Strangers

I noticed a framed photograph of a bunch of strangers in my living room. Next to the television. I couldn't remember why it was there. I hardly ever notice my house. Things lay, neglected and dusty. I have often wanted to have a life in which the mind is beautiful, you know. So I don't much focus on making the house beautiful. In the last decades, I've managed neither. Anyway.

I picked up the photograph and stared closely. I could spot myself in the last row. A different version of me, of course. I am, ageless, to be truthful. I was born with an older person's head. So I never feel I have been childish in the past. In the picture, my hair is tied up, I am wearing shorts and a favourite blue top. Next to me is someone I had recently met with back then.

This person, a girl, vivacious and affable had taken a keen interest in me at work. In fact, she suggested, we go out for Chinese lunch, just like that, out of the blue. I obviously couldn't turn her down and we became friends. The way an introvert and extrovert gel, we adhered to each other with a level of comfort I hadn't recently found in another human. 

This girl, she had her boyfriend introduced to me. He worked in one of the adjacent buildings. He came off as a reticent man. But when he spoke, it seemed, folks listened and intently. For some reason, could be my intense vulnerability, or me living alone, having moved into the city recently and not knowing another soul, the girl was reluctant to leave me unattended. I mean, she would hover around. And I, surprisingly, didn't rebuke her and let it be.

The couple, they never made me feel like I was third wheeling, you know. It was always like, we were friends hanging out. They started accompanying me to my Saturday night temple outings, instead of hitting the pubs in town. Who does that?

One day, the girl suggested we go the waterpark. I had never been to an amusement park. I didn't buy the idea of having an entire day set aside for fun activities. I wasn't good enough for such prizes. But she convinced me that I was. 

It was a Sunday and we took the bus to the outskirts. The day whizzed past wonderfully. I crossed the lazy river thrice. And there were tidal lakes and the joy of screaming hydrophobic strangers next to me as they drowned in waist high waves. Towards the end, we realised we didn't have a picture. So this was the last ride we took. 

It was one of those slides, roller coaster kind of thing where the cart with a dozen people crashed into the water. The picture was taken just before we crashed. Our jaws are wide open. Eyes are tremendously excited and we're screaming like there's no tomorrow.

I held the photo in my hands and realised that I had been keeping a photo of nine total strangers in my living room for over four years. The girl too moved away after she switched jobs, but not before breaking up with the reticent boyfriend. So, the only person I knew in the photograph was me. The rest were all strangers. In that brief moment, my agelessness came crashing down.