Today is Manju’s birthday. The girl with the big smiling eyes, who immediately took me for a friend or sister, I don’t know what. We met at a computer academy. I was just out of school, and such a dud, very much in my own dream world, that I took time understanding and adjusting to the real world, with teachers being friendlier and less of disciplinarians feeling out of my imaginary lasso and almost flying. With all the students being elder to me, I was doted upon. That was the exact place I lost all my inhibitions at talking and making friends.
Coming back to Manju we travelled by the same bus to our destinations, after savoring pastries at the bakery near the bus stop. She was an English major, enough for me to be enslaved upon. Somebody to talk to me about literature and books is always more than anything I would ever wish for.
On one occasion when she asked my birthdate, she told me, that she was elder by exactly 3 years and 3 days, wasn’t that awesome. By the time the information registered into me, she wondered how most of them around her had cancer. I was like, what, who has cancer, and she says, even you for that matter and I am dumbstruck and croak, but I don’t have cancer, and she corrects me without slighting me, that she meant my sun sign. Thus began my rendezvous with the sun signs, every time I get introduced to a person, or familiarize with an old acquaintance, I make a note of their sun sign, and instinctively match their personality with their sign.
Someday, when I was home from hostel, she took me to a temple, telling me that she had prayed to bring me along when there was some accident mentioned in the newspapers, of a bus that was also destined to reach Chennai. I did as I was told, I am still naïve and clumsy at things people do at temples, like, start from that deity, then this one, go left, go right, don’t turn and all that stuff, all the time wondering if she considered me so close, or loved and cared for me so much.
I think I listened to her, more than I talked to her, and maybe that made all the difference. The last time we met, I was still wondering what we were to each other, the thinker that I am, because I never felt we were friends, but I have always admired her and looked up to her, in a way I would have an elder sister. Almost 20 years since we last met; her memories still keep haunting and taunting me.
Coming back to Manju we travelled by the same bus to our destinations, after savoring pastries at the bakery near the bus stop. She was an English major, enough for me to be enslaved upon. Somebody to talk to me about literature and books is always more than anything I would ever wish for.
On one occasion when she asked my birthdate, she told me, that she was elder by exactly 3 years and 3 days, wasn’t that awesome. By the time the information registered into me, she wondered how most of them around her had cancer. I was like, what, who has cancer, and she says, even you for that matter and I am dumbstruck and croak, but I don’t have cancer, and she corrects me without slighting me, that she meant my sun sign. Thus began my rendezvous with the sun signs, every time I get introduced to a person, or familiarize with an old acquaintance, I make a note of their sun sign, and instinctively match their personality with their sign.
Someday, when I was home from hostel, she took me to a temple, telling me that she had prayed to bring me along when there was some accident mentioned in the newspapers, of a bus that was also destined to reach Chennai. I did as I was told, I am still naïve and clumsy at things people do at temples, like, start from that deity, then this one, go left, go right, don’t turn and all that stuff, all the time wondering if she considered me so close, or loved and cared for me so much.
I think I listened to her, more than I talked to her, and maybe that made all the difference. The last time we met, I was still wondering what we were to each other, the thinker that I am, because I never felt we were friends, but I have always admired her and looked up to her, in a way I would have an elder sister. Almost 20 years since we last met; her memories still keep haunting and taunting me.
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