My Angel

I’ve been thinking of how to start writing this for over 3 days now. And as you can see, I opted for one of the most unimaginative openings. Well, I don’t write very often. In fact, my writer’s block is my closer buddy than my writing. But never earlier have I had to wait for so long to be able to get the first few words, never earlier have I felt so inadequate in writing about a subject, because… never earlier have I written about a perfect human being!

And mind it! That’s not a tall claim! Perfection has only one way to prove itself – that it should seem perfect each time you come across it. Time, place, mood, notwithstanding. If I calculate, my total number of meetings with this man would perhaps not be more than 5-6 – on an average, a meeting a month ever since our paths crossed the first time – and each time, I’ve found him to be more perfect than ever.

* * *

In Sep 2007, I received an email from a name I couldn’t quite place anywhere in my memory. Apparently, he was replying to my “Coming Out” mail – a mail that I had sent out to a 100-odd important people of my life, telling them who I really was, and expecting a miraculous acceptance from each one of them. [Reminds me: I must put that mail up here sometime…]

I got some 30-40 responses. The rest chose to remain quiet. This man, however, who was not even a recipient of the original email, had got to read it by a mere chance. Co-incidence! – One would think… But today, as I look back at that co-incidence, I can almost see Mr. God winking at me, and almost hear Him say – “Your angel was long due… Co-incidence is what?”

* * *

How else would you describe this? A little girl used to play with a littler boy in her village. The two were very fond of each other – almost brother and sister. But as the boy grew up, he went abroad to study, and as life would choose for it to be, they lost touch. This boy, after 3-4 decades, now writes to the daughter of that girl – the name of the daughter being ‘Monsoon’ – after having read a “Coming Out” email from her, which was not even meant for him!

Sumu, let’s call him! That’s a variant of the name he often gives to those characters in his stories which are or could be manifestations of his own self. By the way, he hates the name I’ve given to myself, and I’m afraid, if he ever reads this, he might hate the name I’ve given him too!

* * *

Sumu is a 53-year-old man – a writer by profession, and beautiful by countenance. I know, I know! You wouldn’t normally use that adjective for a man, but believe me, seeing him, ‘beautiful’ is what you’d want to say too. It’s a different matter, however, that beauty that lives beneath the skin often chooses to reflect outside.

I grew so fond of him in the first meeting itself that subconsciously, I started to look for similarities in the patterns of his and my life. His stories helped me in that analysis. He, like me, as a child, used to pray to God to let him die before his parents, for he wouldn’t be able to bear their departing. I, like him, had left home for education when I was 17 years 4 months old. We both had had our hearts broken (more by fate than by the ones we loved). Of course, his pain was many decades old, and mine, just half a decade.

Yet, looking at him today, I wonder if I would ever be able to be half as successful, as content with myself, and as positive a person, after having lived alone with such an intense heartache for 30-odd years! Sumu is an extraordinary person… And our similarities end here – for I’m too ordinary in comparison.

* * *

He lives with his octogenarian parents. A flourishing career possible anywhere from Delhi to Russia to the US behind him, he doesn’t once turn back to long for what could have been. Apparently, the choice between caring for his parents and an independent life of his own, for him, was no choice at all… His father, somewhere in the second stage of Alzheimer’s now, defines the axis of every subtle movement of his eyeballs. His mother, who is mirrored in the beauty of his entire persona, shares the deepest bond with him… a love that has no space for expression in day-to-day life, but that completely pervades the air around them and somehow, engulfs you into its cozy balmy embrace – as if here, you would always remain protected from the miseries of the world that lies beyond it.

From buying the weekly ration of vegetables to deciding the daily menu, from managing a newspaper office to writing for his own satisfaction, from being a delightful host to an excellent cook, from having countless friends in every corner of the world to being a friend to even his subordinates, from being a son that any parent would die to have to being my dear Sumu, I’m yet to discover a single flaw in this man that I’ve known almost on a daily basis for over six months now!

* * *

If there’s one thing that you think you could do for a stranger like me writing a strange blog like this one, I ask you to pray for Sumu. Please ask whichever God you believe in to send somebody really special in his life – somebody who would hold his precious heart and look after it for all times to come…

And you, Mr. Angel! Welcome to my life! You’re late!... But I guess, I was not worthy of having you before this anyway. Not that I think I am now… but alas! Now that you’re here, I’m afraid you’re pretty much stuck with me!!!