A Friend
Called Richard
Today was a big day for
my author friend Lucie Novák as her very first book ‘A Woman with No Strings
Attached’ was released today. I was one of the first people to get the book on
Kindle and I know that I’m going to enjoy reading the words penned by my
friend. However, when I was scanning through the digitalized pages on my tablet
I heard a voice in my head saying,
“Wait and watch Fiza my
dost (friend) you will reach the stars and have friends all over the world.
Will you then forget me?”
Today I own a tutorial and
I am an international bestselling author. I’ve got authors, poets and blogger
friends from all around the globe with whom I communicate and share my
experiences of writing. However, in the midst of this vast crowd sometimes…I
really miss that one friend who meant a lot to me many years ago…who now I am
sad to say hates the very mention of my name.
“Wait and watch Fiza,
my dost (friend), you will reach the stars and have friends all over the world.
Will you then forget me?”
“No Richard──I’ll never
forget you.”
His name was Richard
Chris Cabral and I loved him like a brother. Yet where he is now and what he is
doing…I have no clue about.
My friendship with
Richard began on the 3rd of July 2007 when I was in my first year of
degree college. My class was shuffled and I landed in a new extra populous
class full of Psychology and English snobbish students with only one person
whom I knew. That person’s name was Tanya, who wanted to major in psychology and
who has remained a close family friend till this day. She was the one who made
me relax and introduced me to her friends in the over populous class. It was
she who introduced me to a tall lanky youth with a lot of pimples on his
wheatish complexioned face. He shook my hand and when I looked into his eyes…I
saw security in it. I felt that I had looked into these eyes before and then I
remembered when…it was when I was a baby when I used to look into the jet black
eyes of my estranged father…Richard’s eyes were just like my father’s eyes…I
liked him at first sight.
Richard and I both were
naughty and sort of goofy. We gossiped a lot and I used to ‘girl watch’ with
him just for the fun of it. We were always making the most disgusting jokes in
the group and irritated everyone with our boorishness. However, incorrigible as
we were, we were just over grown babies who knew too much, especially too much
sex. I think Richard and I used to be the storehouse of lewd jokes in our
group…he got along well with me and I got along well with him. I even once told
him that maybe we were reincarnated friends because we were just so close.
Richard brushed that off as another joke but to me, our friendship felt like it
was made out of faith, dust and a lot of pixie dust.
Richard and I used to talk
a lot on the phone and I once even wrote a proposal letter for Richard to gift
to his crush. Sadly, the ‘crush’ was ‘crushed’ and Richard thought that he
should end his life that very moment…I found him the next day waiting for me at
our college desk with a chess set ready for both of us to play.
Richard was handsome and
so had a lot of girlfriends and crushes. I was a geek and just felt wonderful
whenever I was with Richard…because we were now the best of friends.
Then came my second
year of degree college…Richard did very well in his exams thanks to my coaching
(come to think of it, Richard was the first student I ever tutored) and I
topped in Hindi and History. I was very studious and read a lot during this
period of time. However, being with Richard and having fun at college was my
top priority. We were in separate classes this time, but we met every short
break and at after college hours to chat, have a samosa together or to watch
him play cricket in our secret lane near the college where Richard, his gang and
I used to hang out most of the time. Those days were very special ones for me and
making Richard smile was my biggest desire every day of the college week.
Richard started going
to the gym and working out at this point of time and boy was he looking
smashing after that!!! I never missed a chance to tease him about his muscles and
as he blushed I would just place my hand around his shoulder and feel like a
million dollars.
Richard may have been
comic, witty, handsome, helpful, full of life, temperamental, moody, smart
etc., but he hated to study and he especially hated to do project assignments.
I loved to learn and do my assignments. So one day, in 2009, I decided to do
all of Richard’s project assignments for him but I had just one condition. That
condition was that Richard would take the trouble of reading over the work I
had written and copying it down on paper BY HIMSELF.
Thus, I went about
first doing my own assignments and then Richard’s and let all the elements be
my witness…it is true that I made his assignments better than mine…always,
because he was my buddy…a part of me which I did not under any circumstance
want to let go of. God however is a master chess master and likes to play
tricks with his pawns…it so happened one day I caught Richard making one of our
group friends to copy down his project for him…THE ONE WHICH I HAD
PAINSTAKINGLY WRITTEN FOR HIM UNDER THE CLAUSE THAT HE WOULD THEN WRITE IT
HIMSELF!
I don’t know what came
over me that day but I did something rotten that soured our friendship forever.
I took the project back and Richard was left without a project to submit.
Pride? Yes it was my
pride that soured the relationship but I never thought he would break away from
me completely…from that day onward, Richard stopped speaking to me.
I spent my last year of
Degree College as a loner. I hid my face in my books and just kept away from
everyone. I cried a lot that year. The naughtiness and fun loving spirit in me
disappeared. I started taking tuitions to earn some cash after college and used
to immerse myself in my work (this was the foundation stone of my tutorial
which exists today). During this time, Richard…my Richard ignored me like as if
I were the plague; he would not even let our paths cross when we walked on the
road towards our college. My silence continued and his also…we passed our
degree college, he with a second class…me with a first class and moved on in
life.
“Hey Fiza, you know
what I told my mother about you?”
“What did you tell your
mother about me Richard? That I’m a skunk?”
“No way…I told her that
if she had seen Mother Mary’s statue…well, to me you look and act just like
her.”
Our silence grew too
long and the light of our friendship burnt out its last flame the day I sent
Richard a friend request on Facebook after I had become an international author
and he did not accept my request.
I miss Richard…I miss
his laughter and his awkward smile…I miss the sound of his voice and his rib
tickling jokes…I miss his caring nature and his childlike nature…I miss the
smell of his after shave lotion and the fun times we used to have…I miss his
comradeship and his silliness...I miss the touch of his brotherly hand and the
way I used to lean on his back while we bitched about our professors…I miss his
frank nature and his Goa stories…but most of all I miss Richard Chris Cabral because
no one can take his place…the place of a loving brother.
I don’t eat samosas
anymore and only crack jokes when I am with my students…clean jokes…I think?! If ever Richard does read this article which
will be visible to thousands of readers, will he change his mind and become my
friend again?
Lucie Novák my author
friend would definitely want me to show this article to Richard but my wounds
can heal later, I've got to read her book and it is a good one. Also tomorrow
is a hectic day for me at the tutorial and I’ve got 10th grade
essays to correct. Wounds don’t heal fast and real friendship is tested but not
broken…I'm ready to be Richard’s friend again…because I miss him──for he is a
gem worth a few tears of love.
Copyright © 2014
Fiza Pathan
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