Image Link: https://www.facebook.com/pg/merideewaar/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2312613798959117&__tn__=-UC-R
I was once accused, rather pointedly, by a very dear friend of *Collecting People*. It stung for a while and then the truth of it stayed undeniable and indelible in my mind. For at this very instant, that knowledge, that I have, with me, today, a list of people with secret superpowers... diplomats and doctors, spies and spirits, filmmakers and freedom fighters, pundits and poets, rugby coaches and rock stars... that insane list that includes you dear reader in all likelihood ...that just takes this feeling of having done that one thing right, to a whole new level.
Perhaps some of you reading this would agree, that having this connection, this bond of super glue with people from everywhere, this glue that gives its very lease of life to friendly giants like Facebook and #Twitter, just that teeny-tiny blip of a word in your everyday life, can make you so frikkin’ all-powerful. It places you on a unique, unilateral, user-friendly path of deciding whether, this morning, when you wake up, you will or you won't, bring joy or wreak havoc in the lives around you, simply by harnessing the power of these exceptionally beloved and endowed with goodwill *collection of people*.
People. No. Not that abysmal word surely. We are talking of friends. Of You, sitting on my wall, my collected gilded list of cherished people.
But let's not forget just why and what precisely did this damsel, in no distress whatsoever, and French no less, meant, when she indicted me of harboring said fascination of building a seemingly harmless collection, of People.
I have been, from the very start, an urchin. Not a care for fine talk, cloth nor culture. Girls and boys in all such categories found in me a kindred spirit. I did not deny the many wonders as much as the coloured pieces of broken but beautiful glass they brought to me in this rapport building exercise. My friendships saw me run wild through strange buildings, lives, kitchens and their households, learning from intuitive but determined steps of this impossible journey.
School was special. Middle class values, middle class aspirations and
middle class friendships. Rich dividends of the *mutual fund* kind. The
best investment plan there is in the market, I assure you. And, we
shared our treasures over books and punishments, sports and tiffin
boxes, periods and periodic tables. We grew up, wiser to each other and
sharper to each other's needs. Here I met the most formidable and
persistent woman of the whole bunch. And she remains, much married in a
far away land, tall, omnipresent, ensuring I stand my ground and stick
to my path.
Meanwhile. My list grew, one name at a time, one phone call, one letter (yes letter - not email, we didn't have all the fancy E- stuff back then) and I kept getting stronger, fiercer, ebullient in my endeavor to have what people only build legends of. People.
Time passed, schools became colleges, Colleges turned into Universities and friends became lovers.
These men and women, their building pillars of trust and my myriad dreams built from those pillars, helped me grow into this strange mustang-like element. Feeding off of their adolescent energy, pheromone driven lust for life and sharing with them, this never ending mad hunt for the *new*.
These partnerships also let me feast on my growing fascination with the world at large and how it is usually divided between people with friends and people without. This theory, as you will conjecture, still holds, right down in the very strategic universe of Geopolitics. And let me add, to no less degree of seriousness, extremely packed Stadiums and rock concerts, where only a true friend will share his (rarely her) seat with you. Because it is Strings and you have been in love with Bilal Maqsood since eve took the fall from grace.
Now, one must note, every single heart break shouldn't and didn't bring with, in its wake, a passing of a friendship. That stuff, Important. Still is. For my heart still breaks. Frequently. But Friends, they stay.
I believe you meet the most curious people at work. These are charming, simple, complicated, regular, extraordinary folk with brilliant minds, banal stories and basic routines that usually mirror yours. And yet, they wield the mighty sword of making you feel wanted or not. They do very little, to be fair, in isolation. Unless they are as drunk as you are. It is in these rare moments, of spirit glossed bravado, do you see their raw superpowers - unleashed onto the muggle world. But usually, it stays concealed, cloaked, for the greater good of the magical world…right until that moment when you look sad. For a rather undebatable stretch of time. They then, get down on their knees, or whichever posture is likely to be held longer, given its linen they are wearing… and they listen to you. For hours, days, weeks. They call you. They spend time with you in the smelly cafeteria and they slowly put you back one tiny piece at a time, until you are ready to go back to battle.
