The missing link

“Come in !!!!” came a faint voice from inside after 8 seconds of door banging. Sameer barged into the room.

“Where’s Simran?” He chose to acknowledge Divya’s presence in the room since he thought she might give a clue that could help him find her.

“Shouldn’t that be my question!!! If YOU are here looking for her then where the hell is she!!!”

With the end of graduation round the corner, Sameer wanted to stretch time to the maximum to be with his friend. The only activities for which Sameer and Simran occupied their respective rooms of their co-ed hostel were either to retire to bed or to take a shower. Simran was probably the only person who Sameer got close to since the past one decade. The divorce of his parents had left an ineffaceable impression on his mind regarding all relationships being superficial and money being the only entity that brought people together. After his parents parted ways, his father took the responsibility of the child. Even though his father attempted to balance work schedules with his love for his son, there was a missing link that kept Sameer away from him. Sameer felt that he was provided with all the material pleasures he could ask for but never received the emotional support from his parent.

The relationship he shared with Simran surpassed rational reasoning. It was the innocence and simplicity of Simran that attracted him to her despite his apprehension of getting hurt. It was too early to conclude though, that he had any romantic attachment with her. Simran was probably the only bond between his father and him, that too because she insisted on an introduction with an intention to rebuild the bond between the two. Sameer found it difficult to refuse to whatever she asked for. He didn’t even question her for her intentions, for the reasons behind her actions went far beyond his comprehension.

“A girl and a guy can never be just friends!” Simran’s parents used to say. She had to fight her way through to get admission into the coveted university where the only concern of her conservative parents was a common hostel for the girls and boys. She liked Sameer for the possessive yet selfless attitude he displayed for the people he cared for.

“I had asked her to meet me at 10 at the Chimney Food Joint… I was just 5 minutes late… it’s been two hours and I’ve no clue where she’s disappeared. I looked for her everywhere… she’s nowhere to be found… she’s not reachable on her mobile either!!... ” Divya calmed him down and told probably he should pick his bike and look for her somewhere outside the campus.

With not many options in front, so he chose to act upon the suggestion. He rushed towards his room to pick the keys of his bike. He banged the door open and his face turned to stone when he saw Simran with his father in the room. His expressionless eyes met those of his father, who stood five feet away from him. Seconds later his face changed colour and he hugged his father without saying a word. Simran stood there watching them not knowing whether to cry or smile. “Thanks Simran” Sameer said, still in his dad’s arms “This is the best graduation present I could’ve got.”

Magic

They sat in the dark at 4 AM looking at the vast sea in-front of them. After an hour of playing the blame game, silence prevailed. The only sound that endured was that made by the waves hitting the shore and moving back as though attempting to make amends for the ‘mistake’.

This wasn’t the first event of silence that they had come upon. In 21 years of togetherness, they had encountered numerous moments of silence – holding hands and walking speechless along the Juhu beach, having candle light dinners on the ‘monthly’ anniversaries (the date Vishal asked her out), without exchange of a word. Silence occurred when Prerna was out working at the call centre in Sydney while Vishal would be turning sides on the double bed at midnight. The opportunity of Vishal’s career growth led them to shift to Sydney when Prerna could not manage to get a better job than an overnight call centre. It offering attractive remunerations was more of an incentive to take it up.

Today, they were engulfed in silence again. But this silence was different. It was an uneasy silence that happened face to face for the first time. None of the two wanted to break it, even though the noise of it breaking would’ve helped calm down the upheaval in their relationship.

It had been different when they met two decades ago. Although they used to work in adjacent cubicles in the office, these two fresh graduates, like the others in the company preferred to talk while staring at the desktop. Their friendship bloomed into love. They had come a long way from the tube-lighted cubicles of their office to the candle-light dinners on weekends to the moonlit evenings.

It was Day 5 of the realization that something had started disrupting the magic that had existed for almost two decades. The visit to the marriage counsellor did not help much. It worsened the situation by making them feel that both of them were mentally ill. They decided to sort it by themselves and reason why they had stuck with each other for so long when they weren’t happy with each other anymore.

