Questions - Life - Answers

In this long journey of life, Somewhere, sometime, some questions will rise in one's mind, no matter whether it'll be answered or not. For some, there'll be answers at some point of time, either through some strangers or by one's own experience, and for some, one has to be in search of the answers as long as they could.

At one point of time, there were few questions in me. Like, Will the so-called best friends fall apart? If so, will they re-unite? If so, Will they be as close as they were before? As a matter of fact, it depends actually. But little did I know then that I'll get answers for these questions from my own experience.

It was 5 years ago, when I met him for the first time in my college hostel. It was the day when we got admission for our hostel. He introduced himself to me, as ganesh. I reciprocated to him with a reply, sunil, for it's my name. At that point of time, I never thought he would influence me to a greater extent. I never thought he would mean a lot to me. But that's life. Everything, or at least few things, happen contrary to what we think or exactly what we haven't thought. Mine falls in the second category.

In the next four years, our relationship grew closer and stronger. We had several small fights, misunderstandings, altercates and whatnot but nothing stood strong enough to break our relationship. Moreover, we had umpteen contradictions over our favourite things like movies, director, music director, etc (these are the inevitable things that college guys, sometimes girls too, argue over). So, it’s natural, we had strong disceptations whenever we discuss about these stuffs. I would tease him, by making fun of his favourite movie star and he would mine. In fact, we did this just for fun as neither of us really hated the other's favourite, but pretended to be so.

At times I wonder, how long will our friendship last without any problem, given we have these kind of differences? But the way we had been together answered me like it might never end. So, I never really cared about it much by then. But u know, when u have everything in control, u won't think of the super power above u. And when this is the case, he, the almighty, in order to show his presence, plays a game with u, which of course, at times, is more difficult than riding a bicycle with one leg. No other go, u have to play it, or in other words, he‘ll make u to play it.

He played with me too. An unexpected incident happened to me; well, to be precise, between us, in an unexpected way. It was one fine Saturday night almost a year ago, when I and ganesh decided to booze, me to give him company, and he to let out his stress created from his call centre job – one of his 3 reasons to booze. Well, the other two, in short – to relax, to spend time. Of course, one has to be a modern Shakespeare to find the difference among these three.

Actually, I had an important work to do on that day – to visit my relative, but I had to give that up not only because of the beer, or vodka which I would love to have rather than other high-alcoholic beverages, but because of my then-long-time question to be asked to him. I took it as a great opportunity to get an answer. What’s better than being inebriated for someone to get or give whatsoever answer one need? Being a tosspot, we boozed together several weekends, several days, in that regard. But I had not had the same opportunity as this one, as we were accompanied by few other friends too, all the time.

In order not to miss this golden opportunity, I had put forth him a condition of not including anyone for the evening. Needless to say, he nodded.

It was almost 8’o clock when he entered my room. Being a professional soaker, I had made all the arrangements, right from buying the drinks with side-dishes to setting the room in blue colour with the help of a zero watt bulb, thanks to Thomas Alva Edison – creating an almost-awesome ambience, thereby changing my room to a bar, minus A/C and Cushioned seats.

He entered in, and all I could see was a dull and tiresome face. He threw his mobile and bag on my bed and fell on the same. In order not to delay the party anymore, I took out the bottles and placed it on the floor. On hearing the clanging of the bottles, boozer-him got up twice as fast as he fell on the bed overthrowing tiresome-him who might still wanted to lie in the bed for some more time. I tear-opened the lays packets and other side-dishes and placed it around the bottles which stood in the centre.

Before I sat in my allotted place, he sat in his, and picked out a beer bottle and opened it with his teeth-opener. I felt ashamed for the nth time for despite being a professional soaker, as said earlier, still I had to depend on other soakers to teeth-open the bottles. I assured to myself that I should not rely on anyone next time. As a practice and knowing my calibre, he placed the opened bottle near me with a mocking smile and engaged himself in teeth-opening another beer bottle for him. I ignored it.

