My friend Ankit

Dear you,

hello! I cannot tell you how much I have come to like writing these and also receiving your replies. Thank you. <3

It was my friend, Ankit’s birthday on the 21st. This is the third year that he is not here with us. Since I moved out of Delhi, we'd have a birthday meal. It was our annual ritual. We'd check, "Tum Dilli aa rahi ho?" "Nahin tum Bambai aoo." We couldn't meet in December 2017, so we met during the Kabir festival in Jan 2018. He was performing Dastan Dhai Aakhar Ki, his Kabir Dastan, the first Dastan he wrote and performed. He had performed several before. But this was special. It is one of our favourite dastaans. I love how he wove his story with that of Kabir's. There's a bit where he talks about his mum being very upset when she found out he was going to be a Dastango, "Tune na apna future kharaab kar dena hai." It was also very personal because he would come to rehearse with me, I had the privilege of more than one private performances where I could interrupt him and ask him to explain and he would. Most patiently.

"धीरे-धीरे रे मना, धीरे सब कुछ होय, माली सींचे सौ घड़ा, ॠतु आए फल होय |" 

Literal translation 
"Slow my heart slow,
Slow is all becoming ,
Though the gardener pours a hundred cans,
The fruits their season bide."

I first met him in 2012 at a children’s literature party, I was going through a lot, emotionally. We hit it off. I don’t know when we started talking but I remember then I wouldn’t be able to sleep and I would text him, “You up?” “Tum soyee nahin?” “Rona aa raha hai?” Then we would talk, he would tell me about what he was working on, we would gossip and I would fall asleep.

We talked everyday or almost everyday. We talked about work and life, compared payments, complained about people, he pushed me to ask for more money, I scolded him about ghost writing, I told him about my pain, he told me about love and stories, I gave him emotional consul. We had a close dependable friendship. No, it wasn’t without problems. He was such a true blue performer that two people often meant audience, when my role shifted unannounced from friend to audience in informal settings, I was a bit uneasy. Ankit’s work was growing and everyone who saw him perform was immediately in awe of him. He left us with little choice. But this also meant that my friends all wanted to be friends with him and Ankit was more than happy but this made me uncomfortable. I didn’t have the words then or I didn’t know what about this bothered me. But I was angry that sometimes my friends knew about his performances and I didn’t. We rarely talked about it because I didn’t even know what was bothering me but we kept being friends. By 2014, he was performing in India and abroad, which meant he was busy and we didn’t speak as much but we still kept in touch. We G-Chatted, messaged, called and met.

Soon he was so popular, he hung out with intellectuals and important people, he met folks at universities and he was very very busy, writing, creating, performing and travelling. I started to feel a bit inadequate, I stopped discussing money with him because I felt I didn’t make enough. I had also moved to Bombay. I was not resentful but I moved away because I felt he wouldn’t want to be friends with me, what could I offer him after all. When we spoke, he spoke in a very abstract way.

This was a person who was so unabashedly himself, I still remember this Sunday when we got off at Nehru Place station, we were coming back from Faridabad, from Karm Marg where the kids couldn't get enough of Ankit bhaiya. I wanted to go to the ATM, so we crossed over to where all the offices are, where all the ATMs are. He was in a great mood as usual, he was singing and dancing on the streets. The streets were deserted because it was a Sunday, not that he cared. We walked to the ATM, I was pretty sure I was imagining the watchman who was sitting there. I walked in while he waited outside. When I came out, he and the watchman were dancing to Kuch Kuch Hota Hein. I can't stop smiling every time this plays in my head. But now our relationship had changed, I couldn’t understand the intellectualising. I worried if there was lack of warmth and moved back. I felt he had enough people he was close to.

He had had a fall from his cycle long ago and had not healed, when I wanted to connect, I asked him about his arm and if he was exercising. My didi-ness was my way to connect when things had changed so much. (Now, I don’t judge friends whose only way of connecting is being caregivers.)

