Professor said that their car will arrive at the bus stop by eight in the morning. Poet was skeptical. It’s at least a four hours drive. No way I am going to get up at four in the morning and start. So it’ll be more like ten when we reach. I, however, came to the bus stop around eight-thirty in the morning. I was looking at the green hills all around me with hot tea in an earthen cup in my hand and the sweet morning sun on my back. Other than me there were very few people in the small marketplace in this tiny hill town. Sitting on the bench outside the tea stall, I was sipping the tea. From time to time I was watching the hilly road, neatly lined with tall trees, vanishing down the hill. Rays of the morning sun came filtering through the leaves. The surface of the road was painted with a beautiful mosaic of light and shade. Maybe it was in our school, or maybe in college, I do not remember exactly, Mr. Das, our favorite Physics teacher, taught us about pinhole cameras. That was the first time I was amazed to learn that the tiny round patch of light on the road is an image of the mighty sun, light years away from here.
I arrived at the resort at the top of the hill last evening. We were going to meet after a long twenty-five years. We were close buddies during our college days. After college, we went our separate ways. After that, we never had a chance to meet in person. We kept in touch, on and off, through emails. Lately, through social media. Who can escape social media these days? Over the years we kept watching our changing profile pictures. Like a time-lapse video, our faces slowly morphed. Hairlines thinned. Wrinkles got etched on foreheads. Smiling student faces changed into dignified professional faces.
By a cosmic chain of cause and effect, we ended up arranging this meet at this scenic hill resort, ‘Red Hills’, far from all our home bases. Professor flew across the ocean and managed to extract one night from his packed schedule of annual homecoming. Poet managed a leave from his software engineer’s busy schedule. I was visiting a nearby city on a business trip. Accidentally, all the stars aligned and we were about to meet after ages.
Shops are opening up on this lazy sunny morning. Distant hilltops are still covered in haze. I slowly walked towards the tea stall near the bus stop. On typical mornings like this, just before rushing to our classes, we often used to stop by the roadside tea stall next to our campus. Very old ‘Dadu’ with his young son Kishore used to run it. Our favorite breakfast was thick, warm, and fluffy bread toast with a generous serving of butter, thick crystals of sugar sprinkled over it. We chewed on the mouthful of toast and gulped tongue-burning hot tea. Often, from a beaten-up Ambassador car, parked by the roadside, a man used to sell medicines. He spread his marketing messages through a loudspeaker tied to the roof of the car. Graphic descriptions of constipation-related ailments, blaring through the loudspeaker did not seem to bother us much. But that was then. As Kishore prepared my breakfast, I sipped the tea and watched the narrow winding hilly road vanishing at a distance. Professor’s car was supposed to arrive through that road. The smell of butter and warm bread was floating in the air. I was almost ready to say ‘Kishore, hurry up! My class starts in five minutes!’. But then realized, that was in another faraway corner in spacetime.
In our college days, we were a bit of a movie buff, stage play enthusiasts. We spent hours discussing ... What was that play? Waiting for Godot … perhaps. Now after many many years, with old memories buried deep under giant piles of experiences from everyday life, I was wondering, what are we going to talk about? The professor is now all different from that young student. In the Youtube videos of his lectures, he seemed so stern, methodical, all absorbed in complex models of frenzied financial markets. The Poet was somewhat more familiar to me, as I kept reading his poetry here and there. Whenever I got a chance to talk to him over the phone, we ended up discussing work, family, kids’ school, … the usual stuff, everything other than poetry.
So, here I was, pondering over the dilemma. Do we try to talk about our good old days half of which we perhaps do not recall correctly? Do we talk about our present? Politics? State of the world or Cricket?
My phone rang. We are entering the market. White TATA Sumo, 2042. Where are you? We’ll pick you up and go to the resort. How long from here? Another twenty minutes? OK.. Oh wait, I can see you. Ya, there, there. Yes, Deepak, you park there. Have some tea, breakfast. We will stop for half an hour or so. Then we’ll go straight to the resort. I’ll give you a missed call….
They stepped out of the car. With loud greetings, stretched out arms. Can't believe we are meeting after twenty-five years! ‘So? Dada? What’s the news?’ A floodgate of memories is opening up. Those terms, ‘Dada’, nuances of which only we can understand and appreciate. It technically means elder brother, but actually, it’s hardly that. It’s a reference to close friendships, fond memories, shared histories, times spent together. I am thinking, how to save this precious moment in my memory? This beautiful morning, rolling hills all around us, chilly breeze, bright blue sky, Pine trees, meandering roads wrapping around the hill… all these.