“Cheers,” we started. As we were about to empty our respective bottles’, I started to discuss about our future plan, the plan of directing a movie. Though we were graduated from an esteemed engineering college as B.Tech degree holders, our real passion was not to stun the world with some innovative-useful-cheap-whatnot kind of invention, but to stun the world with a movie, by directing it. I should say, though we had umpteen small-small differences between us, this same passion kept us together with a covalent bond.

We had already decided about working together in our first attempt, we hadn’t thought about our next though. I thought it would be a safe bet to start this topic before questioning him with my then-long-time question. I didn’t know whether it was a bottle of beer or his passion towards movies which made him excited at the topic, all i knew was he was more than excited.

He planned our work rather in a serious manner. He wanted us to enter into the field at our 28 years of age, and earn to save till then. So that it would help us to produce our own film, if we couldn’t find a suitable producer, well, a producer who believes in us and our script. We knew saving money for the span of 5 years won’t help, that too when we were in a not-so-big-salary giving companies, but then it could definitely add up. To be frank, his family back ground is too good to produce a film on his own. So, obviously to find a producer wasn’t a big deal for us.

Even then, we argued about the music director for our film. The funniest thing is we never discussed about the script till then – we had our own scripts in our mind though, but argued about the technicians. He suggested his favourites and when I suggested mine, he said that he himself would score better music than the one I mentioned. “Fuck your music class,” I wanted to say him, as it made him to think like that. As the situation was getting worse, I tried to change the topic. It would have been a wise decision had I not chosen the topic of querying him with my then-long-time question. But again, it was his, the almighty’s game which I had to play with him.

“Ok fine. Forget our deal. You yourself score the music and direct the movie in the way you prefer,” I don’t know why I said that. But I didn’t mean it.

“Thank you. At least, I need not bother about some imbecile who seldom has knowledge of choosing his favourite, let alone a script. Fuck you.” He said as he opened a bottle of vodka, of course, he teeth-opened.

I became curious to change the topic and questioned him, “Do you love someone?”

“What?” He asked, seriously puzzled.

“Ok. Let me put like this. Did u love someone or kind of proposed someone?” I asked again accenting on ‘did’.

“Why the hell are you asking this at this fucking point of time?” He miffed.

“I wanted to ask about it sometime before, but it took so long for me to get this kind of opportunity. Anyway, answer me,” I coaxed.

“Nope,” He said in a low tone and fuddled a glass of vodka.

I didn’t want to give up. I fuddled two glasses of vodka in no time and questioned, “Why the fuck did you message Indhu in that way?” I don’t know why I used the f-word and more importantly her name. She, Indhu, was my classmate in school for 7 years and unfortunately my college mate too, luckily or unluckily, not my classmate though.

“Indhu? What the fuck did she tell you? What the fuck you want me to tell?” He said as he threw the glass, sadly with vodka in it, at the wall. Me using the f-word made him free, unconstrained and whatnot, to use it again and again.

“Why the fu...” I stopped as I didn’t want to give room for him to use the f-word again. “Why the hell did u throw the glass? Why are you showing off, you schmuck?” I continued in an angry tone.

“Fuck you man. Did she send you to argue with your friend for this small matter,” He asked in a serious tone and took my glass, of course with vodka, to throw at the wall. I was too active to hustle it from him and gulped the vodka, fearing any delay would end up in painting the wall, again, with the shades of vodka.

I took the remaining vodka from the bottle, too, and gulped it in one go, fearing for the same reason and said, “See, she didn’t say anything to me. I just saw her Inbox while using her mobile on the other day, some three months before. She didn’t even know I had seen the message. From then I wanted to ask you. I did today.” I lied. I tried to hide the fact. The fact that indhu called me to say about that sms-thing, and how bad she felt on seeing that message, and so on.

