In the autumn of 2004, I travelled along with a bunch of friends to a camp organized by my school in a quaint old village nestled far away from the city. A weeklong affair, the camp was meant to help us catch a glimpse of village life and to make us appreciate its simplicity. Blended with a cultural program, a cleanliness drive and a medical camp – this week also had an organized ‘social service’ agenda.
Fresh from heartbreak, I was eager to avoid the girl who introduced me to it. Hence, on this trip I found it hard to be a social butterfly, since the group now included the same girl. On the day of the ‘medical camp’, this paranoia led me to volunteering to stay aloof at the entrance, welcome villagers and seat them in the waiting area. It was heart wrenching in bits, but warm and pleasant for the most part. It was then that I met my blind friend. When he caught my attention the first time, he was telling off a doctor who had advised him to come visit a private clinic for advanced treatment. Perhaps in his late sixties then, he was lanky and tall, and had lost most of his eyesight to pneumonia in his childhood. The world appeared hazy to him and he needed a stick to get around. He knew the medical camp would not benefit him much; he was simply there like the others for a handful of free medicines and a dollop of perspective.
I bumped into him again, this time during the cleanliness drive, while he was sitting on a bench outside the temple in the town square and then again on a solo walk through the village. On the final night of the week, eager to avoid my ex, I sat with him during the cultural program on the bench outside the temple, while the program ensued inside. Unable to see anything, the choice of seat was insignificant to him. He spoke passionately of his village and his family. He said he was fond of singing himself and had participated in all competitions held in the village in his childhood. To prove his ability, he even recited a popular song from Anand, the Rajesh Khanna classic.
He invited me to come visit him before I left the next afternoon. Finding it hard to refuse, I left the camp early morning the next day, after having packed my bags, to visit him at his home. It was a small house in an alley, with hard dung floors and mud walls. His family members, arguably one too many for a house that small, were warmhearted and friendly. They seated me on what seemed to be the only chair in the house and offered me a papaya and 3 guavas as a token of their hospitality. I sheepishly offered a box of sweets I had picked up at the local sweet vendor. My blind friend insisted I share my phone number so that we could stay in touch. He would call from the local telephone booth he said. With a promise to keep our friendship alive, and a tinge of sadness that I would perhaps not see him again, I left the village with my colleagues.
We did stay in touch that year. He would call often and I would tell him about my life in the city. He would listen keenly, laughing at my anecdotes and emoting grimly at my petty academic concerns.
A year later, I left home for college. Apparently his calls continued, but I was no longer at home to take them, and my folks had nothing more to tell him than that I was in another city attending college now. Eventually the calls stopped.
Years passed. Nearly 8 years later, I was at home taking a vacation from work, when a close friend suggested we drive down to that village for leisure and return by dusk. As we approached the village, I couldn’t help remembering my blind friend, who I had completely forgotten about in all these years. At the village, my companion and I reminisced about our time at the local school we had stayed at, the brook we had sat by and winding village roads we had walked down on. And finally, before we left, we decided to stop by the town square near the temple.
And then, sitting on the bench in front of the temple, I saw my blind friend again, hardly a stone’s throw away. He seemed to be doing nothing, looking around and then at the sky. Here he was, my blind friend after so many years, sitting in the exact same place I sat with him years ago. He sat staring blankly at the space in front of him, at me, but unable to identify whom he was looking at. I wondered what I would say to him. I wondered what he had been up to all these years. I wondered whether he would be keen to know about what I had been doing these past years. I wondered if he would ask for my phone number again.
And then, in a moment where I felt spineless and faint-hearted, I turned back and left. And we drove as far as we could from the village. I left without meeting my blind friend.
I once heard a wise friend say that it is wrong of man to offer hope to another when he knows he will fail to keep a promise. He said it is wrong to offer a remedy when there is none, wrong to kill good memories when there are some and wrong to build a relationship in which you can’t fulfil expectations.
That is what I heard my wise blind friend tell the doctor, the first time I met him.
—
~ The road to hell, they say, is paved by good intentions. ~
Yatin's Blog 
What they had to say …