A short dream and a cherished friendship

This morning my brother called me and asked “have you heard from GR recently ?”  I said “no, it has been nearly a year since I received his mail. Why did you ask ?”. He said that he was trying to contact GR. E-mails sent to his known mail Ids had not received any response and there was no phone number to call. Since my brother was expected to be in the US in November, He was trying to get in touch with GR, who lives in Colorado, in the hope of meeting him. 

Now, a little bit about this GR. He is my childhood friend. Three years older than me. When I first met him I was in second standard and he was in fifth. We walked to school together everyday. A distance of about three kilometers. And I am sure this is what put a firm foundation for our friendship. He completed his Phd in Artificial Intelligence and left for the US for a postdoctoral. I completed my BDS and left for Goa around the same time. And I can confidently say that there has not been a single day in the intervening twenty years, but for the time he was in IIT Madras, that we have not met !  And whenever we met, ‘time stood still’ as the saying goes. We never met for a few minutes, at least an hour always !

He was ‘my friend’ but equally friendly with my brother and sister. He is known to everyone who knew me in my childhood. I do not intend to bore all my friends by writing about our friendship which I cherish. I am sure all of us have one or two such relations in life which transcend all known relations !

As my usual practice is these days, I lied down for a short nap after lunch. And I dreamt. I had parked my scooter by the side of the road and was checking something around its wheel. I felt someone come and stand next to me and on lifting my head saw GR standing there. We did not speak. I got up, took the scooter off the stand and started. He sat on the pillion. After a very short while, he said “there are police ahead”. Indeed there were police ahead and checking. I replied “don't bother. We have everything”. Then he said “No helmet!” I stopped abruptly turned the scooter around, parked it by the road side and turned towards GR to say “We will have to go and get helmets”, and I woke up. 

I last met GR during his short visit to India six years back. The earlier meeting was in 2010 when I had visited the US. He received me in Denver and I stayed with him for two days. He had recently built his house and when I stepped in he said “ ನೀನು ನನ್ನ ಮನೇಗೆ ಬಂದ್ಯಲ್ಲೋ ! ನಾನು ಮನೆ ಕಟ್ಟಿದ್ದಕ್ಕೂ ಸಾರ್ಥಕವಾಯ್ತು ಬಿಡು !” ( Oh, you did come to my house ! It is certainly worth building it ) I was so touched with that exclamation, that I have tears in my eyes even as I type this !

How I wish that I meet him out of the blue sometime again, just like the way I met him in my dream this afternoon.