When The Time Is Over Friends Part
When friends part only memories remain
Beenu and I
My friend Beenu was my neighbor. We lived in adjoining homes. We became friends and were inseparable.
We did not go to the same school but we were in the same class.
I remembered her after I read Marta Henriques's story A funny story from when I was a kid!
Beenu and I loved each other’s company a lot. We were of the same age. We would have our lunch, evening snack, and dinner together. She would sometimes sleep in my house because she enjoyed my mother’s storytelling sessions.
Her parents did not mind at all. In fact, they called us Chalk and Blackboard as one could not do without the other. They based it on the fact that I had light fair skin and she was dark. Sometimes they would call us Day and Night.
She was more in our house because her parents were both working and were busy struggling in their young days. My father was in a plum job with the central government in the ministry of agriculture.
Beenu’s parents were very friendly and allowed us to do our homework and play till we dropped dead and slept as the next morning the school busses would come early in the morning.
Our naughtiness and fun time together
Behind the orchard of my house was another house. Both the orchards touched each other and the houses faced the other side. They were in fact opposite each other.
On their side, there was a lot of mulberry fruit. Beenu and I would climb the wall every evening. We had kept the garden ladder there.
We would go across, pick up the mulberries in our little hands and put them in a pouch, and then climb back.
We thought nobody was looking at us. It was with glee we would bring them home. My mother would say we have mulberries on this side also and if our neighbor knows she will throw a fit.
We turned a deaf ear. In fact, we knew that she was more concerned about our safety.
The neighbors (not known to both of us )welcomed children to pick up fruit from their house as they thought that kids are a blessing and they owe their fruit produce to kids who grace their orchard.
The neighbors did not have children of their own and would sometimes invite us in the evening and the grand aunty there would bake a cake for us so that she could listen to our chatter and bring joy to her house.
My mother would also send them lychees and mangoes from our orchard in the summer season and guavas in the season they came up.
This exchange among neighbors was quite common because the fruit was way too much to consume.
The incident that shook us and made others laugh
One day Beenu and I went up the wall and a small dog came on the other side. He was very small but he started barking loudly when he saw us.
We were young kids. We got unnerved. We did not note from that height the size or the looks of the dog.
We jumped! The mulberries fell from our little hands. The ladder on the wall on our side also fell and both of us jumped down the ground hurting ourselves very badly.
We still heard the barking dog as if it was on our side of the wall. We ran, all bruised and blood falling out dirtying our clothes. My beautiful frock sewn and embroidered by my mother was torn and soaked in some areas with blood.
My mother saw us and immediately put Dettol and some red medicine on our legs. Those days this red medicine was very popular when you were hurt.
While she was busy looking after us she also admonished us to climb the ladder without the gardener’s supervision and fall straight off the wall without taking care.
She had tears in her eyes. She felt if both of us had died she would only blame herself.
When my father and our house staff all heard the story they started laughing that a small dog had scared us so much.
Surprise for us
Fifteen minutes later our neighbor's gardener arrived with the dog in his arms and mulberries in a large packet.
There were far more than we had collected
He told us madam said that these mulberries belong to the children. Pick them up and wash them and then go and give them. See that the children are happy and eat them.
Both of us began to hide. We were shocked that our neighbors knew that we picked mulberries from the bush and collected them taking so much danger into our hands. We could have simply asked them for the mulberries.
However, there would have been no fun if we did not climb the wall and picked the berries.
So the elders did not want to spoil our fun. They were smarter than us.
The little dog with the gardener started barking again but now we knew how to handle it and were not scared. Also, the other people were there and we felt protected.
When I was fourteen years old, my father was transferred from Lac to oilseeds as he was a bureaucrat in the agriculture ministry and we had to move.
Beenu and I promised to keep in touch and communicate often through letters.
We left. The mail was inefficient in those days. Letters arrived after many days. Slowly they became more and more scarce and then they stopped.
It was not the age of efficient telephones either and there were no cell phones. We had to call people through an exchange system calling the operator to connect us.
Thus communication between us ended.
I do not know where dear Beenu is. She also does not know where I am. We never met again. I do not know who she looks so even if we met we would not recognize each other.
Years later after communication between us stopped,
I learned some important lessons in my life.
- Life is ever-changing like the seasons make the most of your present.
- Each person who comes into your life leaves when his role is over.
- Some have an ever-lasting relationship, and some come along the way and stay on. Others come later on in life but the previous ones have already left the pavilion.
- You miss people but life is a roller coaster race.
LIVE IN THE PRESENT
Enjoy the present as much as you can. You never know when life changes and then there will be regret that you did not spend each day of your life. You existed but did not live your life.
LIVE IN THE PRESENT AND LIVE A FULL LIFE
Let me now mention two posts I read this week and enjoyed :
©Dr. Preeti Singh, 2022.
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