It was a sheer co-incidence. On the last day of my short visit to Ahmedabad, I came to know by chance, that Bharat, my early childhood friend, was residing in Ahmedabad. I got his telephone number three hours before I was to depart for Mumbai. We had not met for more than 50 years. Bharat was my neighbour in Calcutta. He left Calcutta when we were 11 or 12 years old. Since then we had not heard about each other. We are of the same age, give or take three-four months. Both of us are 64 now.
So I called him and told him who I was. In an instant he recognized me. He was very excited and happy to hear from me. After preliminaries of – come to my place at this instant – and knowing I was leaving for Mumbai immediately, he started asking short questions about me. In half a minute he was satisfied that he knew all he wanted to know about me and started talking about himself, that when he left Calcutta at the age of twelve, he didn’t know that his father was in a trouble in business. They tried to settle somewhere in Gujarat. His father lost money there too, that betrayed by partners and relatives, they were hand to mouth for a few years. Somehow, he completed hi matriculation, in the meantime his father expired. Then he came to Ahmedabad, got a job there, progressed and once again settled in life, that he got married, had two children, both educated, married, and both in the U.S., that his wife expired in 1997 and now he was staying alone. At that point I tried to offer my condolences at the news of his wife, but he brushed me off: “No no. Its ok. It was a long time back and I am fine now.” In less than five minutes he gave me his life story of 52 years.
Then we started talking about our childhood days. How after school we went home, threw our aluminum school bags, had a glass of milk and ran back to school to play in school compound. How we played badminton, cricket etc. how older students harassed us. That once older group did not allow us to play cricket with them and how we formed our own club then & there and named it Friend’s club. How once one tough boy hit him and how I had beaten that boy for hitting him. We went on talking for more than twenty minutes about those 10-12 childhood years. After a while he became sentimental and reminded me of an incident where I had saved him from certain punishment from our teacher on that occasion. I felt a little embarrassed and said: “Ow leave it, forget it Bharat. It was a long… long time back, In fact, Ages back.”
He exclaimed! “Ages? I feel it happened yesterday only.”
So I called him and told him who I was. In an instant he recognized me. He was very excited and happy to hear from me. After preliminaries of – come to my place at this instant – and knowing I was leaving for Mumbai immediately, he started asking short questions about me. In half a minute he was satisfied that he knew all he wanted to know about me and started talking about himself, that when he left Calcutta at the age of twelve, he didn’t know that his father was in a trouble in business. They tried to settle somewhere in Gujarat. His father lost money there too, that betrayed by partners and relatives, they were hand to mouth for a few years. Somehow, he completed hi matriculation, in the meantime his father expired. Then he came to Ahmedabad, got a job there, progressed and once again settled in life, that he got married, had two children, both educated, married, and both in the U.S., that his wife expired in 1997 and now he was staying alone. At that point I tried to offer my condolences at the news of his wife, but he brushed me off: “No no. Its ok. It was a long time back and I am fine now.” In less than five minutes he gave me his life story of 52 years.
Then we started talking about our childhood days. How after school we went home, threw our aluminum school bags, had a glass of milk and ran back to school to play in school compound. How we played badminton, cricket etc. how older students harassed us. That once older group did not allow us to play cricket with them and how we formed our own club then & there and named it Friend’s club. How once one tough boy hit him and how I had beaten that boy for hitting him. We went on talking for more than twenty minutes about those 10-12 childhood years. After a while he became sentimental and reminded me of an incident where I had saved him from certain punishment from our teacher on that occasion. I felt a little embarrassed and said: “Ow leave it, forget it Bharat. It was a long… long time back, In fact, Ages back.”
He exclaimed! “Ages? I feel it happened yesterday only.”
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