Fleeting Encounters

It was somewhat late today as I drove through the forested ridge that separates home from the rest of Delhi. For once, I took my time to notice how beautiful the street lights streaming through the tree canopy looked. This only happens for a very short while during the monsoon. I've always admired how after months of being baked brown in the searing Delhi heat, the forest just comes alive with the monsoon. As weeks progress, if the rain is as heavy as expected (increasingly fickle these days), the trees on either side of the road will grow to form a thin canopy above the road. 

I have all of three days left in Delhi. It promises to be the same sequence of crippling sadness and disappointment followed by a slow recovery back to "normal", only to (thankfully) repeat again in a few months. Just yesterday, I stopped for a second to think about my sister's whirlwind visit over the weekend. She came and left before I even realized she was there. That seems to have become the nature of my relationships back home - they must all somehow draw strength and survive through encounters that don't last for more than a few days at a time, sometimes even a few hours. That they survive, and even flourish despite this is probably proof of their strength. I meet my sister for barely four days a year now. She lives in a different city and our holiday schedules don't match. We are fortunate enough to have the means to make sure we're in the same city at least for these four days in the year. We barely talk on the phone, but it's refreshing how in those four days, we'll still sometimes talk in made up voices like when we were 10 and 6, 14 and 10 or 18 and 14. There are also those whom I will barely see for two hours in an entire year, but we'll still manage to fill up a year's worth of stories in those two hours and pick up where we left off last time. The internet and social networking have perhaps helped in keeping all of us acquainted, but even those haven't saved relationships that lacked the will to fight against disappearance. 

I've also observed my parents this time, albeit somewhat unknowingly. Just as I walked out for dinner today, I was just struck by the sight of them having tea and talking about their day. Something told me what I was witnessing was one of the big reasons for their success as a couple - I think my parents have mastered the art of (for the want of a better word) "chilling" with each other. It's probably the first time I've taken notice of them hanging out, maybe because I'm looking for answers myself, or maybe because it's the first time they have a routine outside of their children. Usually, when I leave for dinner with friends, my mother is just back from work, and my parents have a cup of tea together and talk. When I come back from dinner with my friends, I find them watching TV together where my mother will exercise her excellent memory of  old Hindi song lyrics, movies and their composers, while my father appreciates her knowledge and enjoys the songs presented in a talent show. There are of course other reasons why they work, but the realization of this one brought a very strange sense of comfort and happiness.

My interactions with those who know me the best has turned into an unending sequence of fleeting encounters. There may be no escape from it in the near future, but it's comforting to know that the strength of my relationships with those who see me so little remains unaffected by the number of minutes or hours that I spend with them.