A TALE OF TWO STRANGERS~A SHAKHI TS

Love always finds its way <3

'Shaurya'-my best buddy at school. Shaurya Sabherwal. It's a very common story. It all started with a big fight on the first day itself owing to a seat. He had occupied my usual seat on the first
bench and I had, quite predictably, started fighting with him. But he had to give in due to my
popularity in the class and also my position as the monitor. But it didn't end there. After that
day we became regular fighters. We used to fight with each other on every small or big
thing. Our fights didn't seem to end until our teachers vowed to end it and put us together in
the same science project. No one could convince us to work together until the project was
made compulsory for everyone. Our destiny had made us work together but still there was
no end to our fights. Our views and ideas contradictory, quite obviously. It was only when
the last date of submission approached that we realized it was time to work more and fight
less. To everyone's surprise-and mostly to both of ours-we achieved the highest score in
the project!

Everyone congratulated us. It was then that we realized that we could be friends too if we
stopped fighting. Quite surprisingly and unexpectedly, we became friends. Our fights
stopped. The teachers heaved sighs of relief. Within a few months we became very good
friends. We used to sit together, share our tiffins and notes, go home together, play together,
work together, have fun together. As if there was no one else in the class. My old friends
were very jealous of him. Slowly we became the best of friends-the inseparable ones. So
much so that the whole class started teasing us for our 'chemistry'-some jokingly and some
out of jealousy. But we didn't care. We had no time actually to care about such silly things;
our only concern was us (me and Shaurya) and our friendship.

It was all going well till the news of our unbreakable bond reached his parents. It is
worth mentioning here that he came from a very conservative family. So his parents took our
relationship-rather, our friendship-too seriously. Very shockingly he left the school-in
fact, he was forced to leave-in the very next session. Four years of fighting, working,
sharing, having fun-all came to end at once, and that too without any prior warning. I lost
my best buddy. It was like I'd lost myself. It changed me and my life totally. Thereafter I had
friends, but no best friend. I was quite scared to be so close again to anyone else as the
feeling of separation always scared me.
I lost all contact with him since, twenty years ago, we didn't have mobile phones nor any
social networks like Orkut and Facebook to be in touch with our friends. I even didn't know

My bus-or our bus, actually-arrived. An almost half-filled bus, just ten to fifteen minutes
after an over-crowded bus! It's possible only in Kolkata.
I took a corner seat and he, as expected, followed me and sat next to me.
'So you are a teacher in that school?' he inquired.
'Ya, biology teacher,' was my reply.
'Oh, biology! How much I hated this subject during my school days.'
'Hmm. That's quite usual for most boys,' I said reluctantly. 'So, what do you do?' This
was my first question to him.
'Well, I am a software engineer at a private firm in Hyderabad,' he replied.
'So you came here for holidays?' I asked, getting curious.
'We don't have holidays like you, ma'am. I just got transferred.'
'Okay, then you must be feeling happy, coming back to your birthplace after almost fifteen
years?' I asked.
'Tell me something, do you know astrology or something like that?' he asked quite
curiously.
'No. And why are you asking that?' I inquired.
'Then I must say I am quite impressed by your guessing power,' he winked again.
'I didn't get you.'
'I am back to Kolkata after exactly fifteen years,' he explained.
'Oh! I see.'
'A smart way to know someone's age! Thank you so much for teaching me this. I am
definitely going to use it someday on someone else,' he joked and we laughed again.
'But it was really unintentional,' I clarified.
'Come on, it's cool,' he said.
'Where do you live?' he started again after some minutes' pause.
I told him my stop, and also informed that it was just three stops before his stop.
'Oh, that's great. Then I will have good company throughout my way,' he smiled, then
continued, 'I hope I am not being a bore. Actually, I enjoy chatting. It's one of my habits,' he
winked again.
'And winking after every few minutes is another,' I thought to myself. I was quite glad to
discover one of the habits of a stranger whom I met hardly half an hour ago.
'Oh, no, not at all,' I said. 'Rather, I am also enjoying this conversation. Every day I go
home alone. Only my phone's music list accompanies me. At least this is a different journey
from the usual one.' It was true that I was enjoying his company.