'I stay alone in a fifth floor flat. There are three other flats on this floor, out of which two are locked. That leaves my flat and one bang in front of me. The owner and sole occupant of the flat opposite mine is a deeply religious and spiritual person. I am a hard boiled atheist and self-professed rationalist. So both me and my neighbour politely ignore each other. And this has been going on for good eight years.
Yesterday we had a short chat when he told me that he was going abroad for 3 weeks and was in a hurry to leave. He requested me to water his flower pots while he was away. I wished him a good journey and he left with a small suitcase. I soon got busy in my daily routine of doing nothing.
But as the evening turned to night, I felt that all was very quiet on my floor of the building. And then around 9 pm there was a bell at the door. That is the time for my ‘dabbawalla’ to bring my dinner. So almost mechanically I opened the door and found that the person who pressed the bell was not the ‘dabbawala’. I found a somewhat plumpish old gentleman in white Kurta-Pajama staring at me. He gave me a deep look and then asked “Chatrath Sahib Ka flat kaun sa hai?” It was my turn to give him a deep suspicious look as he was standing just a yard away from my name plate. May be at that time I started sweating more than usual.
And then I said softly “Gupta Sahib” and then ‘Arre O.P. tum?” yes he was OP Gupta an old friend of 35 years who retired from a senior position in the railways. We became friends when we attended a year long Group training programme for government officers together. Thereafter OP, as every one calls him, has been taking the initiative of organising a yearly or two-yearly get together of all the Group members.
OP chided me for not responding to his phone calls. I told him rather sheepishly that I had changed both my land line and mobile numbers and somehow could not inform him. He told me that he had really started getting worried about me, so while on way to Shimla he decided to drop into my flat. I asked him if he thought that “Buddha Chal Basa Hai” and we had a hearty laugh. In fact about ten years back when one of the Group mates could not be located the two of us had feared that the old man had passed away.
He was in a hurry to leave and said rather casually that there was someone with him in the car. And before I could make a naughty guess he said, “Lacchu Maharaj is with me”. The great tabla Guru, I asked. Yes was his brief reply. I went with him to the car and touched the feet of Lacchu Maharaj who was extremely soft spoken and accepted my greetings with immense grace. I was dying to tell him that I too had been forced to learn tabla by my father when I was a kid - but there was no time.
The car left and I returned back to my fifth floor flat. I was strangely happy and there was no trace left of any feeling of loneliness.'
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