My relationship with “people”, has seen you pick fights
for me, flex your imperceptible bulge of a muscle and even bend (not
over) for me. You let me know that it is ok to be abjectly unable to be
anything more than I could. You just strolled along, shrugged and walked
a little walk with me, through the dirt-road of my head, filling it
with your incessant and interesting chatter, your collectibles, your
craft and your wondrous imagination of what could be…leading me gently
on into your world, where fishes fly and turtles live on trees. Or were
you talking about the latest on the Jimmy Choo collection? Frankly, it’s
all the same.
And then you meet your other half. A friend
unique enough to marry and I did. And even after you handle legal
paperwork between the two of you, after a decade of playing smarty pants
dance, life pulling you in opposite directions, he hangs around, with a
bottle of stinging brown iodine, band aid and sterile cotton balls,
still on alert mode (that’s default with the man I think 😕)
for every time you look set on getting hurt, when you are likely to
trip over your own silly mistakes… he emerges, tincture in hand smiling
... at your imagined pain for the iodine, like a friend.
Thing
is, you all stuck around. You all lingered and sang and danced me
through the hardest moments, life had in store for me. And this one goes
out to all of you, for your time and you know who you are.
It is precisely a few hours from now, when this spinning third rock from the sun will finish its’ 40th tango in my lifetime. Feels rather grand and old at the same time. Diverse reference sets now refer to me as “hey, how’s it going” while some, definitely shorter people, stick to “hello aunty”.
But, here I stand, 40, single, measurably fit, relatively pretty, unquestioningly divorced, systemically employed, play acting mom to my boy, lost in thought and translation.
This
page is my ode to all you enchanting men and women who have gone to
great lengths to allow me to remain this creature of my own imagination.
I, thanks to all of you, now firmly believe that I live inside a movie,
you are all my costars and this, these words on my wall, is my
background score. For it is here that I will live once more, and I
invite you, in all humility, to read and share, write with me of times
spent, sing of places visited, roads taken and not, images blurred of
people met and unmet, movies watched and forgotten, books stolen and
re-read and encounters that are indeed of the strangest kind.
Allow me to share with you, reader mine, my *big small universe* and within it my magic box of make believe stories...because that is what it is and all that you will make of it.
I remain, until the end,
A Friend.
I was once accused, rather pointedly, by a very dear friend of *Collecting People*. It stung for a while and then the truth of it stayed undeniable and indelible in my mind. For at this very instant, that knowledge, that I have, with me, today, a list of people with secret superpowers... diplomats and doctors, spies and spirits, filmmakers and freedom fighters, pundits and poets, rugby coaches and rock stars... that insane list that includes you dear reader in all likelihood ...that just takes this feeling of having done that one thing right, to a whole new level.
Perhaps some of you reading this would agree, that having this connection, this bond of super glue with people from everywhere, this glue that gives its very lease of life to friendly giants like Facebook and #Twitter, just that teeny-tiny blip of a word in your everyday life, can make you so frikkin’ all-powerful. It places you on a unique, unilateral, user-friendly path of deciding whether, this morning, when you wake up, you will or you won't, bring joy or wreak havoc in the lives around you, simply by harnessing the power of these exceptionally beloved and endowed with goodwill *collection of people*.
People. No. Not that abysmal word surely. We are talking of friends. Of You, sitting on my wall, my collected gilded list of cherished people.
But let's not forget just why and what precisely did this damsel, in no distress whatsoever, and French no less, meant, when she indicted me of harboring said fascination of building a seemingly harmless collection, of People.
I have been, from the very start, an urchin. Not a care for fine talk, cloth nor culture. Girls and boys in all such categories found in me a kindred spirit. I did not deny the many wonders as much as the coloured pieces of broken but beautiful glass they brought to me in this rapport building exercise. My friendships saw me run wild through strange buildings, lives, kitchens and their households, learning from intuitive but determined steps of this impossible journey.