“Yes, I messaged her, and of course, indirectly proposed to her. What the fuck are you going to do with that?” He shouted, sorry, the alcohol in him made him to shout. He didn’t even care to stop using the f-word still. He couldn’t for he was in a state of being controlled by the –oh group, of course, me too was.

“Idiot, I knew it on seeing the message. Why the fu..” I stopped again, not merely to prove i wasn’t controlled by the –oh group, OK, at least like him, but to make him stop using it for I was too tired to hear that word anymore that night. I continued,” for god’s sake, Why did you hide it from me?

“Why the fuck should I tell to you? Who are you to me in that regard?” He said. I guess he didn’t mean it though. But by then, I felt he meant it. After few seconds, he foot-kicked the vodka bottle, luckily no vodka in it that time, as his hands failed to find any. On seeing this, I was agitated. I pushed him on the bed.

“Screw you, your deal and whatnot. There‘s nothing more between you and me. No movies, no music, no Quarrelling. Thank God.” I said. I shouldn’t have thanked this Idiot, for he was the one who created such play. But I was too drunk to realise it. I walked towards the door, and turned towards the bed, where he was lying still and said “Fuck you” for the one last time and went out.

I came back after an hour only to find the room with all the things, including the broken bottles, laid in the same position as it was when I left, minus the schmuck in the bed, if I remembered it correct. I least cared about him and the broken bottles, too. So, that was a bibulous evening fiasco.

Neither he nor I called or messaged the other. Nine months rolled by. We didn’t even meet once in the mean time. May be that Idiot, the great almighty, had created the game a bit too long. It was on one fine day, at our classmate’s reception (a girl obviously, how could a guy get married at 23 years of age), we both met. At first, we hardly cared to glance at each other. But, these fights, say kindergarten fights, are forever part and package of life. We have to let it go. At one point of time, friends, good if not best, will surely come together before long (if one considers these 9 months as short). We, too, after initial hesitation, talked. It started slowly, but smoothly. It rose up to the level of - he telling what exactly had happened on the other day when he messaged Indhu and me apologizing to him, and followed by him apologizing to me. I really thanked God, the almighty (not Idiot any more), for that day.

Though we were emotional on that day, we couldn’t capitalize on it. I mean, still we are friends, may be good friends, but that touch we had before the fiasco is not found now. Till date, we even booze together at weekends, not all though. Still I can feel the difference, might be he too. We can’t help it.

We never spoke about the deal again – the deal of directing a film. We hardly share our personal matters. We hardly call each other often, etc, etc..... But we say we are good friends still and to be frank, we pretend to be so. And the thing is he is endowed with good talent in writing stories, screenplays. So, whatsoever it takes, or howsoever we are now, this thing is for sure, ‘a film by ganesh-sunil’, or ‘a film by sunil’ might not happen, but ‘a film by ganesh’ will be there in the cine history. And I will be somewhere watching it with pride.

The saddest day, in fact – the most

I won’t say this story is ‘based on a true story’ inasmuch as this one is a true story. As the name, by itself depicts the plot of the story -it is about the saddest day of the protagonist in this story.

It was (a fine) Saturday evening, when the sun was about to hide itself from the people (normally people call it as sun set) behind the 20-storied, 30-storied tall buildings of the city, I decided to take a break from the hectic schedule of the week. I thought of several places to relax where I could see and feel only myself. The obvious choice was the Besant Nagar beach. Of course, it was not a place to see only myself, that too, on a Saturday evening. But, it was my obvious choice because I could reach my home, late in the night, in about 5-10 minutes from there. Yes, my home is just at a viewable distance if u stand near the flood light located near the coffee shop.

I left my office at 5 and it took nearly 2 hours to reach the parking area, thanks to the traffic. I parked my pulsar 150 dts-i safely, checked the lock twice and moved towards the sea shore. As I walked along the pavement, I looked for a lonely place where I could not see any pairs – decently called as Lovers, any newly married couples, any families or any college student gangs, in particular, as they are the ones who enjoy to a maximum and make the viewers embarrass (sometimes happy) by their pixilated activities. After a few minutes of search, I, finally, found the right place.

