MISSING RAJARAM

“Don’t take it to your heart”, were his words, as I espied a drop of tear in the corner of his eyes. Surely those words would have been a response to what he understood was going on inside me. I was surely on the edge, and the rather forlorn look on the faces of his wife and children held me back from openly pouring out my emotions.

It was the early morning of 8^th January 2008 at about 0550 hrs that I felt a part of me being yanked off on a flight to Muscat. That was where Rajaram (that hyperlink should be indicitave enough that he should now regularly update his blog!) was headed to – seeking a new career in a rather old field for him – Income Tax. Unarguably my closest friend – you could miss the second ‘s’ there, and that would still be right – for 25 years – come June 2008, his comments to my post Merci, Oriental have only rekindled the nostalgia – but at the wrong time. Our wives jokingly refer to themselves as our respective second wives – they think that we are the real Made for Each Other pair and they are right.

Our careers have been almost similar – both of us joined employment within a month of each other, and here we are now – both of us in a new employment within a month of each other again. Only this time, destiny has kept us a time zone away. Both of us are now pensioners at an age our parents would wince at the word called Pension. Both of us are blessed with families that know each other so well – and the space for our friendship has never been intruded. The only space intrusion that has happened is the one between Madras and Muscat.

I am not sure about his family or mine, but I have already started the countdown to 14^th August 2008 – that is when he will most likely come back to MAS for a holiday for those annual rituals called The Landmark Quiz, and the Madras Quiz – where we should be defending our title – and I am sure he remembers.

Lest I forget, I should also add that at last count, Rajaram owed me around 1733 minutes – minutes of waiting for him at Leo Coffee, Muththamizh, Perambur Reservation counter and all and sundry places around Chennai. I am willing to write off the 733 minutes as a perfect parting gift.

And, at the cost of holding out a threat to Rajaram, I am, God willing, only a couple of years away from landing at the doorstep of his residence in Muscat with my family, and walk into his open arms!