To strangers..

There are some people you know you’ll never meet again..

I was flying home sometime last year. I’d just moved cities, had no job and was desperate for company, making “new” friends. My married sisters had instructed me to start talking to people, connecting with them (which is a very tough thing for me to do), and make friends, so I began groping for company. I was seated next to this lady who must be early 40s and we began talking.

It was rather interesting talking to her. She seemed as impatient as me, mature but still had that defying streak in her. She explained how Bangalore will gradually grow on me and I’ll begin to prefer it over Delhi, we spoke about ambition and families and children. She told me how independently she was raised, how she had called off her engagement when young with her childhood friend and neighbor and still managed to remain friends, that there came a time when she knew that she had to leave home for a larger city or she wouldn’t survive. There was too much of similarity and vehemence in us and I could see faint glimmers of a bond. This had happened to me before when total strangers had become my best friends and with that dire need now to find a close pal, I was glad to encounter someone like her.

 We kept chatting for all of the two and half hours and by the end of it remained interested enough to exchange numbers and a probability to meet each other once back in Bangalore. After umpteen attempts to connect, we did manage to meet up. We had lunch, chatted amicably for an hour or so and then parted with words of meeting each other with our spouses some time. However, in some inexplicable way, at some unsure moment during our lunch, I realized that this was probably that last time I was meeting her. I don’t know when and how this happened but I just knew it. After that meeting neither tried meeting or even staying in touch, just like that.

Now when I look back, I feel that I should have left that airplane conversation to what it was- a conversation that makes you smile at times, of connecting with somebody totally unknown and making you think about the wonders of life. I have had some encounters when I travelled often and though I don’t even know their names, I remember most of them distinctly, even fondly.

I guess its better being ignorant about some things, certain people. Maybe some things are best left the way they are..