Like a house on fire...

Dedications don't come easy. I particularly immortalise my chosen few in black and white just because they paint my life colourfully with shades that my own colour palette lies oblivious to.

23rd May, 2013
Hatia Station
Hatia
Ranchi

She fondly reminds me the date because there she was... pacing up and down the platform in the company of her siblings and her mom. Her goddess-like fair complexion and rich auburn ponytail sat such a misfit among the stinking crowd that the keen observer in me was compelled to turn around and take another look. Her inexplicable aura resonated so perfectly with mine that I instantly knew she deserved to be trapped in one of my future blogposts!

My blunts and schoolgirl-like demeanour might have prompted her to ask which class I studied in... while my mind felt like travelling through the various foramen of human skull and trying to instruct the Broca's area not to take offence and mess up with the speech! Offence - because she herself sported a baby-faced look, complete with chubby cheeks and attractively high cheekbones!

Not for a second did it feel like we'd never known each other. There was a connection that transcended my own understanding of trust and friendship. Some people just know you... along unfathomable lines. I knew she did. Amidst the unsettling noise of the magazine hawkers and the chaiwallahs, we stayed unperturbed, engulfed by the fact that how much we knew about each other and how much we mirrored each other without uttering a word! There was life in our conversation... something that had the intensity of touching every realm of existence with an unforgettable and indelible impact. And we got along like a house on fire... burning bright even under the scorching roof of the sleeper class!

There are people who you want to keep locked up in the closet of your heart forever. She became one. Though we never got a chance to meet again, I knew we were friends for life - separated by time and distance, tied by an unspoken string of credence.