What I Felt - Part Two

For the next three days, by mere coincidence, we were drawn at the same table, together. This repetition made us suspicious, both of us, of each other. People started noticing us too. What started as a very harmless coincidence now got its own dimensions. I had asked him name and batch, so did he and that made the start of our very unusual, coincidental, harmless acquaintance.

Though we saw each other next day too, we had seated different. In the next few days, we saw and had exchanged a couple of words. Slowly we had come to know of each other. I found that this guy was a single child, like me, and had indifference as much as I had, except that I was a bit more optimistic than he was. This gave me an upper hand during conversations where I made hour long speeches on personality development. Day by day, I had given an impression that almost ninety percent of the talks I made up were just for the sake of conversation or a smile. I had bluffed.

For all those days I was glad no one noticed us together, glad because there was nothing as much noticeable. We were beyond anyone’s notice, surely by the fact that we never saw or spoke outside our beloved canteen. Day by day, it occurred to me that the guy was far too much a pessimist and introvert than I expected. Whenever we spoke, I made the best of talks; the guy silently accepted all I said. It was as much irritating to me that he had nothing to say on what I said. I made my trials starting from the most practical to most emotional topics. He never spoke. Sometimes he smiled. Sometimes he pretended he heard. Sometimes he didn’t. In any case I was feeling odd. On one side, there was a rising curiosity to intrude into his thoughts, on the other side confusion on whether to let him go or not.

Day by day, it became a tedious task to conclude that he was still a stranger for me and I had no business with him. Perhaps it was some sort of sympathy on the lonely boy. I was seeing another me in him. In every picture of loneliness I had visualized, I have had two other weak faces called mother and father. But somehow the picture he had given me, there was a void. Nothing but void. For some reason I believed I was luckier than him, for there was an eye of protection that most girls do get. In his case he was made to live a life of freedom, freedom that can be easily misused, freedom in the sense misunderstood and freedom to decide whether to love or hate oneself.

In our next encounters, I was a bit more careful about what I said. Perhaps he had a sadder story to narrate, for this simple humble reason of mine, I had prevented myself from narrating my cooked up instant sad stories. I was careful not to bluff too much on “how-happy-can-single-children-be”. I felt that the boy might not take it. Perhaps he would consider me as a good friend cum advisor thereafter, but I knew it was a serious crime I would be doing to his parents and to people who love him. I had reflected that I had always felt bad on my parents, when my friends spoke of their siblings. It was short lived for me, but I couldn’t guarantee that on this guy, my friend.

A month passed on as such. I had misused my intelligence to steal this guy’s secrets. At a point I had even inquired if he had a girl friend- a matter I would not have any use or business to do with. He was becoming more and more comfortable with my talks and once in a while he had made his own opinions. We had shifted onto casual talks. We had open thoughts, for the first time. We were not best friends. We hadn’t any other too. Yet we were together, sharing some taste and trait in common. Perhaps it was just for the sake of being together. Or may be because we were incapable of handling “best-friends”.

We never complained to each other. Some days we never saw. Sometimes we saw, we never talked. There was no element of duty or responsibility. We were comfortable with the fact that we were never a priority to each other. Comfortable and safe fact, it was...