Transitions

I never count the number of years I have been associated with anyone in my life. This is primarily because of the fact that it reminds me of two things, firstly the time spent with the person always seems less and secondly there is a constant urge to spend more time with the person. I was in class 11 when we first met. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to call it a meeting, since I had just written to him. I don't know if  I still have the letter in my mailbox. Back then, he was a journalist owning a his own little space in a weekly news paper. His story about a woman, who coaxed him into buying her a "pair of black trousers" amused me. The presence of a Yahoo ID printed below his story made me curious. We were still in the age of Yahoo Messenger and cell phones were not as prevelant as they are today. Why not add this man, I thought. I didn't have anything to lose. If he reciprocated, it would be a new beginning, otherwise I'd be just one among the many friend requests he would have declined.

iamtoobrainyforu was quite an interesting Yahoo ID, and its quite tough for anyone to deny a friend request from an id that is so presumptuous. The id gave me all the attention that I never got in real life and I did not complain. So the journalist and I got chatting and before I realised, we were talking each night, all night long until dawn. I still question myself as to what conversations can a man who is in his early thirties and a lady who is barely out of her teens can have? On the outset our story would seem like one of those tabloids on a news paper where two strangers met online, became friends and eventually one of them was taken for a ride. But neither of us expected anything from each other right from day one and the same continues till date.

I became friends with the man, before he started his own blog. We were friends before I began writing. One of the best things to happen to me in my life is writing. The man helped me discover that I could write. One afternoon the time when I was confused about which undergraduate course to join, I went to the yellow smiley beside his name and began lamenting to him. I always wonder if anyone else would have had the same amount of patience to deal with a school girl's cribbing. Anyone else would have brushed me off and said it happens everywhere. But the man told me, "Why don't you write it down?". And hence was born "Frustrations Amalgamated and my first news paper story.

When he began his blog, he often asked for my opinion on what ever he wrote. At 17, I viewed sex as a taboo and was very conscious of even uttering the word. I glanced through a few of his posts and at the very look of  the word sex, I felt uncomfortable and told him that his blog was sick. It never occurred to me that those words would be completely shattering for a man who had just set out on a his journey to become a writer. The man still tells me that he can never forget the day I told him those words, the words I wish I had swallowed. It never occurred to me that no one who meets a 17 year old girl online, would take her seriously. If  they did, it would be only for sex. It was later that I realised, the man sought my opinion on what he wrote because he viewed me as equal to him and my age never mattered. If I ever write anything noteworthy of being printed, I would dedicate the first page to the man and no one else.

Days passed by and years flew by. Yahoo changed to Gmail and people began switching from Orkut to Facebook. But over the years we grew with each other, and so did our writing. And as we grew, the Ganga Mail grew with him and my Frustrations grew with me and made me wise. Today the man is an established writer. We don't talk as often as we used to. On those lonely nights, as I stare into a blank blog screen, even without exchanging a single word between our chat windows, the presence of the green dot beside his name on my friends list renders a feeling of security. The feeling that only the both of us feel. And you can feel that only when you have never counted the number of years you have been associated with somebody.