On Conversations 

My favourite moments in the day are when Adu and I talk. Just talk. About anything and everything under the sun. 

A few nights ago, we talked about his future wife—where she might be right now, whether she’s been born yet, and if she hasn’t, what she would be doing in her pre-Adu’s-wife life. Incarnation comes naturally to us Indians. I had told him about the five-year gap between Dee and me, and since he’s only four-and-a-half, toddler logic suggests there’s a good chance his would-be wife hasn’t been born yet.

One weekend morning, in that hazy state of taking an hour to fully wake up, we debated about the kind of dinosaur we should keep as a pet. Most dinosaurs turned out to be too big or aggressive to keep in our aangan or indoors, so we decided on a cat instead. After further discussing the merits and demerits of cats, it was unanimously decided that fish are the best pets. They stay within a glass box, are colorful, and do not leave smelly messes everywhere.

You know that feeling when you’ve heard someone deeply, intently, and intentionally? I hope you do. It is so difficult for adults to peel off their masks and talk that it feels like a miracle when it happens. I treasure the moments when someone has opened up to me. Rarer, but even more precious, are those when I’ve spoken with abandon and someone else has given me their full attention. (Alcohol may have played a part.) It’s another thing that I can count those moments on my forty-four-year-old fingers.

Some nights, Adu and I talk about death. And life. What does being alive mean, how long we’ll be alive, or what happens after we’re not alive? Sometimes, I try to answer these questions rationally. Other times, I’m both fascinated and devastated by what must be going on in his mind. And sometimes, I simply don’t know how to reply.

What I do know is that forty-four years or so from now, when I’m looking back at the life I lived, I’ll be treasuring these warm summer days and nights when Adu and I used to talk. And I want those moments to be far more than my eighty-eight-year-old fingers could ever count.

-Alok, 20:30, September 06, 2024