School was special. Middle class values, middle class aspirations and
middle class friendships. Rich dividends of the *mutual fund* kind. The
best investment plan there is in the market, I assure you. And, we
shared our treasures over books and punishments, sports and tiffin
boxes, periods and periodic tables. We grew up, wiser to each other and
sharper to each other's needs. Here I met the most formidable and
persistent woman of the whole bunch. And she remains, much married in a
far away land, tall, omnipresent, ensuring I stand my ground and stick
to my path.Meanwhile. My list grew, one name at a time, one phone call, one letter (yes letter - not email, we didn't have all the fancy E- stuff back then) and I kept getting stronger, fiercer, ebullient in my endeavor to have what people only build legends of. People.
Time passed, schools became colleges, Colleges turned into Universities and friends became lovers.
These men and women, their building pillars of trust and my myriad dreams built from those pillars, helped me grow into this strange mustang-like element. Feeding off of their adolescent energy, pheromone driven lust for life and sharing with them, this never ending mad hunt for the *new*.
These partnerships also let me feast on my growing fascination with the world at large and how it is usually divided between people with friends and people without. This theory, as you will conjecture, still holds, right down in the very strategic universe of Geopolitics. And let me add, to no less degree of seriousness, extremely packed Stadiums and rock concerts, where only a true friend will share his (rarely her) seat with you. Because it is Strings and you have been in love with Bilal Maqsood since eve took the fall from grace.
Now, one must note, every single heart break shouldn't and didn't bring with, in its wake, a passing of a friendship. That stuff, Important. Still is. For my heart still breaks. Frequently. But Friends, they stay.
I believe you meet the most curious people at work. These are charming, simple, complicated, regular, extraordinary folk with brilliant minds, banal stories and basic routines that usually mirror yours. And yet, they wield the mighty sword of making you feel wanted or not. They do very little, to be fair, in isolation. Unless they are as drunk as you are. It is in these rare moments, of spirit glossed bravado, do you see their raw superpowers - unleashed onto the muggle world. But usually, it stays concealed, cloaked, for the greater good of the magical world…right until that moment when you look sad. For a rather undebatable stretch of time. They then, get down on their knees, or whichever posture is likely to be held longer, given its linen they are wearing… and they listen to you. For hours, days, weeks. They call you. They spend time with you in the smelly cafeteria and they slowly put you back one tiny piece at a time, until you are ready to go back to battle.
My relationship with “people”, has seen you pick fights
for me, flex your imperceptible bulge of a muscle and even bend (not
over) for me. You let me know that it is ok to be abjectly unable to be
anything more than I could. You just strolled along, shrugged and walked
a little walk with me, through the dirt-road of my head, filling it
with your incessant and interesting chatter, your collectibles, your
craft and your wondrous imagination of what could be…leading me gently
on into your world, where fishes fly and turtles live on trees. Or were
you talking about the latest on the Jimmy Choo collection? Frankly, it’s
all the same.
And then you meet your other half. A friend
unique enough to marry and I did. And even after you handle legal
paperwork between the two of you, after a decade of playing smarty pants
dance, life pulling you in opposite directions, he hangs around, with a
bottle of stinging brown iodine, band aid and sterile cotton balls,
still on alert mode (that’s default with the man I think 😕)
for every time you look set on getting hurt, when you are likely to
trip over your own silly mistakes… he emerges, tincture in hand smiling
... at your imagined pain for the iodine, like a friend.
It is precisely a few hours from now, when this spinning third rock from the sun will finish its’ 40th tango in my lifetime. Feels rather grand and old at the same time. Diverse reference sets now refer to me as “hey, how’s it going” while some, definitely shorter people, stick to “hello aunty”.
But, here I stand, 40, single, measurably fit, relatively pretty, unquestioningly divorced, systemically employed, play acting mom to my boy, lost in thought and translation.
Allow me to share with you, reader mine, my *big small universe* and within it my magic box of make believe stories...because that is what it is and all that you will make of it.
I remain, until the end,
A Friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment