Balconies and Beginnings

I heard you giggle.

“Wait, how did we get here?” I asked.

You stopped giggling so abruptly that I felt guilty. I knew you were thinking hard. I could almost see you, standing at the balcony, that is around five thousand miles away from mine, with your short hair tied into a clumsy bun, squinting at the hints of a beginning of a new day, while trying to trace back to the beginning of this new line of our conversation.

“I don’t know” you said, gravely. I heard you take a sip of your coffee. I gulped down the remains of my coffee, which I drink to extend my nights, so that your mornings wouldn’t seem so long.

I chuckled. “Nevermind, we’re pretty lame like that”

You giggled again. This time I didn’t say anything to ruin the giggle, the moment.

I leaned against my balcony wall and stared at the moon which was floating in the sky, all alone, glowing so brightly in all its splendour, for the sake of other lonely beings. I sighed.

I was panting, you were panting too, but also giggling. ‘Damn, why are you always giggling?’ I thought. I got a whiff of your mom’s samosas. I smiled. Life was good. It was one of those good old days when the only distance that separated us was the space between our balconies, the only thing you had to do to meet me was to blackmail me into playing with you, by threatening to break your leg by leaping from your balcony to mine, when you had long hair that reached your waist, and I was actually a few inches shorter than you, when all that mattered to us was gorging ourselves on aunty’s samosas after the game, all sweaty and smelly, our knowing grins looking sparkling bright, because the rest of our faces was sun-tanned.

Your hair tickled my back. I smiled wider this time. I knew we were going to lose the game, but at least you were on my team. But again, we were always a team. You meddled with the racket, then stood up, giving me some lame instructions that wasn’t going to help us win. I wasn’t listening, I was thinking, thinking hard.

“Let’s get going”, you said. I didn’t move.

“Akshay?”

I watched worry crawl onto your eyebrows. I saw something else too. A look on your face that meant you didn’t give a damn about the game; you would drop the racket, the game, everything else, to hear me out, to set things right for me.

“How did we get here?” I asked hoarsely.

“What?” The worry crept away quietly. But that look stayed, damn it was written all over your face.

“I mean, us…how did we get here? How did we meet, how did we become friends, how did we…” I left the question hanging. Whatever it was, it was not meant to be revealed now.

You didn’t say anything. You just sat down next to me. I know you were thinking about the version of the story your mom told you; about how we first met at your tenth birthday party, and I was thinking about how my mom told me I was never invited to the party and that we met much later. But I somehow knew both of our mothers were wrong. They were so busy bonding with each other, that they didn’t care enough to notice the beginning of our bond.

The fact is, we can never trace it back to the beginning. No jigsaws ever had a beginning. Yes, whatever we have between us was a lot like jigsaws- suspenseful, mysterious, sometimes even confusing, but nevertheless beautiful. All the little moments that had led us to becoming us, are tangled in the criss cross cobwebs of Time; there’s no way we can ever clearly figure out what happened when, leave alone tracing it back to the beginning. But all those beautiful little moments happened. I guess that’s what matters during the times we both find the moon beautiful, but never together.

“Hey, are you there?” you asked in your morning voice. I loved your morning voice, because it made you sound like you are still drunk on the solitude of the night, but beginning to feel slightly sober, because you’re not alone anymore.

“Yeah”, I muttered.

“Okay, let’s switch to video! I want to show you the little bud, that is beginning to bloom in the balcony flower pot!”

And sure enough, your short hair was tied in a clumsy bun, but it looked more clumsy than I had imagined.

And then, I saw the little bud. The beginning of a new life, a new story. I couldn’t help but feel happy for the bud, it could trace its story back to the beginning, to its roots, to those first water droplets it felt, to the first smile you flashed at it, to the first leaf that sprouted, to its first glance at the world, but mostly it will remember your smile, your beautiful smile that brings things to life.

Image Courtesy: Pascal Campion

Originally published in my blog.