I was really delighted that day to find somebody knowing me from my childhood in this love-lorn locality centered round a bunch of uncivilized people who in their filthy manners spoil the surroundings as much as themselves. No matter the number of civilized people living in the vicinity, such people though never ought-weighing the civilized ones spoil the broth just like a single fly spoiling a glassful of pure cow milk buoyant with thick puffy cream.
I never felt like knowing him earlier before, though I looked at him at times sensing a baby face grown into a matured one. We looked askance at each other reading the minds of both in no uncertain terms as we pass by in the same route often times not bothering about being articulate enough to end the surging silence. But hardly had we the temerity of interacting on the subject of earlier association. But the man knew me as much as I knew him for more than five decades from hence and this huge gap of a golden jubilee of separation was more than enough to turn two friends into wayside strangers. Why not it be? When a single decade ushers in a sea-change, five decades is too much a distance to hold up what we were up to.
Oh! you ruthless five decades of mega changes and major transformations which saw the rise and fall of not less than ten governments, massive climate change, war with two countries and rise and fall of Bangladesh and Pakistan, the emergence of Baba Ramdev, the heroics of Sachin Tendulkar, the vagaries of Southeast monsoon and a sumptuous dinner available elsewhere at fifty paisa costing a slight more than two hundred rupees.
I heaved a long sigh of relief that at last I was privileged with an opportunity of finding a clue to the bond of love and friendship I cherished five decades ago turning into a never-ending thread of a life time, at least, if not beyond.
