कुर्सी लगा देंगे

Have you ever wondered who would shock you the most if you suddenly crossed path with? I would say, myself.

It would be safe to say that I have never been off the mark about an individual to a large extent. Yet I was completely wrong about this guy.

I met him first, to be honest, don’t remember when. It was definitely someday when he was with Ashutosh, accompanying him on his bike when we decided to meet somewhere. With the initial meeting in my memory so vague, obviously I didn’t think that this was going to be a long lasting friendship. The things I do remember about him is getting on my nerves every now and then. Till that time I had never been blatantly ridiculed about my shenanigans right off the bat. And he never missed a ball, nor an opportunity. We all might have mentally made a note to be open for criticism, like an ideal person, but in reality it just irritates you like that ear shattering screeching sound of nails on a blackboard. This guy was like that nail you least expect and makes the most shrilling noice.

There are people who call spade a spade, when you call it diamond. This guy first swears that he knows nothing about cards, then he says maybe he might have heard of them, but in hindi. Then he suggests maybe it is called a spade as he might have heard it somewhere. And later you realize he knew it all along and was just playing with you, because you called it a diamond.

I can count on my fingers the times when I had an outburst. When I had decided, go hell with it, but I’ll speak what’s on my mind without holding my words back. When I decided to completely ignore how the other person must be feeling. And one fine day I lashed out on him. It was MP Nagar, in front of Milan Sweets. I spoke nonstop maybe for 15-20 minutes. Everybody was there, Amit, Ashutosh couldn’t say a word. He didn’t retaliate. After my rantings, he just spoke these words, “Theek hai bhai, ab se nahi hoga. Ab tumne itna suna diya hai to ek hamari baat bhi maan lo, do ‘samose’ khila do.”

The problem with lashing out is, you feel guilty later. So I agreed. And after that was out my system, slowly but surely I realized that he is actually the only person I have met that resembles me a lot. A lot more than we both would like to admit. We both have same shenanigans. We both are too egotistical, proud and adamant. We hate it to our death, accepting that we were wrong. We do know it, but saying it out loud is another story. We listen to many problems which people share with us, but as far as sharing ours is concerned, that ratio sucks. And we might be quite smart normally, knowing exactly how world works and stuff. But when people whom we consider friends are involved, we won’t think twice walking knowingly in a stupid and lazily planned trap. Hell, we both were not able to grow moustaches for a long time.

We don’t exactly talk on phone or chat on messages, we don’t exactly share our problems with each other. But we both know, that no matter what happens, whenever we’ll need each other, we’ll be there for each other, without a shadow of doubt.

सोचा था पहले कि पूरा हिंदी में लिख दें, पर फिर शायद इतना नहीं लिख पाते। काफी सोचना पड़ता, शायद काफी चीज़ें छूट जाती। जो होने नहीं दिया जा सकता था। इतना कह देते हैं हिंदी में, कि नालायक तो तुम कुछ कम नहीं हम से, पर चूँकि तुम्हारा नालायकपन हमारे नालायकपन से उम्दा मेल खाता है, तो हम चला लेंगे। वरना कुर्सी लगा देंगे। भले ही बुढ़ापे तक यहीं करना पड़े।

जन्मदिवस की हार्दिक शुभकामनाएं मेरे दोस्त।