CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT?

We all know that change is inevitable, some of us warmly willing to embrace it, while some of us are fond of the old patterns of living while some want both. Have you ever been fond of people? Different people? Wherein you met them and the connect felt boundless, like something that doesn’t require an understanding, but it just felt nicer knowing them? By fondness, in this context, I mean the fondness for anybody, any gender, any age, any pattern of that person in general.

Wallowing on one side of the bed after a tiring closing shift at night with my belly grumbling at the emptiness, I wonder why some people aren’t able to sleep early, me being one of them. It is not too many thoughts in my case, I am just blank most of the time with my eyes open, flashbacking at memories, some nice and some not so gentle. Scrolling through my phone screen, I am not really keen to know what is up on the other side of the world or what people are doing on the sunnier side of the universe. I scroll anyway, not having anything to do as I find it harder to focus more on sleeping. One side of my head misses my best friend who is about to get married soon. I wonder and I wonder how much will I be missing her, the fact that things could be a tad bit different when I return back home because she would be married, the fact that I had dreamt of her dream wedding and had so much more on my mind on how could I contribute to the specials, the fact that I wouldn’t be actually there for the wedding and she decided to get married without me or maybe she had no choice or maybe, she was too practical thinking that ‘its life and it doesn’t stop for anyone.’ Maybe. I don’t think too much. (Chuckles)

Change. The changes I had to accept having no option and learn my ropes around it, changes my mother told me about every time I felt a certain people would never change. I smile imprudently since deep down; I am really happy for the beginning of a new chapter in her life and the other part makes me feel insecure about having no one to spend the comfort zones and the vulnerability of my life with.

As I was checking my Whatsapp list, I come across this contact ‘Maane uncle’ which I recollect sharply as to who he was but had not been in touch with for odd 10+ years. As my memory traces back and I start picking the forgotten pieces, I recollect taking his number to stay in touch but had not messaged him until tonight.

Maane uncle was the sweetest and the most docile bus conductor with a spark of tranquility in his words. He would issue me a bus ticket daily on my way to college. It was my first day of the 11th grade and back then when I was too afraid to drive a bike, I preferred taking a direct bus from the bus depot which was so near to my place. I and my mom had been to the depot glancing our eyes at all the parked buses as to which one would take us there while we had spotted Maane uncle on one side of the bus standing in poise gathering the tickets to issue and getting his cash purse ready for the cash changes.

While the other conductors continued to frolic around and have a gala chat sitting together, he was the only one who appeared sincere and approachable and looked like the man who ‘got on to his job’. He was the conductor for my intended bus route and that had my college stop. He politely directs us to stand in queue and gives us all the necessary information about the regular bus timings, the frequencies, and the departures on a day-to-day basis.

His smile and composedness made me introduce myself to him and greet him, “Hello Uncle, my name is Sneha. I will be taking lessons at Wadia’s”. I clearly remember talking to him with a big flashy teenage smile. He greeted me back gently and tells me that he had been working at the depot for years and if I needed anything, I could find him at the staff quarters at the depot.

I felt comforted since I was all new to this bus routine, having my mum always accompany me everywhere, I was going to learn to take this route alone beginning tomorrow. Days fled by and the only catch up I remember with uncle was the day-to-day greetings while standing in the same queue while he issued me the tickets and the extra concerns and know – about on festivals like Diwali when he would take a leave to be at home or when I bunked college.

Days passed by, in fact, years passed by and it was time to leave. With nostalgia bubbling up within us, we all were going to miss our college days. I had taken up another Master's course in another college so I was leaving Wadia’s for sure. I remember it was our last exam of the final year and I go up to uncle and tell him about it. I am all caught up and choked with emotions on having traveled that route for 5 years and how much I was going to miss the daily bus rattles, the overcrowdedness yet the ownness people had for each other, the sweat and the humidity, the rain droplets trickle over the bus windowpanes, the wet floors and the same faces who boarded the same bus for their own different goals, who had now become a family.

So, the conversation is super brief and Uncle wishes me good luck for my future endeavors and asks me to keep visiting them at the depot whenever I can. Due to the uncontrollable spurge of emotions and the insecurity that I wouldn’t be seeing this calm father-like figure anymore, the attachment called me to ask him for his contact number as I didn’t want to lose him. When life moves on, we all barely do what we used to do. Not that we don’t have time, it’s a myth that we don’t. It’s all about the change over time, it’s all about priorities.

