After an evening of some frantic calling here and there, I was able to bring myself to understand that the rumour of the death of my best friend may, after all, be true. His body was to be flown into the city the next morning. I went to his place at 7 in the morning. People had gathered along the alley to his place. I felt dizzy for a moment - my heart skipping a beat. I walked on into his house to be greeted by the tears of an inconsolable mother. She'd just lost her son and there's nothing she could do about it. I couldn't come to say anything. In the adjoining room sat his father, also in tears. And all he could say, "Pranab, Mona aar ashbe na...Mona aar nei" (Pranab, my son will never return, he's no more).
After an evening of waiting for a phone call, she called. "Pranab, I believe that we can never belong to each other". She had found someone else. She had just sounded my death-knell. I felt very 'loose', as if I had been hit by a speeding truck and I dropped on the floor. I was gasping for air and trying to stabilize my mind.
It was the same feeling I had got once before when I had seen the last of A in the crematorium - his body drapped in a white sheet of cloth. I kept asking him to get up but he wouldn't / I kept asking her to come back to me but she wouldn't. Loss - you know you have experienced it when you feel your soul slip out and you stop living and only exist.
"jibon jibito thakar abhinay..."
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