An old & ordinary friend

He lost his father while he was still in his early teens. The confusing cusp between infancy and adult life, where an unknown outside world stands in sharp contrast to a simpler inside one. I didn’t know him well then and that event passed me by without a trace. My memories of him were that he was plump, quiet and had a beautific smile.

I lost touch with him after school and we met many decades later. He had lost weight, was strikingly handsome and a book publisher. I had read a foreword by him a decade earlier in a worksite camp room on a hot sunday afternoon. A fleeting curiosity coursed through me about the journey that had brought him to those pages, though I never finished the book then. He had a peaceful aura about him now that made me look forward to the rare occasions when we would run into each other.

Click here to read the essay on Anand’s blog.