There he was, standing outside Standard Café dressed in a casual jeans and a blue Bengali kurta – least bothered as always about his appearance. The trademark cigarette was still there, loosely held between his two fingers – ready to fall off any time. His smoking style always amazed me and made me envious too. It was simultaneously intense and indifferent – as if perpetually kissing the sensual lips of a sweetheart.

My friendship – if at all I can call that – dates back to our college days. We met at the canteen amongst a group of friends and he stood out by the confidence that he carried with him. He was always so sure about what he did, what he said – what he was. Calm, peaceful eyes, broad strong shoulders and beautiful artistic fingers – but he was ignorant of all that, or rather indifferent to it. He spoke less, crisp, to the point and never spoke ill of anybody. And whatever little he spoke, he always questioned established myths – either in questions or in facts stated with such supreme confidence that nobody had the courage to question him. He was a rebel in thought, though not necessarily in action – at least I did not find him rebellious in action. And there was no cause to his rebellion that anybody could find out. He never entertained personal questions and it remains unknown till date where he hails from or who his parents are or whether he has any siblings.

He had that penetrating gaze that made the person he looked at, uncomfortable. He always searched for something in the person’s eyes while holding his gaze fixed at the facial expressions and his ears perched for each and every word. One jarring note amidst the words spoken, which was inconsistent with the eyes; and he had won the battle. The person was then slowly separated from the crowd and I never understood what he talked with the person or what he did to them, but they always turned out happier having met them. I tried to ask him, at times and he always shrugged and said “Oh! There was a small problem and it was solved.” Never did he say, “I solved it”, but I knew.

His gaze worked differently with women. They were, of course uncomfortable, but at the same time assured in his company. His benign, penetrating gaze plucked the woe from their hearts and put it on their outstretched palms – perhaps. For I heard from some of them, how his talks had strengthened them and how his strength slowly seeped into them to make them stronger to face the vicissitudes of their daily life. I could never imagine him getting physically involved with a woman; it must have been something much higher since he was above all that desire.

He never spoke of anybody’s woes – as if, he had compartmentalized his heart into separate chambers – to each their own sacred space to be trampled upon whenever they wished. He carried the sorrow, the pain of many, but never once spoke of his heart. For two years, we shared the same room, but I never could touch his visage, but I was like a naked woman in his arms ready to let go of my deepest secrets.

But we shared two things in common - Hindi songs and Sherlock Holmes. It was the only time that I found his eyes smiling and him really passionate about the words, the tune and the interpretations. And at such a times, perhaps his actions resembled the pleasure that Holmes might have got on scent of a problem.

It was our favourite pastime to hear some song and then ask the other what could be its possible interpretations. Our talks could go into hours and there were times when we quarreled about the smallest of words of a particular song. It was special, because in all other arguments if at all somebody disagreed to what he said, he would shrug it off by a simple “Ok,” and go over to quote Plato “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to my death your right to say it.”

Today he was in town after a long gap – almost three years and he had called me up in the morning.

“Can you come to Standard Café at 4:30 pm? It’s been a long time since we met,” his tone was flat, devoid of emotions and sans any courtesies. But demanding and could not be refused.

“Of course, I can, but I might be late. There’s this small thing, …”

He cut me short, “Its ok, I will wait. What I can do at home, I can as well do at the bus stop.” And he hung up.

It was so characteristic of him. He would create a load of questions in my mind and leave all of them unanswered.

So there I was, hurrying towards Standard Café, our old joint where we had spent hours interpreting songs over a cup of Irani chai and broon maska. I waived to him. He raised his hand – the cigarette held between the first two fingers and the other two parted in a V-shape. Whenever he stood smoking, he would always stand cross-legged. I fantasized that posture and tried it many times in his absence – only to lose balance.

As we sat in the Café, he signaled the waiter for two teas – by his two straight long fingers, without even as much as a word spoken.

“So,” I asked, “where have you been?”

“Many places.”

“What are you doing these days?”

“Woh hi, software job.”

“Still in Bangalore?”

“No, I shifted to Hyderabad. Changed the job.”

“That’s great, yaar. HITEC place, Chandrababu’s dream city. Heard it’s a great place to be”

“Yeah…”

“Married?”

“No.”

“Any… err… romantic liaisons”, I was scared to probe into his personal life.

“No.” I felt this “No”, a bit weaker than the first one.

I felt foolish asking all these questions. His mere presence was so soothing. There was a silence for a long time, broken finally by the waiter banging the two cups in front of us. He lit a cigarette and I watched him inhale the smoke in a deep passionate breath, his eyes closed – the same envious sensuality to it.

Nita walked in and I waved to her. She was with her fiancé and I smiled at him.

“Why does she want to marry the man for whom her love has ended?”

His question startled me. “You know Nita?”

“No.”

“Then how in the hell…” but before I could finish my sentence, his gaze stopped me. In our college days, he would have said, “Elementary, my dear Watson.” But he did not say that favourite phrase of his, just a benign smile and the gaze conveying the meaning. There was surely something in Nita I had seen but not observed as he always told me – “You see, but you don’t observe” a la Holmes seeking to find the truth. I saw Nita daily in office, but I had not once seen anything that would signify that she was not happy. Rather she smiled and blushed when anybody teased her about her fiancé whose photographs were pinned up all over her office board. I need to ask her.

“So, any new song that you have interpreted?” his words broke my reverie.

“Well, regular stuff. Nothing special. But one song eludes my interpretation.”

He raised an eyebrow, an indication that I should go on

“Dil ki girah khol do, chup na baitho koi geet gaon…”

“Oh!” he said. That was strange, since he would generally say “Oh, that’s easy.” Everything was so easy for him. Surely age was catching up with him; after all we were no longer in our twenties.

“Do you have an interpretation?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me. I am dying to hear it. I thought about it and about you so many times.”

“Why do you need it?”

That was strange. He had certainly never asked me, why I needed an interpretation. What was it that had made him ask this?

“Well, there is this one friend of mine and she wanted an interpretation.” I blabbered.

“Still trying to impress people with your creativity? Have you not realised that you don’t need to seek appreciation? Do you want to write or be appreciated as a writer?”

I gave him a meek smile.

“A man, a woman,” he began, “Man sad, woman indifferent to sorrow and happiness, having learnt to accept things as they come. They meet, woman senses his sorrows, sees through his visage and strikes up a dialogue. Man’s ego not ready to submit, woman patient – fully confident.”

I was all ears. His interpretations always evoked an indefatigable thirst in me. And his narrations were always thus – sans any prepositions, adjectives, and conjunctions. Crisp, naked and with the bare essentials to convey the essence.

“Once, man almost on the verge of collapse. Woman holds his hands, takes him to the solitude of her house. She engages him in talk and the song starts

ham tum na ham tum rahe.n ab,  kuchh aur hii ho gae ab 
sapano ke jhilamil nagar me.n, jaane kahaa.N kho gae ab 
ham raah puuchhe.n kisiise, na tum apanii ma.nzil bataao 

 They make love – wild, passionate. No holds barred. He craves for it, she gives it without any expectations. He has no words to thank her, she shrugs it off. She has done what she set out to do – to give hope, to make him happy. So, she sings

 kal hamase puuchhe na koii, kyaa ho gayaa kal thaa tumhe kal

 Positive-ness incarnated, he sings