A Sunday morning, Saarang’s mother had gone for her regular temple visit. He was awake but hesitated to come out of the bed, lost in his thoughts. Suddenly, there was a knock on his bedroom door. He jumped out of his bed and opened the door. His dad stood there with a cup of morning coffee added with a soothing smile. Saarang never expected his father, right at his door, so early in the morning. His dad tilted his head a bit and enquired feebly; “May I?” Then only did Saarang realize that he stood with the doorway blocked. He swayed back, “Oh! I’m sorry dad,” and let his father in.
His father’s eyes scanned the entire room in a couple of seconds. “What about your Kung Fu practices? It’s been quite long that we don’t hear your bangs on the floor. Your mom says, she’s not waking up on time these days, as your bangs on the ceiling are absent, that was kind of morning alarm for her.” On hearing that Saarang gave an embarrassing smile to his dad and tried to utter something, but nothing came out.
“How are your old friends doing? Why don’t you go and meet someone? It’s a great feeling meeting old friends after a gap. I guess in your case, you haven’t met your friends since you left your college, right?” Saarang nodded and said, “That’s why only I feel they won’t welcome the idea of meeting me.” “You can always make a call and try, be a sport, man!” By saying this much, his father moved out of the room. “Have your coffee, before it’s cold”. He called out going down the stairs.
Saarang was wondering, why did his father come up at all? He said nothing important, and for the coffee, I have always taken it from the kitchen. But the idea of meeting a friend somehow kept ringing in his ears throughout. By evening his fingers scrolled a hundred times across the contacts in his phone, he checked the social media profiles of his besties over and again. It was almost dusk, and he sat at his window looking at the setting sun, though that feeling of discomfort and an unknown fear kept on plunging him now and then, but for a change, he felt at peace, maybe he felt connected to his old friends.
As the sun dipped down behind the faraway mountains, he gathered all the courage and searched his contacts for Rehan. Rehan and Nisha were now married and lived in the same town. He knew from their social media accounts that both worked for a US-based company. He dialled Rehan. The bell rang at the other end, it kept on ringing for quite a long, he was about to drop the call when a female voice said hello, Saarang hesitated ‘coz what he dialled was Rehan’s old number, and there were chances of it being changed. Again, the lady on the other end said, “Hello, Saarang ….is that you?” His heart started pounding, he couldn’t speak out, but somehow, he managed to say yes.
The voice of the lady on the other end banged on Saarang’s ears. “Dumbo!!!, where have you been all these years?” He mumbled, “Nisha….”. “Shut up! You stupid, why didn’t you show up your idiotic face all these years? Wait, Rehan is back, talk to him now.” Saarang could hear Nisha call out to Rehan, “That idiot is calling, come fast…”. Then there were some hastening steps heard, and there he was. “Saarang!!! how are you, my brother?” On hearing that, though unbelievable to himself, but a drop of tear trickled down Saarang’s right cheek. He wiped off his eyes. But he was choking and couldn’t answer Rehan.
Rehan on the other end, anticipating his friend’s state of mind asked, “are you home?” Saarang replied chokingly, “yes”. Rehan reverted, “it’s 6.30 pm, I’ll be there in 45 minutes, wait.” Saarang was overwhelming…. He could hear Nisha calling out, “ask him to come over, I wanna hit that dumbo tight.” But then suddenly the call dropped. Saarang paced to and fro in his room, excited and confused.
He was wondering whether it was the excitement of meeting his friend after years or some other strange feeling which was making him kind of nervous and impatient. It was 30 minutes since Rehan had dropped the call. The clock in the room though ticked quite aloud, much enough to compete with Saarang’s voluminous, pounding heart, but it seemed as if the second hand of the clock hesitated to move to the next point and tip-toed at the same spot.10 more minutes passed by somehow and all of a sudden, Saarang’s feet came to a standstill. He heard the doorbell ring downstairs, he turned abruptly to the wall clock, “Oh man! This guy hasn’t changed a bit. He continues to report before time.” Even before Saarang could get out of his thoughts, the door of his room flung open. There stood at the door, right in front of his eyes, in flesh and blood, his piece of heart, his buddy.
“Won’t you call me inside, bro?” Rehan’s voice reverberated through Saarang’s eardrums who stood pale and speechless.
Saarang crushed into his friend and hugged him tight and almost broke into tears. Rehan could feel Saarang’s heartbeat loud and deep. Rehan didn’t stumble a bit and his muscular arms embraced his friend’s bit lean but a well-built torso. The world around this duo at the moment was still, yet content. Almost two minutes and Saarang pulled himself back together. “I’m sorry bro! Couldn’t control myself ”, he mumbled, unable to fix his gaze on his friend’s face or on any other thing in the room.
