Anna and I

By Seikholen Thomsong

The last time I met her, she was just out of a very bad relationship. That must have been eleven years ago. We were really young those days. It was the age of lofty dreams and sweet innocence. We had stars in our eyes and how they sparkled! The funny thing was – with me it used to feel so good to listen and give an ear to anyone who needed it. Listen to someone who wanted to let off some steam, hurt or some grievances. That was how you show you are friends with that person. Friends, everybody will tell you, are the most precious of things that you would ever have.

In your teens you tend to see things different certainly. We were no different then. We never knew what was wrong but we were there to change the world. It sounded noble. It sounded so hip then. It sounded so selfless. You and the guys are out to change the world – you never knew how you were in the eyes of the world. Amusing! Yet we dared to dream till the harsh real truth of how the world actually was woke us up from our slumber. Till the nitty-gritty of having to struggle to eke out a living takes you through different courses of journey away from each other. Friends go their own way to earn their livelihood. If it was written in their stars to be so then they do meet again. Otherwise the world takes away people to different directions that in due course of time they just lose touch.

It was an evening in ’94, I still recall. She was in Miranda House hostel since the time I got to hear about her. We had known each other though not so closely. The Delhi air was melancholic that particular evening when I dropped in on her. Surely, it would be sad and hard on you if you had just lost something that you cherished so jealously and never wanted to share with anyone. She was said to have lost a very dear companion. Hearing about the supposed state she was in, I went over, spent a few minutes with her and gave her my empathy as if that was just the gush of air that she needed to breathe to survive. In fact, if I recollect correctly, I had given her a card with some words plagiarized from some stupid song about some teeny-weeny romantic teens. Lord only knows where from the idea originated! You would find it hilarious to even think someone in distress would find that encouragement like a drowning man would a floating leaf. Funny how you see yourself at times! At times you take yourself so seriously that you become ridiculous. It indeed amused her no end it seemed. She remembered that gesture till this day. She mentioned it in the course of our conversation and left me pink with embarassment. Thanks to the arrival of cellular phones, the world has shrunk to one-third its original size. It has become so easy and so effective to communicate both verbally and in the form of very short messages known as sms. While the more imaginative may take pictures of themselves in various stages and poses of nudity and earn some buck in the process..

We both knew the persons the other knew about. We both heard about incidents that the other had heard of or observed. We belong to the same generation of folks who left their home in search of ways to fulfill their long cherished dreams. We had been in a strange land with nothing to fall back on except for the bond that we had by virtue of belonging to the same community.

I had just moved from my brother’s pad to the hospital in the last week of December. Come circa 2006, I was discharged to be attached at Delhi till the time I would be able to join the unit again. I somehow had her number- the methods I employed to obtain that may not necessarily befit a gentleman. But who wants to be a gentleman- always so proper, so prim, so right and so perfect that it becomes so unreal.

I gave her a call to chat her up. We got to getting to know each other all over again and addressed each other on a first name basis. She had changed. She was no longer the girl she used to be. I mentioned how she was once kind and fair to me. She thought I had some preconceived notions. The people, it seemed, never got to know the real person in her but always painted her in the shades that their minds dictate. I could understand her disdain for such people. She obviously was looking for someone with depth who would see beyond the posterior. Perhaps she was looking for a soul-mate who would appreciate the finer qualities in her and not be impressed with the superficial things that the eyes could see. We all, subconsciously, look for one such person at one point of time.

Today she is an established educationist and I am an idealist who is slowly waking up to the realities of life. I stood at a crossroad to a predictable and mundane existence on one side and a totally unsure and risky path that might lead me to my doom on the other.

We would chat on through the evenings. At times we talk till morning and thus would sometime reach the place of work late the next day. It is not everyday that you have so much to share with another person unless you make a sincere effort to do so. We were dueling but our weapons were neither guns nor fencing epees- they were words, nuances, clues, hints, parallels and gestures. It was a battle of wits of two quick-silvers having air as our element of birth. The mercurial overtones of our nature notwithstanding, we could see eye to eye, read each other and feel each other. She said that I was her twin. And I joked that the midwife at the hospital where we were born had given her twin away to a different mother. She laughed amused. She was someone who recognised wits and humors. Her laughter was of three different kinds. The first was the unadulterated soul freeing chortle. The second was sarcastic and showed cynicism. The third was the self mocking groan of self pity that she would indulge in when she recalled her embarrassments.

The irony of life is that everything comes with a price tag attached to it. We always have to give up certain things in order to obtain a few other things. Did anyone ever say all is fair with the world? None, I suppose! In more ways than one we seem like children, perhaps when the mind relaxes totally it brings out the child in people. I say perhaps because I neither had the conviction nor the knowledge to vouch safely that it was so.

Time went on and soon we began to expect so much from each other. Everything that has something to do with the business of living seems to move in some cosmic circle. The more you get to know a person the more you tend to take each other for granted. The more you tend to ride roughshod over issues and emotions. In relationships, I guess it is like in a game of chess, consisting of maneuvers across a battlefield. It is like the move of the pawns and the bishops. Certain things end up being sacrificed for grander and nobler causes. Mao’s theory of guerilla warfare would prove to be useful in not only war but in love too. You see confrontations are never wise and should be resorted to only when you are sure of your victory. The funny thing is that we all know that in arguments none emerges the winner. The bitterness with which it all ends leaves a thick sludge of bad taste in our mouths.

Alas one cannot own another being. For, humans are not objects that money can buy or something which you can barter at the local village fair. The individuality of a person is what makes him distinct. Else what would make him different from automobiles churned out in an assembly line. Relationships fail when one the players feel that he or she has the sole right to the time and attention of the other. Little do we realize the need of space and time we all have as individuals.

Thus we had to maintain distance because we ended up thinking we were what we never could have been. The physical distance, the emotional chasm and the social stigma came in between us. Anna had to say goodbye and had to stop calling me on the phone. And I never could conquer my own fears and never outgrew the images I had accumulated in my mind. And so like all losers I say- Oh! It never must have been God’s will and went on with my life.

-----------------------------+++++-------------------