Never too busy

I had recharged my phone only that evening. That meant enough balance to make some calls to long-lost friends, which would include STD and ISD calls. I browsed through my contacts. There were names that were on the verge of oblivion. Some names required some time of mine to recollect how I knew him/her. There were people with similar names, often saved with some clue to distinguish one from another. One of the most common names was ‘Arun’. I spent some time on each Arun just to see if my memory was fine. It was then that a certain Arun struck me. This was my childhood friend, the first friend I ever made. The first guy I met out of my family and close relatives.

I still was in touch with him. But that meant 2 or 3 calls in a year. That too was because he was still in my town, whereas most other guys from my town had gone to distant corners of the world. I called him up whenever I had some work to be done at my place that I myself could not attend to. He was never hesitant. I would start the conversation with the usual greetings. And then I would feel some guilt when I tell him what I was calling for. He knew that I always wanted him to get something or the other done, whenever I called up. But it never sounded.

This left some accumulated guilt in me and that’s why I decided to call him up anyway, even though I had nothing to get done. I thought myself considerate enough to make such a move. “After all, he has never called me up, it was I who always made a call”, I thought. It didn’t matter to me that he wasn’t earning as much as me, that he had a family of a younger sister and an ailing mother to support, that he worked 16 hours a day in unhealthy surroundings or that he never said he was too busy when I asked him to do something for me.

I dialed his number and waited, but he didn’t pick up. I tried again to the same effect. I then moved on to other numbers in my phonebook. Strange enough, two other friends also didn’t pick up their phones. I was wondering what had happened to all my friends on a fine saturday evening, when suddenly my phone rang. It was Arun. 

“Where the hell were you?”, was what I said right after picking up. “Sorry da, I was in the bathroom”, he said as if he were whispering. There was something noticeable in his voice. It was not his usual masculine tone, it was rather husky. Also, he talked as if he were chewing the words he uttered. This should be one of his usual tricks, I thought. 

“What’s with you?” 

“Hey, it’s nothing”. 

“Then stop this mockery, you idiot!” 

“Err, I’m not mocking. It’s just that I lost a few teeth. That’s why I sound different.” 

“Lost your teeth? But how?” 

I almost lost my breath listening to him for the next few minutes. 

Arun had met with a serious accident two months back. In his own words, he was crushed between two buses, while riding on his bike. I knew Arun was rather rash in his riding, but he was never dangerous. He said he was lucky to escape with a few fractures and some bruises. No points for guessing that he lost some teeth too.

Arun was the kind of a man who always talked less about his own pains. So I was skeptic when he said nothing was there to worry. I kept asking him if that’s all. I kept receiving the same answer. 

He said his teeth loss didn’t affect him much since most of them were wisdom teeth, which had just about nothing to do with a man’s chewing. It’s the swelling of his gum that was more painful and that alone was causing his voice to be husky. I tried pulling his legs saying that whatever ‘wisdom’ he had, was now lost. 

We talked for a few more minutes before I hung up. I felt sorry for him. I decided to pay him a visit the next time I went to my native. 

Days went by. My temporary memory was overwritten by more recent data and Arun just faded into oblivion. 

I was sitting late in the office when suddenly my phone rang. It was displaying an ‘unknown number’. “That’s an overseas call, must be Anoop”, I thought, and lo! I had guessed it right. 

Anoop was a common friend of Arun and me, the kinship just as old as ours. I can say that we shared our childhood and the neighborhood. He was now on an overseas assignment in the US. He called up every other weekend. But he never called up on weekdays. Also his calls came at my mornings, his nights.

“Hello”, my spine chilled to hear a trembling voice at the other end.

“Hello, Anything wrong with you?”, the pessimistic and now concerned me asked. 

“I’m perfectly fine, this is about Arun.” 

“What’s with him?” 

What I heard next made me speechless. Arun’s injuries were by no means minor. The fracture he was talking about had occurred to his back bone. And that left him with an awkward gait at the age of 24. Anoop’s dad had met Arun the other day. He noticed his clumsiness and told Anoop about this over phone.

