The Two Strangers
The Lock down has been harsh on all of us. There would not be any one person on earth who would disagree with this! So, after five months of quarantine, I finally decided to step out last week. I was meeting my best-friend after a long long time and I was actually crossing the territories of my town to do that. Reaching the highway felt that there was more to earth than mere buildings I had been seeing for all these times. The sky was as pretty as it could be and the clouds made me fall in love with them all over again. I identify myself as a cloud girl, who can sit around all day and talk to them so far far away yet seeming so close to me. That was pretty much what I did again. I took out my phone and clicked endless pictures from every angle just to preserve them in my memory and my gallery forever.
Later, when I reached my friend’s place, we decided to do our favorite thing together- to go to a bookstore and spend our entire day surfing through the treasure, the warmth and the love hidden in there. We thus went to a never been before bookstore in Khan Market by the name- Bahri Booksellers. I had no idea that it was indeed a very popular one. Nevertheless, strolling inside and checking out our respective favorite sections, I found my way to the first floor of the store. A middle aged man was busy accounting the details who I eventually figured out was the owner of the place. I asked him about certain books and where would I find them. He pointed out the section and I curiously started ruffling through the pages of various books to find that one book I had heard about a lot- ‘The Joy of Cooking’. I asked my friend if she remembered the movie ‘Julie and Julia’ where we heard about this quite famous book. This is when the middle aged owner of the shop jumped right into our conversation with his unique inputs and a discussion began right there. I am a person who loves to talking to strangers (as long as the topic interests me). And it had been such a long time I had not done that. The discussion went from Julia Child to Oprah Winfrey to even Gramsci by the end of it. I did not know that I needed it so badly. It just felt like a release of some intellectual energy from within to energize me for the rest of the week. I left that store as a very happy person hoping that life is a little back to normal. Of course, with the masks and sanitizers being the new pals.
A couple of days later, I received a call from a person representing an NGO where I had signed up for. Although I was not sure about joining it so I left my application incomplete. He called to check in if I needed any help with the application and obviously wanted to know more about all the candidates applying there. Now let me tell you a little secret. There are some people out there in the world whom you’ve never seen or talked to, but then there is something so beautiful about their voice that you can completely get awed by it. Don’t relate? Never mind. So this is basically what happened with me. The 30 minute conversation was all about things I had not talked about in a very long time. That moment felt like letting go of all that was built up inside and to release that frustration of sitting inside for so many months. The smoothness of the conversation and being able to find so many common things to talk about with a stranger felt like Magic. I am sure the reason he called was not fulfilled at all, but what that call did to me is something I can not forget for a long time to come.
These two incidents made me realize, how important it is for us to keep looking for new perspectives and keep holding new conversations with people we’ve not known for a long time. Sometimes, even strangers do the magic. As in my case, they did. Our mind is a fusion of all the things surrounding us and sometimes when the fusion needs a little untangling, a little help from the unknown can pave the way to make things smooth with the known.
