It’s been a long lapse of time since we lastly talked or saw each other. The period extends over many years; the period of absolutely no communication, interaction and transmission of feelings. I can’t even estimate the number of days, seasons, months or years that I have been so heedlessly spending without you. It is more facile to count the number of stars in the sky than to gauge the duration of this detachment. I know you are angry. You ought to be. I do confess my misconduct. I do not deny it that I overlooked your unspoken passions most unkindly and totally neglected your selfless affections for me. I am the one who’s to be held responsible for our soured relations. I first avoided you and then utterly unlearned you. I gradually disremembered your favours, withdrew my attentions from you and eventually washed you off from my memory. I ripped apart the strings of trust and commitment that had once joined us most intimately. I conveniently forgot that you were always there for me whenever I needed someone to witness and partake my joys and sorrows. Shame! You spent most part of your day hearing my endless stories. Though you never said anything, yet speechlessly and patiently you answered all my queries, untangled all my mental knots and consoled all my disappointments. How thankless and self-serving I was to forget you like that! I wonder how I managed to commit this barbarity so impenitently and lightheartedly to you.
You might not believe it but I fully comprehend your agony now. I have come to know how it feels when your trusted ones betray you and your loved ones discard you like an old piece of cloth. I now realize what I did to you when people are doing the same to me. First giving you extra ordinary space and significance in your life, telling you how amazing you are in their eyes, making you feel special everytime and swearing that they will always stand by your side and shall never permit your self to slip into solitude; laughing, giggling, talking eating, celebrating with you; taking all kind of favours and making all sorts of bogus claims, fake promises, mock statements. And then, one day, suddenly leaving you at once, all alone, unattended, friendless and sad; leave you because they find new engagements and better people than you to laugh and celebrate life with; leave you for the sake of their ‘priorities’; leave you bitterly baffled and perplexed wondering if it was really your fault. I now realize what magnitude of misery and suffering you must have gone through when I bade you the same treatment. It would have been such a depressing phase for you. May be this is the reason why it is all happening to me today, because they say “whatever you do, it all comes back to you”. Yes they are right. I can thoroughly fathom this phrase now. It is true; “it all comes back to you” and you have to face it however ugly it is, you have to swallow it however coarse it is and you have to accept it however offensive and painful to your senses it is. Today my own self is in those very circumstances in which I had once left you. I have nothing left with me or in me, except for some broken relations and regretful tears. Today I feel sorry more for you than I feel for myself. I did you grave injustice. You were a great friend, perhaps the best companion to me. But I did not recognize your true worth, and instead of preserving you for eternity, I dumped you in the pit of my past and moved on merrily to explore my present. It was my mistake for which I am compensating today.
But enough of lamentation and remorse now. This morning, in perfect consciousness of daylight, I come back to you. I return to you, I return to my old companion. I want to be your friend again. I want to be around you again. Here, I sit beside you and look into your chattery eyes, seeking your friendship again and asking you apologies. I want to embrace you, cuddle you, talk to you and share everything with you, like I used to do earlier. I want to describe you all my dreams and fears again. I want to enlist you my likes and dislikes again. I want to tell you again whom I love the most and what I expect as my birthday present. I want to sing and dance with you again. I want you to assist me in making all small and big decisions of life. Once again, we will consider all choices and options available and ‘unavailable’ to us and you will help me choose the best one. I know you will not deny me by telling me that I am an adult now capable of making decisions independently or by saying that I am too little to know what’s good for me. You will just ‘listen’ without complaining, without giving your views or criticizing my ways or telling me how vague desires and ambitions I hold. You will only listen and listen till I get lulled into sound sleep and sweet dreams. I beseech you to forgive me and reaccept me. Trust me, I will never let you down again; I will never walk away from you; I will never leave you, for I have now learned the distinction between ‘genuine well wishers’ and ‘friendly enemies’. Come here my friend, stand before me and listen to me. I need you. I have suffered enough loneliness, no more of it please. People say I have nobody for myself. But they are wrong, you know. I am not alone, I am not deprived of love, I am not without company because I have ‘you’. And so I don’t need anyone else. I will laugh and cry with you. I will rest and rise with you. I will again groom your lovely hair and feed you coconut biscuits even if you don’t open your mouth to eat. I see you are not changed. You are still the same. You still look at me in the same manner like you used to do in the past. You are my old companion. Ohh! It’s been so long, so long… How have you been my favorite little doll?
