The phone call
My thoughts drifted towards him gradually.
I was waiting for the simulation to end. The flying molecules on the screen reminded me of stars and wistful thoughts about the last 23 years of my life swarmed in my head. Glimpses of time spent with family and friends flooded my thoughts which gradually homed in towards my school days and finally settled on that one face which I saw almost everyday for 12 years.
We weren't the best of friends to begin with. If I had known the definition of a "geek" back then, I might have described him so, but in retrospect the ravages of time have muddled the clarity of his image. He never saw a 2nd (or higher) rank on his report card, and his idea of fun was to sit with a geography book in the games field while I was engaged in a fruitless chase of a football somewhere in the vicinity. I used to rank somewhere in 30's and 40's in a class of 50, and soccer was my primary motivation in life back then.
It all changed when I ended up sharing the same table with him in class 7. I was simply awed by his personality and his academic abilities and as the year went by, I forged a new friendship and realized that he was more human than I had taken for granted, and like me he had his likes (BJP, environment, Agatha Christie.....) and dislikes (drawing class, biology, girls? .....).
We used to read story books together, and by the time I read 5 lines, he would be at the end of the page and wait for me patiently to finish the page before turning. But slowly, I tried to catch up and within a few months I found my reading speed substantially enhanced. This is just one of the many things in my life that changed for the better since then. That year I ranked 3rd.
Coming back to the present, I suddenly felt a strong urge to talk to him. I suddenly wanted to know what he was doing, what did he eat today and where did he go.
I flipped out my mobile, only to realize that I didn't have any of the numbers from India stored there. A search through my gmail resulted in zilch, nor was he online then. I rummaged through old pocked diaries old phone diaries and finally came up with 3 different numbers associated with his name from three different places.
"The Vodafone number you are calling is no reachable." was the response I got from the first number. The second try also resulted in a similar disappointment.
The familiar ringing sound pumped up my spirits a bit as I dialled the third and final number. After a few minutes of ringing, it stopped. "Maybe he is away from his phone," I thought and tried again. I redialled a few more times during the next half an hour, but without any response. Finally, as I was about to succumb to the futility of my endeavor, a voice answered at the other end.
But it wasn't his voice, nor was it in a language familiar to me. It sounded like Tamil. I said sorry to the guy at the other end and hung up. My simulation had ended by now, and once again I was back to chasing molecules.
P.S. I finally talked to him a day later, but I wish I could reach (at least talk/chat) anyone anytime, or rather some people who stir up emotions buried deep in my heart.