But I would sometimes ask for things like a person who is close could. Like I remember I was taking a train from Delhi to Sanchi, he had returned from a trip that day. It was a night train and I asked him if he could bring me food or pick up food from his house. He asked me for my coach number and other train details. When I reached there, he was standing outside my compartment beaming with a bag in hand. We caught up. When I opened my tiffins, I had 4 rotis, sabzi, dal, salad, pickle, rice, papad and a bottle of water.

Talking of train, my mum often thinks of him running at Nizzamuddin station looking for her. She and he had never met but the day she was coming to Delhi, I had a meeting at the Danish embassy and had told him go receive her. He would wake up late and had asked me to text him so he would be there in time. He was late and ran all the way and somehow they recognised each other. He brought her home and made tea for her. He had never entered my kitchen but somehow found everything.

So on that night, when he told me stay back and have dinner with him and the artists of the festival, I felt included in a new way. He said, “We haven’t had our birthday meal.” There were lots of people (his friends), talking to each other. I usually feel excluded in such places but I was not an audience, I was his close friend again. He asked me to go and watch him perform Gandhi. I told him, you know I have my reservations when it comes to Gandhi. He said come for me, I worked on it for more than a year. I went but I was so distracted. When the performance was over, I told him he had to do it again for me because I was very distracted. He said sure. That was the last time I saw him perform.

Next morning, he came home with his friends for breakfast. While I was busy making ada, he walked into my room and read my pinboard (something I got to know only after he left and something I always wanted to take up with him) but that day I was busy cooking. For the first time, he was joyous about food and asked me for the recipe so he could get his friend to try out.

After breakfast, I went down with them and chatted with him while they waited for their taxi. He told me, “We are international artists, Indu. We should think big. Bada socho, Indu!”

He would then text me from Pune about how he had met my friend there and had shared the ada with him. Then from America to tell me how he had taken the micchar my mum made to America and shared it with friends there and that he ran into someone we-once-promised-not-to-talk-about.

Then again in May a few days before he passed away, he would text me to tell me about this book on Kabir. It was going to be an illustrated book. He always wanted us to do a book together. I was busy then but I was still miffed that he had not asked me to do the book. I thought I’d call him but I didn’t. Days later, at the crematorium, his editor would tell me about the book and one of his friends would say - he wanted you to do this.

Later at his house, people I didn’t know, would approach me and ask me if I was Indu and tell me - he spoke very lovingly about you. I cried every time I heard it. For the longest I was angry, grief is strange that way, it takes so many forms. Anger gives your control, I was angry that he had just left, I was angry that he had never told me, I was angry that he was no more there and so many things reminded me of him. Over time, the anger dissolved and the loss kicked in. I refused to look at his pics or the obituaries. On somedays I would pick up the phone to call him and then it would dawn on me. Those were difficult. I archived our chat. I deleted his number that would come up every time I typed A on my phone. When I met people from familiar circles I’d hope they would not mention him but they always did. Denial was not easy.

Now, I see him in my dreams. I tell him when I have done well and feel good about myself. Sometimes I miss him and cry. I wonder what he’d be working on if he was here. I talk to him in my own special way. I make Ada on days when I miss him. And one thing I do, is talk about how I feel in most relationships. I am also trying to tell myself, that I am worthy where I am. I am learning to let go of some rigid thoughts I had about how life should be lived. He would tell our common friend N, “When will Indu live like she really wants without fearing life and constantly looking for approval?” I am also learning that not everyone can talk about their feelings like I can and that doesn’t mean they don’t love me.

This year, just before his birthday, friend and I talked about how we are living like he would want us to. I told friend, “He worried about why I was so sad, I am happy now, like he wanted me to be.”

पोथी पढ़ि पढ़ि जग मुआ, पंडित भया न कोय 
ढाई आखर प्रेम का, पढ़े सो पंडित होय 

The world tired itself to death by reading books, none became any wise 
The one who read the letters of love, in true words did his inner self arise. 
Translation by Anu Singh Choudhary

love,
Indu