“Look here….” Rehan’s voice, clear and crisp, unlike the entangled bundle of thoughts that wound Saarang all over, pierced into his ears. Saarang’s eyelids heavy and drooping, struggled to make an eye contact with his friend. Rehan enquired, “Did you have a shower today?” Saarang raised his brows and answered wryly, “No! … but…. why…” even before he could complete his broken sentence, Rehan shot out mischievously, “I guessed so, just when you came near…” Rehan’s sense of humour had always hit, right into the bull’s eye, never missing the target. And on that comment, Saarang smiled, shaking his head, “you will never change man!”
Rehan ran his fingers through Saarang’s hair, “show them some water man!” He pulled over a bath towel that lay on the hanger and pushed Saarang into the washroom and said. “Take a shower and come.” Saarang hesitated, saying “I’m fine bro…let’s talk… I can have the shower later.”
Rehan without giving an ear to his words just pushed his friend into the washroom and latched it. Rehan wanted this moment badly because this was never the way he or anyone else who knew Saarang would have thought of finding him, and he needed some time alone to accept and ingest the situation, so that he could gain the courage, to help his friend come out of whatever on earth, was troubling him. That moment was the heaviest for Rehan, he came over and sat on Saarang’s bed.
He clenched his fists and sighed, “Yah Allah!, what have you done to him?” Rehan thought he’s not at all himself. His self-confidence, pride all seemed compromised. That infectious positive vibe of his used to be so entrapping that even the saddest of the people around him would unknowingly get relaxed and motivated. Now even his body has started showing up, he’s got his build but has lost the mass. Rehan inhaled deep and prayed to the Almighty to bestow him with all the might to help his friend, who definitely didn’t deserve to live like that. Lost in his thoughts, Rehan heard the washroom door knock. “Oh! I locked him in…” Rehan got up and ran to unlatch the door. There stood his friend, wrapped in a navy-blue full-length bathrobe. “Happy…? Let me dress up now…” Saarang was a bit fresh and relaxed now. Taking a shower at times works wonders.
Rehan paced towards the wodden shelf, “wait, bro, let me pick up something for you”, actually Rehan wanted to check the condition of Saarang’s wardrobe, because while at college, whenever these guys caught up at Saarang’s place, Nisha always used to tease Rehan by saying, “Rehan you must learn all the wardrobe organizing skills from Saarang, before you ask for my hand from my dad, coz I’m not at all got at that.” And Rehan remembered Sitara saying, “so lucky would be the girl who marries him.” And overhearing that, Sidhu said,” don’t worry sis, when we would go searching for your suitable pair, I would definitely take Saarang along, to evaluate the poor boy’s wardrobe.” Rehan could still hear those giggles fade away.
Rehan slowly opened the old, red-brown ethnic wooden art piece, he recalled how preciously Rehan took care of the old almirah, which was left behind after his great grandfather who was a part of the Indian freedom struggle against the British. To Rehan’s contentment, the clothes and accessories in there were well organized and the only change seen was that there were a bunch of formal business suits and some neckties, which made him assume that his friend was into some good job and he was happy that few things still remained sorted in his beloved friend’s life.
Rehan looked for some night wearable shorts and T’s but couldn’t see any. He called out “Saarang… no Bermudas or boxers’ man? And no tank tops? I haven’t got anything to change bro…”, hearing this Saarang’s eyes widened up. “You are staying back?”. Rehan replied, “obviously man, it’s already night, Nisha will call the Aunty next door for company.”
Saarang came running, “It’s back there, in the left, lowest rack, behind that leather bag. I don’t use them often these days.” Rehan searched where Saarang told and pulled two pairs of shorts and T’s. “Here take this, I shall have the blue one”, Rehan said as he flopped a pair of black and white shorts and a t-shirt at Saarang. “Hey! No man I shall wear these,” Saarang said as he pulled out a pair of track pants and a full sleeve T-shirt. Seeing that Rehan almost dived and snatched the dresses from Rehan’s hands playfully and said handing over the shorts and the tank top to him, “wear this bro, let’s not grow up too much.” Saarang reverted at once, “it’s not about growing up bro, I feel comfortable in the tracksuit.”
Rehan was observing the fragment of discomfort in his friend’s words. And said, “Don’t be so adamant senor! Anyways you are an individual and all have the right to live and eat and dress, the way they like. I’m sorry boss.” Saarang felt that sarcasm in Rehan’s voice and took a minute to think something; he nodded his head to himself and walked back to the washroom picking some dresses from the bed. After a few moments, he emerged out of the washroom and stood before Rehan.
Rehan saw his friend standing right over his head, in an off-white Nike tank top and black pair of shorts. “That’s like ma…”, further words wouldn’t come… He felt tongue-tied for a moment, his gaze widened to visualize something unexpected, and then shooted from one spot to the other on Saarang’s body like the sticker coin on the carom board. Rehan looked deep into Saarang’s eyes. Saarang gathered all his courage to unearth the core of his heart, the lion’s heart. He uttered…, “This is Me! bro, and there is much to tell…”
To be continued…
