About a friend

Year 2000
The first day of Pearl Academy.
By the time the orientation was over I had forgotten everybody's names. I found one boy glaring at me while I walked past the street out the academy.
that was Sumit Tomar.

In future I would have to teach him how to paint neatly, do all his documentation files and in return he would give me a ride from home to the academy and back and talk on and on about things that made no sense sometimes and sometimes I never understood.
We would do all the classroom projects together, weave and knits fabrics till the academy closed in the evening, spend term breaks sitting in a pastry shop in the local market.

Sumit and I were seen together everywhere by everyone, naturally raising strange rumors. unfortunately none of our onlooker's wishes were fulfilled.

the year 2001

Sumit joined as a merchandiser in Linenscapes pvt ltd. where I worked as a designer and Kirti was in charge of the leather accessory department.
We shered the same floor, the same room, sitting in 3 corners working, talking and eating lunch together. Sachin, Akhil, and Monit joined in later. Sometimes Rashmi joined in for lunch. Rashmi Kaura owns Linenscapes.

On one Delhi summer day Sumit walked into the office bald. I could see the skin of his scalp peeling off, raw redness showing from underneath. That was the first shock.
He had been diagnosed with sclerosis.
When I left Linenscapes, he was almost taking to bed. One of those days Kirti proposed to him that he should marry her, so that she can take care of him. Kirti told her parents about the matter. With such force she had kept the matter that inspite of worries about a man with lesioned skin and uncertain life they couldnt influence their daughterout of it.
Those days he would come to me at home sometimes to discuss, to show that he is growing weak with fear. He said- 'How can I let her marry me. Im not sure about my life'. He said-'Something has forced me to kneel and pray. Something is asking me to ask for mercy, to cure me or bring death'.

In a few months like Sclerosis behaves, the symptoms dissapeared.
Kirti married Sumit in 2003


Year 2008

Through a common friend I get news of sumit. He has been bed ridden for a few months now.
I dial sumit's number. His voice was a relief. He laughed as he talked, asked too many questions, wanted to keep on talking. He wanted to talk on as if he wanted to talk as long as it could last. I speak to kirti then. She consoles me by saying- 'Good you called now, now at least he speaks'.


17th April, 2009

Sumit's number flashes on my mobile screen.
I speak to Sumit who is standing outside his house, kick starting his bike, waiting for Kirti to get out. He laughs 'all is in the hands of god.until he wants Kirti wont be out'...