Good Friday with friends

This is the last night. It rains silence now. And little droplets of music from the piano's hammer. I should write more. I should write to music as I once did. Not those few lines I hurriedly manage for blip. I will try and carve out time, for writing and silence. Like Adda said about a friend in the morning, as we rode through the fields, "I love reading his blog. They come straight from the heart..." As much as I love writing on topics of a more debatable nature, topics I like to understand from multiple points of view, I also love the other kind of writing that doesn't go through the process of conscious intellectual screening. It comes from somewhere deeper. Quite honestly, there is no end to this depth. To identify it is to realize you are not just a cog in a pre-programmed piece of machinery. To truly identify it is to break all shackles.

As Adda says on his blip today, we knew where we wanted to go, and where we wanted to stop. And so we did. I was a bit preoccupied with all the clearance procedures at office I would have to complete by the end of today. But more interesting is when it all started. At about 5:40 AM I woke up after setting the alarm to snooze a couple of times. I had gone to sleep late last night and was tired. I couldn't see myself cycling. I rang Adda with the intention of calling off the ride. But even now it baffles me, how I managed to say "So,at what time are we meeting?" I had difficulty filling air into the tyres and reached more than 10 minutes late. Adda had his bike parked as he sat on the ground, resting against a closed food stall. I will remember that image. As I will so many more during the day. Can't elucidate them all though.

We talked about travel, about childhood, about experiences that slice through your consciousness, experiences of completely having been there. He did most of the talking, though there are more reasons than one for that. I am sure our paths will cross again and I am curious to see how we will evolve. I can't help but recall the first day I met him. My flatmate SM and I had moved into a new three room apartment for a fairly steep rent and we were looking for a third person. What we do, is send a mail seeking a flatmate across the online portals of various organizations. And all by chance, it was Adda who called us. In fact, SM and I had had a coin toss (best of three tosses with its share of dispute) prior to that for room selection, both trying to "win" the one in relative isolation. I lost the toss, and won a luckier hand.

In school, I had been fortunate to have met some truly fascinating people, some of whom are sure to leave their mark. Some friends I love to be in touch with. In college though there were very few. Somehow I hardly came across anyone who was truly original or passionate. Perhaps I just wasn't looking. Though it was a good period for me academically, it's not a time I look back at with fondness, not a time I want to relive, except for the hills. I knew it on the first day and I knew it on my last.

Met up with friends for dinner at Indijoe's tonight. Except for me, everyone ordered sizzlers. Some were a bit absent-minded and had no clue what they had ordered until it arrived with a hiss! I received some very thoughtful gifts when we parted. It is the most fascinating circle of people. Each of us is quite different in our own ways, and do not hesitate to make fun of one another. I think what brought us together is our curiosity for life and a desire to seek out beauty, because it exists. It exists in the everyday as it does on the peak of the highest mountains. Each one in our own ways, seeks to be better versions of ourselves. Some of course are far more emotional than others and I worry a little about them. I am sure at least some of us will meet again. But I suppose this is how changes are. A momentary void, which we resist filling up initially, since it never does with the same things. There lies the place for the new.

And though change is the very nature of life and turning a blind eye to it is beyond foolishness. I think my brilliant friend from school, A is absolutely right when he goes perhaps out of character to say how "purely and unbelievably tragic" change can be.

P.S. This shot is as much about my recent interest in multiple exposures as it is about the fading and subjective nature of memory.