A friend gone whither?

Whenever we met, he was the same affectionate boy who had helped me find myself.

“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave and impossible to forget,” says Walt Whitman. How true!

Anyone can become a friend if one has the social tendency, but it takes a deep rapport to form a close friendship with one of our kind – birds of a feather, as the saying goes. And when such a friend is taken away by the cruel hands of fate, an agonising void clouds the heart and changes one’s values of life.

Alfred Tennyson, the great poet, felt the sudden death of his best friend  Arthur Hallam so intensely that he did not touch his pen for quite some time. I can understand it now that I lost a kindred soul recently.

Common interests like reading and writing created the magical friendship – yes, we were more friends than relatives. He was a sort of child prodigy – a storehouse of knowledge especially in English literature. A connoisseur of bo-oks that he was, his library was fantastic, carefully built up from his boyhood. Naturally, he was possessive, but he never refrained where I was concerned. I still remember his mail when I was convalescing, “Name any book in my library Pankajakka, I will bring it to you.” Needless to say, I was much touched.

Born of a rich family, he had his own period of tribulation when he found himself a misfit in the engineering line his father had chosen. He took a risk by leaving it after a short spell and opting for journalism – a not so lucrative career, but dedicated work and zeal for writing took him places! His charming persona along with a bright intellectual calibre gave him access to many prestigious places, both local and abroad. But success never went to his head. 

Whenever we met, he was the same affectionate and encouraging boy who had helped me find myself, reminding me of Henry Ford’s saying – “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”

Long hours would he spend going through whatever I scribbled. He liked my writings, especially my English poems and would be the first to convey his opinion and pleasure as soon as it saw the limelight. So much so that recently, when an article of mine got published, I waited quite some time for his call till I realised with a jolt that he was no more; that I would never hear his jovial voice again. No more?

Where have you gone Checha? How could you, leaving so much behind – a loving wife and successful sons (one is a famous heart-specialist in the US). Where was the hurry to go when we, the older ones, are still hobbling around?