“Sree, go meet him. I want to know how actually he is.”, said Anoop. I too wanted to.

After the call, I went straight to the bus station to reserve a ticket for that weekend. I wanted to go home. I wanted to meet Arun. I wanted to know how he is.

The rest of the week just flew by like anything. I didn’t even know when Friday came and I boarded a bus to my town.

 On Saturday I reached home early in the morning. Mom was happy on my unexpected home-coming. I took a bath, had breakfast and started getting ready to go out and meet Arun. She wanted me to accompany her to the temple and the local market. I politely told her that I’m home for some other reason. She was not happy to hear that. But she knew how close Arun was to me. She didn’t, therefore, say another word. 

Arun was working as an accountant for a hardware shop in Kochi. Not the best of jobs. But he was happy with what he earned and the way he lived. He actually used to have that scornful yet innocent look on his face when I used to tell him about the ‘struggles’ of a software engineer’s life. I was told that he was going to work everyday even though he wasn’t yet fully well. I started out to the City without much delay.

It was pretty early in the morning and the City was slowly waking from the morning slumber. I knew his shop and went directly to there. Arun was an early riser and I was pretty sure to meet him there at that time. I entered into the shop and there he was, surprised to see me.

“Sree, what a surprise?!”, he came and hugged me. There was that ugly sluggishness to all his movements 

“Hi man, How are you? And this time you are gonna tell me the truth.” 

“Hey, it’s not as bad as it looks. I’m just doing fine.”

“See Arun, you are gonna tell me exactly what happened to you. Okay?” 

“Umm.. Err.. nothing much actually…” 

“C’mon yaar, what’s there in telling me? Of all men ME?!!!” 

“Sree, I told you already. It was an accident.” 

“I know that. How it occurred is what I want to know now.”

I never thought I would later repent having uttered those words. Arun was rushing to the university to get a certificate I had asked him to get for me. I had asked him to do that such a long time back that I myself forgot about it. But Arun didn’t. He never forgot things. He never forgot his friends. The officer at the university had made him go there several times. A person who knew the ways of universities would understand. He didn’t lose patience. He kept going there to get it done. 

And then on that day he was finally to get it. He took some time off his work and went there around noon. He hadn’t had anything from the morning. That made him a bit dizzy, as he later admitted. And probably that made him careless, thus causing the accident. I was at loss of words. My dear friend had met with a serious accident trying to do me a favor. A favor that was not really very important. He could have conveniently forgotten about it. I would not even have asked him again. But I knew he never did like that. He would never ever forget something, if it was for a friend. 

It was I who kept forgetting things. I forgot the beautiful childhood days we spent together. The numerous times he would bring me my favorite chocolate from his dad’s shop. The times when he dropped me at the railway station just in time so that I didn’t miss the train to my college. The times when I called him up to get something done for me and he never said no. The times I did not even enquire if he was alright. The times when I did not even thank him for something that he did for me. “How long would it take for you to get fully well?” 

“If I am lucky enough, six months” “Err.. 

Now tell me, are you in need of some money?” 

I had to force those words through my lips. 

“Hey no. I would have asked you if I wanted.”

“Ok”. 

We then talked about our own lives. How we were living in two worlds that had nothing in common. We talked about common friends. About how times had changed. But not how an unbridgeable gap developed between us. The shop was slowly becoming busy with activity. It was then that I decided to leave. I bid good bye to him and walked towards the exit. " Sree", he called me from behind. I turned back. He was holding the certificate from the university I had asked for. I took it with trembling hands. I walked out with a heavy heart.

It was later sitting in the bus that I remembered that I had forgotten to thank him yet another time. I could not have done much for him. All that I could have done was to call him up to see if he was alright. Or to see if he wanted some help, financially or otherwise. I didn’t do even these simple things. I was too ‘busy’ to remember such small ‘silly’ things. Too busy to even think about this true friend of mine. 

That night, lying on my bed, I found myself weeping like never before, for the first time in many years.