by Namitha Varma
She closed her Facebook and LinkedIn pages in frustration. It was the umpteenth time she was searching for him on social networking sites. She promised herself she wouldn’t do it again. The last she had seen him was 20 years ago, when they were just eight years old. There was no way she’d find him anywhere, especially when she didn’t remember his last name, didn’t know how he looked now, didn’t have any common acquaintances. Class three was a young age to forge strong friendships. But still she’d looked for him, every now and then.
She wanted to know how he had turned out. They were at par in all talents and skills in class. They were friends, at least as far as friendships went at that age. She chastised herself again for wanting to find him – she had lost count of how many times the thought of reaching out to him had occurred to her after he’d moved to another school and another city.
She’d first tried to look for him when she’d caught up with the email and chatting trend in class 10. That was when her email id read ‘suksforyou’ and her Yahoo messenger id was ‘queenof16’. Her search for him in the virtual world intensified when, a couple of years later, she created an account on hi5 and Orkut and accepted friend requests from strangers without any misgivings. Her heart had raced when she first typed in his name into the search fields, though eventually, she was left sighing at the number of false leads.
Her tea had gone cold. She was yet to shower and get ready for work. She was ambling towards the bathroom when her phone rang.
“Am I speaking to Sukriti?”
“Yes?”
“Ma’am this is from Dew’s Bank. Would you like to…”
“I’m sorry I’m busy. And no, I am not interested in credit cards, home loans, vehicle loans – nothing. Please don’t call again.”
“Uh. Yes. Okay, thank you ma’am, have a nice day.”
“You too,” she replied wearily. Each time she was left with this uneasy doubt – what if the unknown number turned out to be a long-lost friend. I’m growing old, she thought. All this nostalgia and wallowing in memories.
***
The card on her desk proclaimed the visitor to be Varun Majithia, Lawyer. Of course he was coming over the case she’d filed against the person he was representing. His employer had called her a “news slut” in public, and whatever metaphor he might have meant, Sukriti was not going to let him go scot-free for using a derogatory term on a female journalist.
She asked the office aide to let Mr. Majithia in. The lawyer, dressed neatly in formal shirt and pants with creases at the right spots, walked into her cabin with a winning smile painted on his face. His countenance seemed familiar, as did his name. After 20years, was it the same Varun she had been questing after in the virtual world and in her dreams? She stared at him long enough for him to look at her quizzically.
“Uh, hello Ms. Pandit. I assume it’s all right for me to sit?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, please.” She shook herself out of the stupor.
“I’m sorry. I have that kind of effect on women,” Mr. Majithia replied with a charming smile. That smile again.
Sukriti didn’t want the lawyer to get an upper hand, even if he were her Varun. She returned the smile with equal grace. “You look familiar, that’s all. I assume you have come from Mr. Vardhman Tripathi?”
“Yes ma’am, that’s right. I’m hoping you will be able to forgive him for that stupid comment. It’s not worth making such a fuss about.”
Sukriti wanted to explode on this lawyer’s face. Of course, no one had called him a political gigolo yet. She took a deep breath and looked at his face – the same familiarity again…
“Listen, were you in Pune ever?”
“I’m sorry, what?” He looked up from his portmanteau where he was picking out documents for her to sign.
“Did you ever live in Pune?”
“Yes… I did. When I was a kid.”
“Did you study in Chinmaya Primary?”
“Yes…” Mr. Majithia’s eyebrows were knitting together in bafflement with every passing question. Sukriti’s heart was doing the cha-cha-cha.
“Do you remember…” but the lawyer did not allow her to complete the question.
“I’m sorry Ms. Pandit, I don’t remember anything much about Pune. I left that city when I was just eight, and my life after that was too eventful for me to remember those younger boring years.” He offered her a sympathetic smile.
“Sure you don’t remember anything about the school?” she pushed her luck a bit more.
“I do remember that we had mangoes in the garden. And we had a teacher whose name was Madgaonkar.”
“D’you… remember any of your classmates?”
“Oh, absolutely not. I faintly remember one or two people, but I guess what I remember of them doesn’t matter after so many years. That wasn’t the era of mobile phones, and our family left during the summer vacations. So I couldn’t leave contact numbers or addresses for my classmates, nor take their contacts, for that matter. I mean, it was too abrupt. But why are you asking?”
“Why did you have to leave?” Sukriti’s composure was crumbling by the second.
“Ms. Pandit, I don’t think I want to discuss personal matters, if you don’t mind.” Mr. Majithia fiddled with his papers again. He held out a couple of them before her – she snatched it from his hand, much to his surprise.
“That is a press note Mr. Tripathi would like to release once you approve of it. As you will see, he thoroughly apologises and gives the metaphorical meaning he intended. It’s quite flattering, you’ll see.”
Sukriti glared at him before beginning to read the apology note. It was thorough all right. And even with a court case, she’d only be able to get the apology and maybe a few lakhs in libel. But she wasn’t in this for money. Even this apology would be a moral victory for her.
She looked at Varun Majithia again. He was smiling at her through the lips that had planted their first kiss on her cheek in the garden under the mango tree after the year’s last exam. She remembered his promise of seeing her in class four with a box full of chocolates. She smiled at him dazedly.
“Are you married, Mr. Majithia?”
“I really don’t know why you are asking me so many personal questions, but since you won’t give up, yes I am married.”Sukriti’s heart felt like a fish out of water doing its last beat. “My wife is expecting our first baby next month. And, my family left Pune because my father got transferred to Calcutta. Does that clear your doubts? Can we move on to my client’s request?” There was an edge to his voice that jolted Sukriti out of the wispy clouds of memories she’d drifted into.
Sukriti looked at the papers she was holding, and sighed. She should probably tell him off for snubbing her, but she couldn’t. She was flitting between then and now like never before. She couldn’t complain if he felt rattled.
“This apology will do fine, Mr. Majithia. We’ll close this case.” Mr. Majithia was taken by surprise. What a whimsical woman, he thought. “Wonderful, Ms. Pandit. It was nice talking to you.”
He got up to leave. “Why were you asking me all those personal questions, by the way? Were you in my class or something?”
“No, Mr. Majithia. You seemed familiar, I thought you looked like someone I knew from Chinmaya Primary, but turns out you’re not the one.And I’m a journalist. Asking questions is second nature to me. Sorry for the inconvenience. Goodbye, Varun.”
He smiled and walked out of the cabin, jubilated by the easy victory for his client. He missed the sigh in her voice, the resignation in her tone, the wistful look she threw after him. But when he reached his car, he wondered why she’d called him by his first name in the end.
Evokes images of many a quest for long-lost classmates, friends and soul mates in this Facebook era. The fluidity of prose that captures well the contrasting objectives of the journalist and the lawyer, and the twist at the end of tale make the reading enjoyable.
The last paragraph was particularly good. Little did the Varun realise why Sukriti acquiesced fast. Did the realisation that Sukriti called him by his first name ring a bell? Did he walk back to meet her and find out why she was asking so many personal questions, notwithstanding her preemptive denial of any resemblance to a former classmate?
Thank you Pradeep. Glad you liked the story!