But, it was already occupied by a guy. He was sitting alone staring at the sky. I went to that place and sat few metres away from the guy. But, he never cared to have a glimpse of me, at least. I, too, started staring the sky. All I could see was, there were few stars, as a matter of fact, very few. The rest were hidden by the clouds. After few minutes, I got bored of it and rolled my eyes around to have a look at the things around me. As I turned left, i could find the guy, still staring at the sky. I wondered what this guy was looking at.

I started again to stare at the sky, with bated breath, hoping to find something attractive and appealing. But, I could find nothing special to stare so long. I turned up towards him and found him still staring at the same spot. I was intrigued and peeked into his face. Since, he was busy in his duty (staring the sky) he didn’t see me squinting at him.

I saw a blanket of sadness covering his face. After a bit of hesitation, I went near him and asked, “Can u tell me what are u staring at? So that I’ll also look at it and enjoy”

He didn’t even care to respond to my question and was busy in his duty. I found his mind is not in this earth. I did pat him on his shoulder and said “Hello”

Finally, his mind came back to earth and asked “what?”

“Are u in this world?” I questioned him. He was shocked; I could read that from his face reaction. Of course, everyone would have reacted in the same way when one hears such words from a stranger.

I spoke with him for nearly 30 minutes or so. I came to know about the reason for his sadness. Sadness symbolizes either a very big loss or a mere loss, in general – a loss. His sadness is also because of a loss – a big loss for him. Our conversation was broken by a call from his friend. He left the place as soon as he got the call, bidding me a formal adieu. I stayed there for another 30 minutes.

His loss continued to haunt me even after I reached my home, not because it was a big one (according to him).Actually, in my narrow view, it was a mere loss. But, something prevented me from forgetting about that matter. All I could do was to open my laptop and start writing about the evening so that my mind will be relieved, at least .And, that is what u are reading now. As I asked the question, “Are u in this world?” He was shocked. I told him that I was watching him for nearly 15 minutes and he was staring the empty sky continuously. I asked him the reason for his dull face. He remained silent staring at my eyes this time.

After asking him repeatedly, he started to elucidate his story reluctantly. His name is Rahul. He has recently -5 months before - joined in a leading software company. Yesterday was his graduation day. As usual, like every other guys, he too had great fun out there. After a 10 month gap, he met all his friends. All was well until he met the one who was his best friend. The verb ‘was’ may sound inappropriate. But the reason behind his words was: they never spoke a word for the past 8 months since they had a fight.

I wondered how could ‘best-friends’ exist without speaking a word for 8 months. But, then I figured out why the verb ‘was’ used by him. Also, I was curious to know the reason for the fight expecting some interesting story behind it. But, once I heard the reason, I wanted to burst out laughing. In order to maintain the sanity, I controlled myself.

The reason can be precisely said as misunderstanding and none other than that. The word fight sounds too much, in fact, the words ‘too-much’ sound too much. But, that was not the reason for his sadness which I could figure out from his face as he said that. So, i was not interested to know about the so-called fight. I straight away asked the reason for his dull face.

He continued that his best friend never spoke to him yesterday in the function. He was waiting near him for few minutes expecting that he will talk to him. The sad thing was his friend; sorry his best friend didn’t even care to look at him. As a result, he got vexed and moved away. I asked him why he didn’t try talking to him. He couldn’t answer. I answered myself for the question, EGO....

He too accepted it first but then tried to justify himself. He said that while returning home, he called him – his best friend. But, the response from him was unexpected in fact, intolerable to him. So, there started the first reason for his dull face. The reason is acceptable, in one way or other. Anyway, I asked him that is that the reason which made him to sit like as if he had lost a valuable thing.

