“Friendship has no
boundaries, needs no explanations or character test and no need to spend more
than one evening with a complete stranger to emerge as best friends.”
This chapter started
in a freezing, foggy winter morning of December on an almost deserted railway
station of Deolali. Deolali is a small town near Nasik. I was to travel back to
Surat, my hometown, catching an early morning train. And I, as usual, was
already running late.
When I reached the
station, I found it almost deserted with only a few localites. I did not see
any train there. I said to myself, “Damn, I missed the train”. On the platform,
I could only see snowy white fog far away till the horizon. I started panicking
and I did not know what to do. I was looking around for help, looking for
someone to come and remove me out of the fuss I had created for myself. I wandered
on the platform, but found no help. At last, tired and hungry enough, with no
energy to do anything further, I sat down on a bench.
There I saw someone
coming. I could see a figure coming with a duffel bag, from within the fog,
making its way towards me. It seemed like a savior, coming all the way to help
me. As it came closer, I could see a man with a well built, staring straight at
me. He was a mediocre, average looking man, normal heighted with a long oval
face, a sharp nose, a finely done French beard and mid length curly hair. For a
moment his look scared me. He had a strange look in his eyes, the kind of look
that gave me an uncomfortable feeling. He left me into confusion.
He stopped as he
reached near the bench on which I was seated. He looked at me with his
mysterious deep gaze, and as my gaze met with his, he started to look away.
After a minute or two, he approached me and asked about the train that I had
missed (or rather, we had missed). I felt a strange feeling. For so long, I was
waiting for someone to come and help me. And when he came (and was also
offering his help), I did not want to talk to him. I wanted to ignore a
stranger. I was fighting with myself; my mind and my heart. It was difficult
for me to decide whether to trust a complete stranger or no, whether to give
him the information of me missing the train or no. But there was something
about him that made me speak to him. Finally, I informed him I had missed the
train and was looking for other alternatives to reach Mumbai. He gave me a
couple of options and said that even he was going the same way and suggested
that we could travel together till Mumbai. Again, the fight between my mind and
heart began. I was continuously thinking whether should I travel with him or
no. For once, I thought “No, I should not. How can I trust a stranger who comes
just out of nowhere, offering me help?”. Then I thought to myself, “Lady, you
do not have any other option than trusting this noble man who’s genuinely trying
to help you out. It’s better to go the way he directs you rather than sitting
here all alone forever on this deserted station”. I was freaking out..!
I had to decide quickly.
I did not have forever to make a choice. And finally, I decided to go with him.
We decided to travel together till Mumbai by bus. As we reached the bus depot,
we discovered that a bus to Mumbai was ready to depart. We ran like crazy heads
to buy our tickets and rushed into the bus. We took our seats and took a deep
breath. As we looked at each other, we burst out into laughter. And then
without any hesitation or discomfort, our conversation started with “Hello, my
name is blah blah.! I’m doing blah blah.!!” Just a simple ‘Hello’ was good
enough to start our never ending conversation. We just could not stop; we did
not want to stop. And hence, kept talking about things one after the other and
so on.
That one incident of
my life gave me a new friend, a new companion, a new partner who would stay for
life. I made a new relationship which started with strangeness, moved forward
with humanity and concern and continues to exist as friendship. A never ending friendship.!!
