The last time I wrote on this blog was in 2018, at Manoj’s behest to lend voice to India’s ongoing MeToo campaign. Being a champion of women’s rights, he believed that all the perpetrators of sexual assault must be outed and brought to justice.
Today I am going to write about this friend of mine. Manoj
Beborta. Mostly because, I’ve been waiting for the tears to dry out all night,
but they haven’t, and this is my fleeting attempt at finding some closure. Well,
sort of…
Manoj and I were mostly friendly colleagues and then former
colleagues, who started talking because one fine evening at office cafeteria
during dinner time, I was talking to someone and I called Ram, Raja Ram. He at
point in time was a little bit inclined towards Hindutva ideologies, and started
arguing as to why I didn’t call Ram, Lord Ram. My response was plain, “Because
God cannot be as stupid as Ram was in the story of Ramayan, therefore to me he
is just Raja Ram.” We continued arguing a bit longer, and then I went back to resume
my night shift, while he missed his cab back home. That is how we met, and that
is what we used to laugh about years later. This was the year 2008 or 2009, I
just cannot remember anymore.
Over the years, we stayed connected on Facebook and chatted
once in a while, but we reconnected after my father’s passing. It’s funny to
think, that with so many years of friendship behind us, we don’t even have one
picture together. What I have are memories… Memories of drifting conversations,
my favourite kind.
Memories of ghost stories we shared sometimes late at night,
memories of teaching him how to cook rice or khichdi on phone, or just memories
of us arguing about which superhero was better, Batman or Ironman.
He hated the idea of getting married so much that he once
told a girl set-up by his family that he’s gay, just to get away from the
situation. We were in splits when he told me that. That same June afternoon, while
we were out and about walking close to my place in Delhi, he mentioned that he
had to pee. So, I offered him to come over to my place, and he accepted, but
just as we reached the gate, he heard realized that I have a dog and ran away,
like really ran away. Such was his fear of dogs back then.
Then a few months later, when we met, he asked me what gifts
one should take for a dog-nephew. Turns out, he was going to Bangalore to visit
his friends and their dog, Babu Rao. And boy, was Babu Rao able to transform
his phobia! The same guy ran off from my gate because I had a dog at home,
started befriending and feeding stray dogs around his office and home.
Friendships are formed sometimes with the whole person, and
sometimes with just part of a person’s personality. I am not sure what was the
case with my friendship with Manoj. We weren’t the kind of pals who’d talk on a
daily basis but when we did, we picked things up right where we left off. We shared
our ideologies about feminism, politics, environment, women’s rights, and women’s
safety. We also had our conflicts over Marvel and DC superheroes, but we both
shared our love for Daredevil.
It feels sickening to write about this SoB in past tense,
mostly because I can still hear him say, “Kriti, 100 jumping jacks! And you are
not allowed to stop.”
He made us a promise, four of us - three of us friends and
my sister, that when the pandemic ends, we will do a Delhi street-food fortnight.
We planned to hog all of Delhi’s specialty street food and carry Gelucil in in
our bags for “emergencies”. That promise remains unfulfilled. So does the
promise of raising a toast to life and friendship. And the promise of coming to
my place and hogging all the delicacies cooked by my mum, and all the cocktail
prepared by my sis. So are all the plans and promises of reforming this world
and bringing a change.
So, what am I supposed to say right now? Rest in Peace, my
friend? Because, I am vengeful, and you of all people must know that by now. So
no, my friend, you are not allowed to rest in peace. You must stay here, in the
fourth dimension, guiding us, to do the right thing, and to make this world the
Utopia you always made fun of me dreaming about. Because, you know, and I know,
the dystopian 1984 world is what we live in but not what we love.
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