Related entries (in reverse chronological order): sense of purpose, spiritedness and lasagna and listlessness & lasagna