Moving on

Had been over to an old friend's place over the weekend, helping her parents pack - my last trip to her house in fact. Well actually, this friend has long since moved bag and baggage to the US, but I continued to be an irregular visitor to her place. The initial visits had me playing the role of a postman, this was the pre-Internet era when the landline was your only means of communication with the outside world. I had a VSNL connection and would shoot off mails regularly to my friend, who would in turn use me as her customised 'Ask Jeeves' search engine
- Can you check with Amma why my Rasam doesn't out as spicy (dolt, how can u go wrong with Amma's rasam podi, I'd be tempted to scream)
- My throat keeps getting worse, what do I do?
- Ask Amma to send some Sambar and Molaga podi, Sriram is flying out next week (Sriram who? would be met with a cryptic - Roll no.27, first ranker, glasses poduva, duhh..., and how was any of that supposed to help)
- Rema, X has asked me out, damn, I don't have anything to wear
- Think my grades are gonna be bad, just not prepared

Those mails ensured I'd land up at her home every once in a while. Her Mom would stir up the best coffee while I plied her with colourful stories - dorm incidents, pics of her daughter's first trip to California, her first road trip, campus capers. After the first year, slowly but surely, the interval between her mails started increasing exponentially - I got busy with my non-existent career and she got busy juggling between the afore mentioned X (now her hubby) and her studies (Update - she insists the order should be reversed :) And my visits to her house also decreased - I'd meet her Mom at the park sometimes, where she'd come for her morning stroll, and we'd discuss common friends. My visits were restricted to functions or when I felt low and needed her tongue-tingling rasam to wash away my blues.

She had recently been to the US to meet her daughter and son-in-law but the climate did nothing for her arthritis affected knees. She came back and declared - That place is inhospitable, it snows there, wonder how anybody can stay there :) The neighbours don't even talk to each other, the list of complaints was interminable - I happily dug into my second helping of sweet rice as she rattled on. Uncle's only contribution to the conv. was 'X is a good boy'. I nearly fell off my chair, jeez, X had achieved in 1 month what I hadn't achieved in years - gotten into Uncle's good books.

Uncle retired a month ago and they decided to go back to Chennai, back to their roots - Bombay had always been a career choice, it was never home. And so we sit huddled, deciding which artifacts need to be retained and which discarded from the mind boggling collection of knick-knacks people collect over the years - a box full of albums - school snaps, slam books, old birthday gifts, her letters home. Uncle is busy calling up the MTNL guys, the Mahanagar gas chappies - methodical as always, nothing could harry him.

As we stood at the airport, saying goodbyes, Uncle hugged me and said - You have been more of a daughter than a friend to the two of us over the last few years. I'd never ever seen Uncle getting emotional - there's some truth in the phrase 'There's always a first time'. Felt a pang of guilt as I tried to count the number of times I had visited them over the last few months, never realizing how much each visit meant to them.

I called up my friend from the airport and told her I'd never felt half as bad when she left Bombay. And as always it was her hubby who had the last word - Rema, they'll miss us for a few days but life will go on. Each one of us has to move on, some in search of careers, some in search of a better life, but move on you must. Like hell. Damn, hate bankers and hate airports - the first species spout logic when u are in no mood to listen and the second has flights running on time when u'd like to spend some more time with loved ones.