Companions, are we?

"I don’t mind when our conversations get a little bit boring
 and we run out of things to say,

Just having you is enough to make me happy!"

The cursor blinks incessantly on the screen as I think of the appropriate words to describe this wonderful Sunday morning. At his aunt’s place in Pune, I sat beside him on the black leather couch in the living room, relishing the instrumental melodies the Bose System poured out. Every piece of furniture glittered with sunlight. He longs to be in Mumbai, the helplessness evident in his words tell me. Mumbai, the city that has been his home all this while. He fondly recalled incidents from his childhood, of how certain houses he’d lived held a special corner in his heart and how some of the cars he owned were more special than others. In a fortnight, his family would shift to his new residence in Chinchwad, Pune.

We first met each other during our train journey to Mumbai. He was returning home with the unforgettable memories of his excursion to Delhi and Dehradun, I was visiting the city to attend a cousin’s wedding ceremony. We exchanged contact numbers as the thought of parting ways dawned upon us. The train had reached its destination, we still had a long way to go. He helped me put my luggage off the train and in a blink of an eye we lost each other in the crowd. Or had we found each other?

At about half past ten, we walked down his apartment and stepped into his car. I went wherever he took me. He drove past the rather empty lanes of Pune while I sat next to him assiduously listening to everything he said, occasionally uttering a word or two. An uncomfortable silence would replace his words when he’d be deeply engrossed in shifting gears and accelerating the car, leaving me with no options but to patiently wait for him to speak again. Sometimes he’d express his disgust as he’d realized the traffic ahead was moving slowly or sometimes he’d simply indulge in describing how he met the girl whose vibrant personality was so enticing that he cannot take her thoughts off his mind.

Before he’d left for Pune he paid me a surprise visit in Mumbai. Barely fifteen minutes of seeing him, but good enough a memory to be cherished. It was the first time we were seeing each other in person after the train journey. Unlike my other friends who’d just find it impossible to find time to see me, he’d come. He’d come all the way to see me.

The only unusual aspect of the Sunday morning was that only he was in Pune and I was in Mumbai. So what if we weren’t present with each other physically? And that the conversation happened over an instant messenger? Instant messengers might be categorized as a virtual social networking platform but the vivid recollection of this glorious morning is no less than a reality. Around a hundred and fifty kilometers of the vast land separates us while the world wide web brings us together. It is hard to believe that we exist in two different cities all together. Every night, we both go for a long walk into the depths of our beings, discovering ourselves; we indulge in intimate conversations. And the emptiness that envelops me constantly, starts melting.

©Shweta Vora

Sometimes, he strains his sleepy eyes staring at the phone’s screen while I talk relentlessly of all the rather trivial things in this world. Sometimes, I bear the brunt of his disappointing day. Sometimes, he makes me laugh uncontrollably. Sometimes, he tells me how the girl he admires made his day simply by forwarding him a quote. Sometimes, he dozes off while I await a response. Sometimes he holds my hand and takes me into his thoughts and shares his experiences. I go wherever he takes me!