old friends

i got in touch with him again. we were close once- ages ago- when we were both teenagers hanging around on the steps of karnataka bank watching the crowd go by; or the ‘i will sacrifice my love for our friendship’ that made me giggle like crazy when he fell madly in love with k; or that night when my father gave him coffee in the middle of the night before his mathematics 12 standard examination and found him writing the name of his love all across the notebook. it had been at least 12 years since i had heard from him last- and that was when after moving out of town he was supposed to have done a course in some australian university. he vanished after that. i remember reading his last email crouched over the computer in our apartment in greenbelt wondering who the japanese girlfriend was. i have tried to get in touch with him for a few years now. the remainder of his family here in mumbai has ostracized the other branch. and my phone calls to the number i had were unanswered. the other day i ran a search on google and found one entry- and that too in one strange website for networking of someone with the same name in hyderabad. it had to be him. too many coincidences- and so it was. it was good talking to him again though tinged with some kind of sadness that i could not place. and i still cant. he has had a turbulent life that cant even be described here that has left him scarred but not out. somehow he has managed to put something together now and is looking to get married this december. though he is older than me i have always felt like i needed to take care of him. and not being there as he was going through the tumult of the last decade makes me feel like i failed him in some sense.