To the man that could be…

I have been absolutely distracted and disoriented this week. I do not even know how to start this post or if I should at all. Though I do know that I need to.

It was over breakfast today, with a friend. We happened to be discussing his future prospects and preferences when I blurted out that id probably sit for GRE sometime, though not to get myself an admission abroad, that’s the last thing I’d want to do, but just because I like doing what it needs us to do….digest words.

I remember learning the difference between an ego ‘ist’ and an ego ‘tist’ when I was six. I remember stunning people with terms like ‘ubiquitous’ and ‘idiosyncrasies’ at grade 2. I was taught it was never ‘awf’ human bondage, but ‘av’ human bondage. I was told it wasn’t ‘echh’ but ‘hech’ with a very subtle ‘huh’ (though I remember vehemently opposing the idea, stating it was probably the effect of hanging out with lots of friends of a south Indian origin). It was only in the year 2004 that I realized that it indeed is ‘hech’.

I had tinkered with a stolen CRO at seven. (yessir!, though I know that doesn’t show much, and I suspect it cost him his job) I had injected IV into anonymous buttocks at ten. I had seen the live pictures of an ongoing CT scan and repeated the process without adult help…. The list is endless.

He could be a great father. A great friend. A great mentor.

But I grew up and the social pressures grew on me.

It’s terrible to grow up. The grown ups take things too seriously. Things that a six year old doesn’t need to bother with. Things that a sixty year old wouldn’t bother with. But then when your six, you cant resist the pressure. And when you’re sixty, you can’t undo whats done anymore. Sometimes I wish things had happened a bit differently. I would be a different person. So would he.

We are strangers now. I don’t think I could recognize him anymore. Not from a distance atleast. But I do have an inkling that his hairline has probably receded. And the radius of his balding patch has increased by over an inch. (o yes, we measured that too, once upon a time, not to mention the lice he caught once right there and stored overnight under a whiteboard marker cap to show it to me under the microscope the next day, after I was back from school) we laughed for hours together over the lice’s daftness at its choice of a place for safe dwelling.

I suppose he does keep a track of what I’m up to. In a broad sense. I don’t speak to him. Not done that in the last 6 years. I’d want him to know that he is not thought of with wrath (which he probably thinks). It’s a new found indifference. At the same time I know he will never read this, and I’m sighing with relief at it. Nobody who makes a difference will read this.

But I pray to the all mighty, to bless him with the same indifference I have recently found. That would make his life easier, as it has made mine. And lots of fond good wishes for another life (if that happens in the first place, I have my reservations)

May he make different choices then if faced with similar situations. May he marry, procreate, and have a lovely daughter. May it be me.