Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Never Heard you Sing

I am told you can sing. Quite well too. A voice that finds pride of place at your office's every gig. The rhythm struck a chord, and the face rang a bell, with someone I know. Why, oh why, is it always someone else?

The news broken to me by that old friend in a matter-of-fact monotone normally reserved for half-time scores, lunch orders and such. Quite something for someone who cannot appreciate, much less spell, subtle. The only give-away being a momentary sideways glance, away from Goodison Park left flank, expecting perhaps live emotion never seen on TV. Well it's been 10 years. Blast from the past emoticons happen to Balaji people. Sensing more drama on screen, my Chum the Considerate peered right ahead. Leaving me with an old dusty bag of angst.

That you be even mentioned a good decade or so after we last met is not the surprise. Fact that my friend spotted you & remembered, is. Tragedy is, I remember too. Since it seems to be open season on me, the farce would be that you would know next to nothing about all this. That's how it always was; for only I was to know you, the converse never meant to be.

I never set out to be the romantic with nothing but soliloquys to get by. More like a dramatist's after-thought to jive up the leading lady's beau array. Alas that's what I ended up as. Because at 16, a fragile heart is a very common ailment, considerably reducing the sufferer's immunity to romance. I am too old to even try and recollect what, when, where & how it all started. We never spoke much. The courage to do so was beyond me; a lump in my throat that summed up all that I ever wanted to say. Little more than a civil greeting, smile or a warbled mix of the two ever got past my lips. Either way I got a cheerful reply, oh and that lopsided smile. I conspired to have more and more of the same; early turnout at classes, loaned stationery, so on and so silly forth.

Not that my pals had fewer ideas. The posse had many a scene concocted, lines drafted, an ambush setup. All for the lead to flee in a fit of hyperventilation. A spectacle which, I dare say, held a whole generation in thrall. Those were days when time seemed to stand still, at least I believed it would go on forever. Until one day it was time to go, and all was lost. Just like that.

Now I'm older, balder, none the more wiser. The quiff I sported for your viewing pleasure long lost to the ages. And I definitely used to be quicker. Yes, I can smile at the follies & fancies of a beautiful time long gone. At least, at most of them. But for someone who yearned to be everything to you, who staked his heart and whatever that is a teenager would propose to do, I knew so very little of you. Surely you were a lady more than that fragile smile, dainty satchel and clipped-down hair. I miss not knowing you.

Not that I regret the road I did not take. The times we never had. Not until now.

For I never heard your singing voice.