I have always crisscrossed through life, making good and bad decisions, attempting to make sense of where I am going, and meeting with some people along the way. A good story, I'm told, has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
One such crisscrossed encounter with one person has to be the most interesting beginning that I know of. It must have been August, when I was sitting in the New Engineering Block, on the last seat, of course, in a maths class I knew I was doomed to be in. A lanky, bespectacled person sat beside me. He was weird, to say the least. I liked that about him. He seemed to float in and out of focus regarding the lecture we were supposed to be learning from, when he asked me my name. I told him, and then I went out to bunk the rest of the day. Nothing extraordinary, at first.
A couple of days later, I was late again, on the last bench again, and with the same person, again. He asked me my name, again. But this time, in an almost typographical handwriting, he wrote it in his diary, and left without a word.
It bugged me for weeks, till the time we became friends and I asked him why he did that. "Your name was weird. I liked it."
That was the starting of my friendship with you. We were weird and we liked it.
One could say that he wrote the first word of our story. But, it was the middle interesting. I taught him how to play cards, and he taught me enough of mechanical engineering, one night before each exam, that I graduated in 4 years. From testing the patience of the administration, to fighting the Trade Uni- the Tradition Union together, to forming a cult, to establishing W, to finding the weight of air and the colour of music, we've done a lot together.
As problems came and people left, he stayed with me, on the terrace, with Coke Studio and just the right amount of advice. The terrace changed. The advice changed. He only grew, Ma Sha Allah.
The middle has been beautiful, and in the midst of it all, has come his birthday.
May you grow all the more, Abid. May the story flourish, and may there be no end. You're weird.
Thank you for reading. Have a great day ahead.
