This is a sequel to my short story Meeting Mira. If you haven’t read that yet. Scroll Down to the previous post. Else: Read On!

The bus dropped me few blocks away from home. I rushed home; I was excited to meet my parents and tell them how much I loved it there. Ramya, the maid, told me that my mom and dad had left for a house warming ceremony. I dumped my baggage in my room and called up Arjun. I was feeling very energetic and was excited to share my experience. Arjun was my best friend; we had been together since last 7 years. Arjun was a computer fanatic. He had a great sense of humor although at times he cracked a lot of silly jokes. We knew each other inside out and had a very strong bond. We decided to meet at our regular haunt – our college canteen.

It was noisy as usual with an array of students crowding over the self service counter. There was just one reason why we used to hang around in the canteen; they sold hot irresistible samosas with plenty of ketchup. Arjun managed to get two plates of samosas. We were meeting each other after 10 days. It was a long time for us. Arjun used to say “Vish, there are two things I need to do on any given day 1) Boot my machine 2) meet you”. We sat on the corner table with the samosas. “Yes, here we go. So now tell me what you were dying to say all this while” asked Arjun. “I met Mira” I replied. “Mira bai?” he laughed. “Who is Mira? I thought you went there to meet your grandmother” asked Arjun. “Of course, I went there to stay with Amma and during my visit, in fact just yesterday I happened to meet Mira by chance.” I replied. Arjun was still starring at me expecting me to finish. I explained him how I happened to meet her. I also told him about the conversation I had with her. Arjun had paused eating the samosa by then. I left him speechless. “Amazing, that sounds like a great vacation indeed. What else did you talk about? Did you tell her about yourself?” he asked me. He was expecting me to say yes. “No, we just spoke about her paintings and the hill”. I just realized that we hardly discussed anything about ourselves. All she probably knew about me was my name. Arjun thought I had a crush on her. We finished the samosa and walked out of the canteen. Arjun had a class and we decided to meet up later in the evening.

I drove back home. It took me 45 minutes as usual. Mom had returned. I had my lunch with her and told her about my vacation. She was good listener and always encouraged to share my experiences with her. I hadn’t told her about Mira yet. Of course, I didn’t mean to hide it from her but somehow I didn’t feel like telling her about it at that point of time. I took a nap that afternoon; I was actually tired after the overnight bus journey.

“Vish, wake up, since when did you started sleeping in the afternoons?” Arjun asked. It was already 5 in the evening. I had a very refreshing sleep. For a moment I thought I was still at Amma’s place. “Arjun, you know sometime it feels like we are living in such a captive world here, crowed streets, and people running around everywhere, anytime. Everyone here looks so artificial” I paused. Arjun was nodding his head. “We somehow are missing the essence of life by living like machines. Aren’t we?” I asked. I was hardly out of bed. “I know what you mean Vish, I would myself prefer to live on an Island if it had a broadband internet connection” replied Arjun. We laughed at it. We drove down to the beach and parked our car. It was a pleasant evening. Arjun was telling me about his new digital camera his uncle gifted him. We were comparing photography with painting. While I argued that painting has lot more scope for expression and indeed can also express something that did not exist, not the case with photography. Arjun agreed but also pointed out that photography has the power to express different perspective of the same picture. We might seem to find something very ordinary but a well captured picture can convey a lot more and bring you closer to reality. It was very typical of us discussing subjects like these. We often came up with different perspective and analyzed it rationally. And we were never short of ideas or issues.

We drove back home. I dropped Arjun to his house. He had an adorable house; his dad was a well known Architect. “Arjun, it was a great evening, I shall see you at college tomorrow”. Arjun smiled and said “Vishnu, you should start writing, you will relish reading your experiences when you look back. Think about it”. Arjun had a point. I used to write a lot during my early college days when I used to participate in all kind of events. I won a couple of times as well but I had never thought of writing about myself or my experiences. I thought it wasn’t a great idea. I reached home. I met dad and spent some time with him. He had not seen me for quite sometime as he had been traveling. I got back to my room; I unpacked my baggage. Amma had given me a wooden pen. That reminded me of what Arjun told me. I placed the pen on my table and threw myself on the bed awaiting another dawn.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2003 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Meeting Mira: A Short Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.