An acquaintance to me, stranger to you;

As kids, all of us fall in love with stories. We make ourselves a part of it and use certain things as a reference whenever possible. When you grow up it doesn’t change a lot but we start falling in love with different things. For me, I continued in the same track of wrapping my head around bewildering stories. As I would sit in a restaurant I would look at strangers and wonder what is their story is, what are they good at and what do they love. Trust me if it was a profession I would do it without a hint of second guessing.

A few weeks back I was reliving the phase that I went through a couple of years ago. I wanted to become a wildlife photographer but the most I had done was take a picture of a cat that was acting wild. I thought it was the first step of doing what I loved and I was good at it too. I used to take pictures of sunsets, stray animals and birds but little did I know it was just a phase and everyone in Bangalore does it.

As I kept skipping the pictures it suddenly froze at a picture of two pigeons. I stopped there for a while and I, like always wondered. Scratched my head a little, squinted my eyes and gave a teensy smile as the coat of warmth hugged me.

THIS WAS THE PICTURE OF SAL AND TEAK. Picture by: Dhrithi R

Teak and Sal were two beings from my terrace. They are great speakers and professional posers. They were friends and they belonged with each other. They didn’t fly cross-countries together but they knew they had to stick together even when the stereotypical ‘small problems’ would hit. When I asked them about how they found each other, they told they bumped into each other and Sal was kind enough to share the food he brought. Since then they always would go out to quite literally to hunting for food.

Their favorite memory together was when they sat on top of a tree for a whole day with food they brought from home and watched humans do ‘weird’ things like work and sit together on wood in cemented room. They wondered what’s the point? Turns out they spent the whole day gossiping about their relatives, discussing their problems and sharing a couple of laughs. They called it their ‘picnic’ and a perfect day.

I thought to myself what a life!

They want to travel together to different places where they could chill but turns out they agree that’s what they have been doing their whole lives. They didn’t know what vacation was they just wanted to see places with more ‘nature’. They visited a lake nearby but the ‘prettier’ birds were fed and taken pictures of by humans while they tried to them shoo away. They expressed how bad they used to feel but then they realized that humans have similar insecurities and it maybe was a coping mechanism. I didn’t have the temerity to break their heart by telling them that that wasn’t case.

I asked them what are the things they look forward to each day? They looked at each other for a minute and said ‘each other’.

It melted my heart. They were so thoughtful and wise. They didn’t miss even one chance to express their gratitude about having each other in life.

Sal kept saying how much his life changed since Teak came in his ‘family frame’.

When you look at such an understanding couple of being you are bound to wonder whether they ever fight or at least have namesake arguments?

Teak told, “Of course we fight. We did it just yesterday. Sal was being insensitive and I was mad at him. He spent half the day flying without me. He befriended that eagle. Can you believe it?”

“Well, in my defense.” , he stopped mid-sentence and continued after a minute “okay I have nothing in to say.”

I gave a small chuckle thinking about how warm their friendship was. Where both could be crazy without worrying about the other judging.

My fake interview or more like curious segment of ‘I Wonder’ had come to end with a call from rain.