Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

Will always remind me of A. First saw him my first day at the institute, while getting ragged. He was just lounging on the couch, a really thin scraggly guy with salt and pepper hair, hair that he was eventually to get rid off. Never thought I’d become such good friends with a guy dripping so much intellectualism. Even now, I can’t fathom, how I actually did. May be it was the skit we were together in. He the dhobi, owner of the donkey that dies and me the halwai, his friend that consoled him. After we got done with the skit, he brought over a flier from Nathu sweets and hung it over the TV, a reminder of the role I’d played. We took our walks after dinner on the inner ring road of the institute. Round and round, walking and talking never really realizing that we’d been walking since 9 Pm and it was past 1 am. From super string theory to the dynamics of the male female equation, I guess we covered it all. And one night he sang. Just these two lines and they echo in my mind even today. Any lonely moment and he is there… Even when I know he really isn’t. Because he isn’t…not any more. 

Choo kar mere man ko kiya toone kya ishara…………

 S has a really nice voice. Incidentally, I happen to be a voice person. To me, a person’s voice says a lot about him or her. So, lets come back to S’ voice. It is soft and gentle and his laughter is an extension of that. So I thought, he probably even sang well and asked him to. He was shy and it took a lot of cajoling on my part for him to start. Man did he suck! But I got to give him 100% for trying and then persevering. He is now forever humming or singing. More of humming, since, he does not really remember the lyrics. Some how, he can sing better in Telugu, (his first language) than in Hindi. So I guess it’s got something to do with this comfort with the language. Since he really can’t carry a tune and remember the words, it is next to impossible for me to guess what he is singing. Thus my usual question, “Which song are u murdering now?” It is thankfully met with that laugh of his and then we work on identifying the victim.

 Choo kar mere man ko….. was the first one to fall and it does so again and again. S is getting better at it though or may be I am getting used to his singing because this particular song has begun to live.