Another hour of silence was broken by Prerna’s sweet voice singing “Every night in my dreams...” Vishal held his mobile with the flickering lights and chose not to turn off the alarm. This was the voice he still wanted to hear every morning before opening his eyes. She looked at his face, while a tear rolled down his right cheek. Her lips touched the tear without a sound. The first kiss that had brought them closer years ago managed to restore the magic yet again.

“Black and White” the colour !

Till now we (his friends) had been the only subjects for RG (as we call him) to practice his photography skills with his Nikon D90 SLR Camera. A recent trip to Musandam – the Norway of Arabia, gave my friend an opportunity to experiment with capturing nature and move forward on the path from being an amateur to a professional. As the rest of us were enjoying the wind, the sun and the sceneries, RG was using permutations of aperture and shutter speed to best capture the scenic beauties into a frame.

While most of the pictures we reviewed from the digital camera were breath-taking, I realised that the ones is black and white were incredible!

This made me wonder, technology has advanced making things go from black and white to colour. But, what is it that makes the black and white ones not lose their charm, and at times be more appealing.

While searching for the answer, I came up with a couple of theories.

Black and White has just two colours – Black, and White. The rest are merely the shades of them. With the abundance of choices around us, we have started to appreciate simplicity in things around us. Keeping things simple can make us recognize the worth of the beauty that lies outside the ornamentation.

When we see things in black and white we do not see the imperfections that lie in colour. We learn to appreciate the object itself and not get disturbed by the blemishes.

Putting the coloured details out of focus and concentrating light on simplicity can make life more beautiful. Let’s try Black and White the colour in our lives - and we may unravel many more beauties that lie beyond colour.

Welcome Reality

TRRRRRING !!!! The alarm bell rang on my mobile sharp at 9:00 AM. Still lying parallel to the floor, I turned on my laptop with eyes half open. The first thing I did when I saw the colourful desktop on my laptop was to open the Internet Explorer which automatically took me to my Facebook homepage. Even before I checked my email, I had to update myself with the Live News Feed on my homepage. I as an FB enthusiast scrolled down to check status messages on my friends’ “walls” to see what’s going on in others’ minds… I pressed the “like it” button on a few pictures and gradually erected my position to post comments on a couple of them.

This was me till the first month after my first introduction to Facebook. My dedication to Facebook far surpassed that I displayed towards the front page of the daily newspaper.

The Gen X and its successors want to be apprised of everything that happens around them, but why is it that the “social updates” rank higher than the national news in the priority list!! The desire to be “omniscient” urges people to hook to these social networking sites under the veil of “staying connected”. The urgency to upload pictures seems as an activity aimed at highlighting the ‘fun’ element in one’s life (and sometimes even seek envy) targeting the friend list (of which most are not a part of the 'fun' activity) than just to store memories… in tangible form as we used to till two decades earlier. At times, the excitement to 'share' experiences virtually, overshadows the existance of reality that's around.

The other day, like any other day I was 'connected' even before I realised what time of the day it was. After an hour of staring at the screen did I realise that my room mates were missing and that I was not even cognizant of their where abouts. I called up one of them, again with an urge to know what I didn't know and that's when my room-mate told me that she had informed me the last day itself that she'd be out to visit her aunt. Probably I didn't listen to her as I was too preoccupied smiling while pushing buttons on the keyboard. I took some time out, thought about what I was doing and why was I doing it. It's nice to know what our acquaintanes have been doing .... but probably staying connected to the ones in the closest physical promoximity should take precedence over the former.

The social networking sites are good tools to communicate, stay in touch and express oneself, but we should not forget that 'real' people should be given more importance than the 'real but virtual' ones. The networking sites should be used as a substitute to the other modes of communication, and not as a replacement to acknowledgement of the entities existing in the real world.

When my alarm bell rang this morning, I promptly snoozed it to extend my sleep by another ten minutes :) Facebook can wait because it is no more indispensible for me... I am real again