Dear Pranjal

Tuesday, March 3, 2015, 1:53 AM

The Icfai Guest House,

Chaltlang, Aizawl

Dear Pranjal,

It’s been more than a week that you have moved on to your new life. I still remember when you said that it is only one person that we are going to miss but for you it’s an entire world with so many persons that you are going to miss. I hope you have slowly but surely adjusted to your new surroundings. The news of you leaving came all of a too sudden that I couldn't really feel its true magnitude at that point. And that’s kind of strange because no one was perhaps more aware than me about how things were gradually proceeding to one particular direction. Besides, the busiest last few days had hardly offered me any opportunity to think about the future empty sofa in our living room which we often used to share while watching those noisy prime time television debates. It was only during our last dine out together with Taslima and Co at Floria where I started to realize that once you will not be there, things are going to change forever.

So what has changed…? First of all I have started to miss the office bus a little too frequently and that is bad considering the fact that Tim has almost stopped bringing his car to Aizawl, ruling out the luxury of my second option. I had earlier realized that there won’t be any fighting for front seat when you won’t be there but that you can see is not even among the least that I have gained from the situation. Now me and Tim are in a “consideration phase” of reviving my vintage motor bike for the purpose. The emptiness that you have left inside our guest house had become so annoying that one day we replaced our giant dining table with a small study table. This may sound stupid but it somehow helped by cutting short the unoccupied space between us when only three of us are now eating together. Among all these the only thing that I couldn't replace is perhaps the times when you and me used to come out from our respective rooms after our failed attempts to sleep and sat together to discuss on and on about life, career, politics, culture, girls, marriage, dreams….yes, those unending sagas of frustrations and hopes.

I don’t know how often we will be able to meet in future. I don’t know how often we will be able to call each other… As from my own experiences, I have came to know that the occasions of physical, telephonic and electronic contacts tends to become less frequent with passing time and growing distance. However, my optimism about our friendship is strengthened by the sincere hope that you, me and Manjit might have a very common connection in near future.

And lastly one thing that I want to remind both of us is that we have too many unfinished tasks at hand. I remember you often used to say that we keep talking but never do. Now since we will have less chance to talk, may be we should focus more on doing.

I wish you all the best and I know you will be the best in whatever you do…

Shamim                                                            

Dear Manjit

12:30 pm, August 11, 2013

The Icfai Guest House,

Chaltlang, Aizawl

Dear Manjit,

It’s a mix emotion of sadness, nostalgia and excitement I’m going through in the proportion of 50:30:20 respectively, as I am going to pen down my heart and mind in these eco-friendly, elemental chlorine free papers produced by ITC.

I sometime wonder why I can’t exactly remember the first time we met. This is unusual as I can vividly recall about the occasions when I met others for the first time at Aizawl. I met Pranjal in the late May of 2010 at our old Icfai campus in Chaltlang; I met Gyanashri in January, 2012 picnic at Sairang; I met Koyel on a November afternoon in 2012 at your very own place… However, I do remember the kind of unease that we used to feel during our initial encounters and you too have acknowledged this during our Champhai trip this year. I believe that sense of unease was due to our own reflective individual personalities, which I find quite natural when two people of similar intellectual abilities sits opposite to each other. It’s like the silent counter magnetism – the repulsive phenomenon between two identically polarized magnets. It took some amount of time before we became really close friends, and that is the beauty of bonding; the same magnets can have the strongest bind between them when any of the poles subjectively gets reversed.

I don’t want to sound too exaggerating but I must acknowledge that you are intellectually superior to many of your peers.  I also firmly believe that you still deserve more than what you have achieved till now. You have the kind of leadership qualities that generally change makers possesses. I know that you are aware of your own qualities as much as I do and that is why I need not act like a mentor who speaks in the common mechanical motivating lines derived out of his own snobbery.

I do believe that people like us have larger roles and greater responsibilities to offer. I know that no matter how much you will achieve in the world is not going to sufficiently satisfy you until you pay back your debt to your own family, your own people, and your own place. That is why I would like to see you coming back to India and to the northeast once you complete your formal education from abroad. What bothers me these days is that there are a lot of divisive forces that are playing insensitive games with the short-term emotions of ordinary people. Technically speaking, I am not opposed to boundaries that separates region on the basis of geo-political or socio-cultural identity but I am strongly opposed to the boundaries that divides people. It’s a high time for us to stand against these divisive forces.

Finally, I would like to confess one thing that I am not very good at keeping contacts. But this does not mean that I think any less of my old relationships. I would like to assure you that our friendship will be preserved like a half-read novel. After any unconditional hiatus of any duration, we will certainly begin from the point where we left.

Wishing you all the best for everything…

Shamim