I was jogging near my home last week and as usual, had stopped for a breather when I finally reached the park area. I saw a middle-aged Indian man who was sitting on one of those exercise machines meant for public usage, casually doing a few sets of lifts on it. Had an army singlet on (the logo, due to my being a policeman, I have no idea belongs to which unit), so maybe he was a regular.

Only seconds after I saw him, a small boy who probably around five or six years old came towards him dribbling a soccer ball. The father asked, "You finish playing already?"

The son said, "No. I want to play with you."

Somewhat awkwardly, the man got up from the machine and directed the boy towards the nearby open space beside the badminton court. And since I happened to be pretty off-form that day, I decided to watch the father-son play for awhile.

The game was a simple one of passing, father kicked ball to son - son kicked back to father, and so on. It was quite easy to observe that the father was obviously playing with consideration of his son's ability. Despite this, the son was still able to 'be angry' at the fathers for the slightly more difficult balls that he could not get, and had to run after. I didn't hear what he said when he stomped his feet and threw up both his hands in exasperation. But the basic idea conveyed through the body language was probably "It's your fault."

Once, the ball had flew a bit too high and got into the bushes. The father made a gentle gesture with his hands that signaled, 'take the ball'. So the son tried to, but before an attempt was made and after he had circled around the bushes for sometime, he shook his head and pointed to the bushes, "You take." So the father did.

I know that the above episode is no big deal in itself. Similar stuff can happen everywhere when it comes to relationships like this. Strangely though, there is not much of a fuss made about it.

What I mean by strangely- is that its a relationship where things are the most easily taken for granted. Where the self-centeredness and selfishness of one party can overlooked without pain. Where the injustices to the other party are treated as a norm. Where the sacrifices made by the other party are expected and unappreciated.

What I mean by its not made a fuss about- is that in our era of emo-ness (for the youth at least), those are the things we are frustrated about, get upset about, get angry over and basically rage/bottle up intense emotions over. Be it whether we are on the recieving end of the above mentioned treatment from an organisation (SAF is a good example:P), person, situation or whatsoever circumstance that presents such obstacles to us.

And in that strangeness and no-big-dealness of it all, such a relationship has a silent and consistent kind of beauty. While we are elsewhere, while we are feeling burdens, even while we are comforting others - while we are engaged with the others that both occupy us with the obstacles and help us to resolve those obstacles, we belong.

Sometimes it will occur to us, and then we can feel thankful about being associated to such a unit. Such a unit that is more than a mere whisper of grace, more than a door that is open, more than a fading clue that points to our relationship with God. We might not fuss over it too much. Ironically, the times when we do start to think about such things in terms of a fuss, what happens is usually quite undramatic.



"Because they are my family."
- A Filipino little girl had answered this after a long pause when she was asked why she thought that her family was the one she trusted the most in her life

Labels: Life, muse

Then there was silence.

Glenn Tan kept his eye contact on him as he returned, almost naturally, to his meal. He bent back towards his own meal after watching him slice up the last morsel of chicken and faked a cough.

A part Glenn felt himself half-anticipating the "sian" to come. The one used to fill the air as such awkward silences. Actually, they filled silences in general even if it wasn't openly acknowledged that it was an awkward silence. Somehow, the "sian" was always effective enough to divert the conversation back into comfortable breathing space, possibly even a high. There was a cost though. It had to be at the expense of something else. A sacrifice of something else - someone's bad attitude, a leader's poor management of an event, a situation's unfairness to you - at the expense of that something else, plus a "sian" at the front of it, equals salvation to the human to human conversation.

But the part of Glenn that felt this was really the more casual part. The "world-can-be-a-better-place-but-I-won't-care-since-no-one-really-cares-and-its-not-that-pragmatic-to-go-about-caring-so-much-about-it-in-this-detail-anyway" feeling part.

The other part of Glenn, the one which was more-than casual, the one that was blessed/cursed with the conviction and emotion made Glenn was half-surprised that he should be having such a part of himself.

I hate him he thought, and surprised himself more when he had put the emotions into words.

Jun Yang didn't know this of course. He regarded his friend as brother, as part of 'Nicholas they-all', as one of the more frequent DOTA players who was pro with melee heros. And frankly, this knowledge of the friendship didn't really go into actually placing a label onto who he was. He would have found his hatered of him more surprising than Glenn.

Actually, maybe it would be more surprising to Jun Yang than Glenn because Glenn didn't know how to explain to him anyway. He was being emo la. He knew that.

"Sian la." Jun Yang said, "I know that guy is not my platoon, but his in my company. He should really learn some respect. If he was not PES C I will definitely have pumped him!"

Glenn nodded. I hate him, he thought again, this time with more clarity. With more calmness even. I hate him for how different he has become. I hate him for how it always has to be about NS now. I hate him for how we need to 'catch up' at a dinner, why it has to be a dinner and not something else, why it cannot really do better as something else anyway. I hate that we do this only after so long, and the fact that we know that the reality of whats really going on in our lives can't be fleshed in justified detail anyway. I hate-

"Oi Glenn, which one you looking at?"

Glenn turned his eyes back to Jun Yang, and then to his fries. He waited for the Swensen's waitress to refill his drink, and then he took a long sip of water before responding.

"Sian."

-------------

This story had somehow floated into me after I finished a shower and was sitting blankly at the side of my bed and thinking about my schedule.

While I don't share the sentiments extended to such an extreme of hatred like Glenn, I guess its not that I haven't feel a sense of disappointment sometimes at the concept of 'dinner appointments'. Friendship requires commitment, consistency and all the usual stuff everyone knows about. However, when you are no more in the same place already and not doing things that require the contact and which allow each others presence to be taken for granted, to attempt a return at those ideals, we meet up. Sometimes, just sometimes (and maybe just for certain people) its easy to feel that your doing it to reforge that connection again. And seriously, that connection can't be reforged. It needed that context, that situation, that immaturity, that flaws, that circumstances, that lack of planning, to be appreciated as what it was.
When its over, it really is over. Meeting up to catch up won't make it happen again.

That might be the reason why I notice that the best conversations I have are with people I suddenly bump into (especially when your traveling somewhere with quite a distance to go with nothing in your hands other than an MP3 player or book) instead of planning to meet up with. When your context is already fixed and destinations of the day set, for a moment, your world intersects with someone else's when you had no intention to in the first place.

Maybe that's why they call it 'falling in love'.



“I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I’m not.” – Kurt Cobain

Labels: muse, NS

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