Yesterday.

If there is something called 'past-sickness', like home-sickness, I have it.

*****

As I sat yesterday on the front steps and watched the wild rain at 11PM, I remembered that almost an year ago, I had sat here, watching the wild rain at this time. That was the day B, S and I had come all the way from Indrali to have some dessert. There were other people sitting on the porch too. At that time, I dint know most of their names. One of them was playing Pehala Nasha. Everything was just like the last night; except me.

As we sat on the porch that day, I showed my middle-finger to B. S asked us what that meant. B and I almost toplled down with disbelief. While B gaped with her mouth open, I sincerely asked S if she honestly did not know what a middle-finger gesture meant. She answered back with all the sugar-sweet-sincereity, "No, Chetu (hehe) I don't know. Seriously (hehe)." I, was understandably upset. I, who had started gettting fluent with 'fuck' in 8th std., could not tolerate this kind of ignorance surrounding me.

'It means "Fuck you"', I said.

S dint reply. A serious flaw in my logic hit me.

'Do you know what fuck means?' I was almost getting worried now.

'Hehe. Of course I know what that means, Chetu. Hehe'. Phew.

Our converstaion was growing on these lines. Meanwhile, the rain had got all the more wild. My pink couldn't-get-more-girly umbrella started pretending like a kite. B had a phone with a VGi cam, the too romantic atmosphere made her start recording a video. And just then, as though to complete the moment, G called me.

We had a regular conversation about all things. I was ecstatic with happiness from an unknown source. The rain, the tasty Hangyo generous dessert, the conversation, the companionship gave me a weird high. I was telling G how drunk-on-life I was feeling then.

And he simply said- in the way only soul-friends know you - "This might just be one of the happiest days of your life. I dont remember you ever sounding like this."

I said "Stop saying creepy things, G. Hehehehehe".

*****

I saw the video after going back home yesterday. My heart was broken, my eyes burned (they had had too much of rain and too much of tears for a day's quota), my clothes were wet, my head thumping. As I saw the video, I wondered who that person looking like me in the video was. So much younger, so much happier. With a slim build and long hair. With the laughter in the eyes. With a love for her life that I haven't felt in ages.

I was laughing uncontrollably, pushing my straight long defiant hair behind my ears. B was following me with the cam just to bug me. My pink umbrella kept coming in and out of the frame. Pehla Nasha was vaguely playing in the background. S was trying out middle fingers, cheerily scandalised with herself. I remember that G was laughing aloud too. For some reason I don't remember.

He left the continent few weeks after this. I never heard the laughing voice after that.

The whole video was a mixture of heard and unheard laughter. Of expressed and hidden joy.

*****

I can't help but mourn for the part of me that has grown and gone. For the people who have come and gone and stayed and not gone and gone but come back and gone but might not come back. For the rare flowers not stopped by and appreciated. For the rare bugs in the corridor not photographed. For the DDLG lyrics mugged up in 5th std and forgotten now among all the Phirangi Gaane. For the dead grandmother's popular recipes that nobody knows how to cook. But I guess one lives and waits.

*****

What the hell, if life can throw up a 24 yr old S who dint know what the middle-finger stood for, life can pretty much throw up anything.