The People I Meet – Unfinished Conversations
On warmth, distance, and the calls I miss.
It was maybe 2016 or 2017. I don’t remember when I met her in person, but I do remember it was post-lunch, around 3 PM in our office in Gurgaon. It was her first day back in the office after her treatment, and she had her innate warmth intact. It’s five years today from that terrible, terrible Friday of 2021, and time has held the line on our unfinished conversations.
A Window To Many Things
We never used to have a schedule for our conversations. Once in a while when I would call her, she would end up talking continuously for the most part. There would always be this moment in these calls when she would be apologetic for highjacking my call for her stories and just venting out. I never had any reasons to complain then, but now I complain of the absence of it.
The conversations were timely, the catching up was the need of that hour, and just checking in on each other was something that came naturally to both of us. I used to often ask her to be more frequent on X (formerly Twitter), and she would always deflect that by taking pride in being frequent on Facebook.
I travelled a good part of England and Finland, walked through the terminals of a few international airports, learnt a bit about Assamese wedding traditions, heard her commentary on the songs playing in her condominium during Indian festivals, and would hear about her occasional cravings for Delhi Chaat and Masala Dosa; all through her Facebook News Feed.
Peace And Hope
I often cringe at the word ‘inspiration’—something I never told her she is. Because she’s way beyond that. She’ll always be someone whom I’ll look up to, for that authenticity, for the optimism, for her warmth, and above all for that real manifestation of ‘what I mean is what I say, and what I mean and say comes from what I am’.
It’s five years today, and it’s still hard to process the fact that the toughest fights can drift away in a matter of minutes and seconds. Seeing the impending end is very different from feeling and processing it. I’d like to think of this void in real life as a manifestation of connection of a different kind—something that rests in my memory, wakes with my routine thoughts, and breaks into a happy acknowledgement just like that.
We’ll be on a call again, and as always I’ll be all ears. Can’t wait to catch up on our unfinished conversations. Till then, rest for real, my dear friend.
Listen Up
Mediterranean Sundance from the 1980 San Francisco live recording by Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucía—reflective of you—full of life, positivity, improv with a touch of mischief and humour.