We grew up together in Palamu, actually he was one of my best friends growing up. I would wait for him to come home in the evenings on his violet scooter. Sometimes, I was not waiting for him to come, but for him to bring his scooter along so I could try my hand at it. I did not have a scooter at the time, I remember. He had that thing about him, the kind of careless guts to ask people for things even when rejection was imminent. That scooter was the same way. It belonged to his uncle who had a small electronics repair shop in the narrow bazaars of Daltonganj. I would ask him to come see me and he would tell me "dekhte hain chachwa deta hai ki nahi scooter..". I secretly prayed that he arrive on that weird colored scooter. Sometimes he did, at other times he rode on an old bicycle instead.
He was a great bowler too, but sometimes he would go for runs. We had a common friend that would hit him for a boundary on the very first ball he bowled. But if it was a serious game, Ratan was a match winner. We could trust him , and he rarely disappointed. Oh, and he had this old issue with his skin. He was sunlight intolerant, and would develop rashes all over as we played in the hot summer afternoons. Sometimes mini cricket with a lunch box, at other times football with a cricket ball. Ratan always carried an anti-allergic with him and popped one in whenever those rashes appeared. Over time, he had learnt to live with his rashes. Just like we must learn to live without him now.
Yesterday, I got news that Ratan has died, and I am told it was heart attack. Ever since that news came, I find myself going back to our facebook messages - reading them and re-reading them. That's all I have in the name of concrete text. All else are distant and sometimes vague memories.
He secretly loved a girl in school..obviously the girl did not love him back. I think she was a class lower than we were? He was a polished speaker of the english language, a great asset, given all of us were grew up in Palamu where few understood english, let alone speak the language. He was a wannabe rogue on the outside, but on the inside, there was this very soft polished guy that few saw. I like to believe that I was one of them.
After 10th grade, we moved different ways. I am not sure where he went, but I think it was Pilani. And the distance drove a wedge between what had so far seemed like an unbreakable bond of friendship. We were still friends, but I guess we silently understood that I had my own issues to address, he had his. We lived in different cities for the next 14 years, meeting no more than 3 times in all. But we would chat on facebook sometimes, and wish each other on Diwali, Holi and Dusshera. I was reading one of our conversations that happened last year, where Ratan was unhappy that I had not bothered to call him ever. I apologized and told him I would call him soon, and he took my word for it. I did not call him even after that, and now I can't call him anymore. No matter how much I want to.
My mind wanders to our times together in Daltonganj, that weird scooter of his and the "in-swinging yorker" he always wanted to bowl. I remember the small house that they lived in, and the lovely tea his mother offered in small china teacups. I can't help but remember the girl he loved but never confessed to, and all the inappropriate things he did to make us believe he was a rogue. Hard to believe that our rogue is no more.
Rest in peace, my friend. Teach the Gods a trick or two. You know we will all miss you here.
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