Itvara

I was sitting at my office bay, and someone called my name. I was deep in my Excel sheet, doing the usual analysis for my client.
“P!”
I looked up and blinked. I was thinking of something while cross-checking my Excel tabs, but I was not sure what I was actually doing. What was I thinking?
My colleague informed me briefly that someone we once knew had passed away. I nodded. A nod noting the news. A nod knowing that the person I once learned basic unspoken rules of the corporate world from—and that emails were more than information—was more than just that. A nod to make a mental note to remove his mobile number.
As the day unfolded, the headlines of the world kept flickering on my mobile phone, details of the distant world. Stories of families who had died in an air crash, stories of Russia, stories of wars, stories of riots.
What surprised me was that nothing moved me— no remorse, repentance, or dejection. Simply the thought of finishing my work and hiding behind my shows.
Then came the rain.
“Ah, fuck!” I said to myself. I’m going to be late.
I stood below my office building trying to book an Uber when I saw a familiar face.
“Hey!” I said.
The man in front of me turned and smiled.
“I thought you would not remember me. I saw you coming from the stairs.”
The man in front of me was an old colleague—perhaps more than that, maybe a friend.
We knew each other and then suddenly we did not. He smiled again. A smile marking his existence. A smile knowing that life had changed both of us. A smile inviting me to a warmth which was once enduring between people, but now simply feels fleeting.
“Did you hear the news?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrows.
I told him that our mentor had passed away. To my surprise, I saw him welling up.
“I have left this world—but oh man! He was something else! I still remember when he asked me to carry forward with grace.”
My friend pushed back his hair, and I could see the subtle lines on his forehead and the Grey hair at the corners of his forehead. I realized the weight of time which had drifted us apart.
“Do you want to grab some coffee?” I asked. He smiled. Again. We walked towards the cafe nearby.
As I sat opposite him, he looked at me quizzically.
“What?”
“Something is different about you.”
I shrugged.
“I work, I watch movies, and I sleep.”
He nodded. “Do you remember the time when we made plans to open a café? Something like this.”
I laughed. We dreamed—while working late on presentations—of opening a café someday, or even a little cigarette shop. My husband rolled his eyes every time we made serious plans to open a tea stall selling cigarettes.
I chuckled again.
“Do you remember when our boss came one day and said—be like lemon.”
“Yeah! If you squeeze a lemon there is something inside it,” he said with a broad grin on his face.
That warmth inside me was back again.
“I’m surprised you are not upset with the war that is happening,” he said suddenly.
I did not look up. There was a time when I felt bad about everything. I felt bad—bad about the changing climate, the skies we’d poisoned, and the seasons we’d bent.
I felt bad for the little people, I felt bad for the unfortunate. He heard endlessly about politics, about the fight for justice, about the change we would bring.
“Why do you ask?”
“I do not know, my dear, but lately you seem to not care.”
“Should I care?”
“Should you not?”
“What about my right to success, my right to accumulate wealth, my right to live comfortably?” I asked with a lump in my throat.
He did not say anything. He simply stared. He stared hard. He stared, piercing my soul.
“Success?” he said. “Weren’t you the one who said that ‘success’ is spoken far too often these days? You said words like wonder, hope, and comradeship—the ones you meant to live by—have faded.”
I looked straight ahead. “What would you know about living?”
There was no one. Because he was not there.

The year was 2020 when one morning I woke up with a text from my friend’s wife—Call now. My friend was detected with COVID. Within a few hours, he was hospitalized. Within a day, his lungs filled with fluid. Within forty-eight hours, he was dead.
Tears filled my eyes, and in that café I cried alone. I thought of the lost souls that the world is now living without. I wondered if I was still grieving or if I was moving on. I thought about whether we don’t care or if we care and are stuck—stuck in a version of ourselves packaged with words like GDP, wealth, and success. I thought of the warmth which I once felt. I thought of the powerlessness of myself. I wondered what it meant exactly to be right and be good.

I thought of loss and losing and being lost.

I wiped my tears, and my phone flickered.
Message 1 – I need the report by 10 AM.
Message 2 – Your shipment has been successful. Thank you for buying with us.
Notification: Israel attacks Iran.
Notification: Potential floods in the Northeast.

As I got up, I saw him. He smiled. Again.