Out of the blue, his voice became loud. He said that it was not the only reason. On hearing his loud voice, I was blown out of the water. But, as soon as he said that, he asked sorry for such a loud reply. I was not worried for that rather was curious to know his other reason. I asked him to continue. He, after that unexpected reaction from his best friend, was very much worried and regretted for calling him. But, I appreciated him for his decision to call him. These small, small fights (sorry, misunderstandings) between friends help them to bond stronger and perhaps even better – like a chemical bond.

He then boarded the bus with his friends to his home where they are staying. He badly wanted to free his mind from the disappointment. The only place that struck him, to free his mind was a theatre. After a 15 minutes travel he asked one of his friends to give him company for a movie. He knew that none of his friends other than him would respond positively as everyone was literally tired of the day.

As expected he nodded to accompany him. So, they both decided to get down at the stop nearer to the theatre, which is two stops away from his home. They both got balcony tickets and went to a hotel to have dinner. After finishing the dinner, they went into the theatre. In the intermission, Rahul’s friend got his Mobile. The second and ultimate reason for his sadness started there.

Rahul didn’t care to get his mobile back. The second half of the movie began and as the climax was nearing, Rahul suddenly thought of his mobile and asked his friend for the same. But, sadly, it was not in his friend’s pocket as expected. Both began to search in and around their seats. It was not found there. There were roughly 30-40 people. They started to ask every single person about the mobile. Sadly, everyone said that they had not seen it.

His friend was more nervous than Rahul himself. He searched the entire balcony while Rahul was busy searching in the lobby near the canteen where they were standing during the break. But, it was found nowhere. As, he finished narrating the incident, I saw his face was very much deplorable.

I asked for his mobile’s model. He said it was NOKIA E-51. It was the one which i presented my wife on her recent birthday. It costs nearly 11.5k bucks. It’s a bit costly, that too for him. Anyway, I tried to encourage him by saying; “nowadays it’s a common practice for everyone to miss their mobile.” He immediately said, “Yes, maybe missing one is common, but missing three isn’t.”

I was really shocked to hear that. I asked him to come again. He said that, he himself had lost two mobiles during his final year in his college. On hearing that my immediate question was how could his parents buy him a costly one as his third mobile? He said about the way how he persuaded them for their approval. It was really funny when he said about that. In fact, he himself grinned while saying it.

I asked him about his friend’s reaction after losing the mobile and his parents too. He said, the reason for his dull face was because of his parents’ reaction. He said that they didn’t scold him but instead, hung the phone immediately. He said he was worrying not because his mobile is lost (as it was not new to him) but for letting his parents down.

He said that his friend assured him that he will buy him a new mobile but, he declined his offer. I really felt proud for the boy for not accepting his friend’s offer. As I was about to ask him about his plan to buy a new mobile, his mobile rang. He excused himself and attended the call. After a couple of minutes, he said that the call was from his friend and he has to leave immediately.

On seeing my face, he himself told that the mobile he had in his hand by that time was his other friend’s old mobile and he is using it temporarily. I gave him my visiting card and asked him to come to my home tomorrow so that I‘ll help him in buying a new mobile (for that instance, I forgot about my wife). He declined my offer too.

But, he said that yesterday was his saddest, in fact, the saddest of his life. He lost his best friend (as he didn’t even care to call him back to accept his apology) and his third mobile. I warned him that though, as of now, yesterday may be his saddest but; there are still a lot more to come and he should accept it positively rather than feeling for it all alone. He said it was nice talking to me as his pain was a bit reduced. He assured me that he will come to my home tomorrow if and only if, i assure him that i won’t offer him anymore. I accepted that. He left the place after bidding a formal adieu to me.

Though he left the place his face remained in my mind and for the rest 30 minutes i was only thinking of him. And it made me to write about the evening as i felt like sharing it with someone. I feel bad for not getting either his contact number or his address. But I hope he’ll come tomorrow and with that hope I‘m going to hit the sack.