So, I take his contact number and promise to text him and stay in touch. He agrees delightfully and asks me to come home someday and meet his wife and kids. His kids were decently studying, one doing engineering and the other was in high school. It made me so happy to see a middle-class human wiping off that sweat over his forehead daily and standing in the scorching sun issuing tickets to actually smile and proudly tell me that he is earning to give them a good education.

I was so going to miss him and a peek-a-boo in his daily life. But just like the worldly usual humdrum, I forget to stay in touch with him, and as life moves ahead, texting him slips out of my mind. He is erased just like another short memory, like the not-so-important people in your Facebook friend lists.

Coming to now, when I see his contact and his display picture, him with his family, the 11th-grade girl in me has the same smile over her face, and all the midnight isolation and the doom suddenly wear out. I instantly text him, though a bit awkward unsure of whether he would even recognize me after 12 years almost.

“Hello Uncle, you know me, but you might not remember me. We met years ago, and I used to board a bus to my college, and you would issue me the ticket daily. I had your contact and thought I should say hi. How are you, Uncle? How is everything at home? Really miss those times and seeing you daily. I am in New Zealand at the moment and I wish to see you as soon as I get to Pune. However, if you do not remember me, all good Uncle. Please feel free to ignore my text and that’s fine. I am just happy I found you after years and I really wish you good luck. I hope I see you at the depot some time.”

I glance at his last seen which was two hours ago and I fall asleep since I had work the next morning. The next day, he has seen the message but does not reply. I saw that coming and I feel no sore tooth since it was normal, I felt to be weirded out by a random text who claims to know you after 12 years. Another day passes by and I see a new message notification.

It was him! I was home having my evening cup of tea and I instantly hit it open with a light of fire under.

He writes to me in my mother tongue, (We share the same mother tongue)

“Hello Sneha, Hope you are fine. I am sorry I took the time to reply to your text. I don't know reading English much so had to take help from my daughter to understand it. I felt so good having received your text. Yes, I do recollect having interacted with you, but I do not remember your face. I am sorry for that. I have a little piece of memory that you used to come daily to the depot for boarding a bus to your college. I really can’t recollect your face. Never mind. Hope you are doing well beta. We all are fine. I work at the depot only, on the same bus route.

How are your studies going on? Has the course finished? Are you married? Are you happy? Do stay in touch and please come see us whenever you return to Pune. Maane”. He finishes off his text with his surname in the last.

By this minute my eyes are welled up with nostalgia and contentment. I smile at his text and respond, “Hi Uncle, so so happy you actually took the effort to understand my text. Sorry for typing it in English, I am so bad at typing Marathi fully, I will learn it for you for sure. Yes, Uncle, my education is done with and I am not married, I guess I am happy this way :D who knows? But I promise to stay in touch and see you soonest. Please take care and give my regards to your family Uncle”. That evening, I was so contented and there was a breath of relief on not actually having lost him. On actually having revived an old friend this time, more than just an old memory.

As bizarre and mediocre as it might sound to you all, I am going to actually see him and stay in touch with one of the best humans in the world when I return.

Some things just feel like home being away from home, and some things definitely do not have to change though circumstances could change.

In a world full of rainbows, I am glad that some still love it black and white.

Maane uncle was just the same, the same man, the same gentle ardor, he had the same job, and he took the same route, the same happy family life he would tell me about, his display picture of him with his family and his status, ‘Happy family J’, the simplicity the older generation has in their ways of life is something that makes me envious of them. Where is all the ease coming from with which he leads his life so conventionally? I envy him.

Not to forget, I am in touch with all the people whom I am only met once in life. People who are great humans and people who feel like a lifetime from another timeline.

Some girls I boarded one of my tour trains with are now getting married, a cook I met at a wildlife sanctuary was undergoing depression and is now out of it much stronger and offers to cook for me even better food when I visit the place again, a South Indian couple with whom I boarded my first international flight is now in Chennai waiting for the lockdown to finish so that they can visit their grandchildren abroad, a photographer who was also a fisherman back in Goa I met ages ago at a beach, is now doing well for himself having joined a friend’s hotel business in Goa, doing accommodations and activity packages for tourists.

Reminiscing all of this, I wonder, have you ever felt this enduring connection ever with anyone wherein you did not need to know them at all, and it felt like you had known them for quite a while, that just a peek a boo in their lives felt like you were a part of their lives and vice-versa, that you would do anything to retain them in your life? Let me know!