The Chat House

I thought about my friends, all their phone numbers, all the dates, all the distances. I didn’t need to worry about that any more. After all there were so many of them; So many of them and so little time. It would save time and it would save money. Larry and Brin had announced their great invention. It was pure genius. I did not know how it could be described to those who had just written letters all their life and never seen a telephone. I found it more difficult to describe it to the generation stuck with the telephone. The future was here. People knew it various names and forms. In conglomeration, I thought of it as: “The Chat House”. It was a place where friends could get together. Get together and Talk. Talk at once to many. Many for hours. Hours for no price. Almost no price. And it was real. Almost real.

Thanks to the Chat House, gone were the days when you would lose a friend because they had moved to other town. Gone were the days when you would not know where your best friend in class 2 was vacationing this summer. No more losing touch because you are too busy to call. The Chat House provided a place where you could enter any time and find your friends waiting for you. To share their life. Sindhu and I had known each other for 2 years. When I left for Delhi for my college, we both made an unsaid promise to stay in touch. We both thought we would call each other often. We both knew we were lying to ourselves. Friendship isn’t forever, Love is. But then there came the Chat House. We talked often. I felt she was sitting in front of me, almost. We smiled. We laughed. We winked. I could feel her there, almost. We shared as always. Sometimes less sometimes more. Sometimes she would not be there when I came but she would leave me a message. Sometimes she would ask if was there and I would not reply but I knew that she would understand that I am busy. Or hoped she did. Sometimes she would not talk to me even when she was there, but atleast I knew she was there. She would always be there. As would all other the people. With their smiling faces, changing with every passing occasion. The House had become grand. Grand with more friends to share. Share every moment. Moments captured in pictures. Pictures lined on the walls. The Walls echoing with comments. Comments filling the House.

The House could bring random strangers from random places together. Strangers were becoming friends. It began an era of belief. Such was the power of the House. They would tell about their life to a stranger sitting miles away thinking he could help or at least he could care. And may be they did. People trusted in people they had never met and would never meet but in them they found solace. I never understood why. May be deep inside they knew that destiny worked through chance or may be because in the House you get a chance to paint a life-like canvas and had poetry written on it. Some did not believe in the Chat House. They said Faces could be masks. Smiles could be faked. Grief could be concealed. Grief could faked. And so could any other emotion. But those who believe do not need reason. Or listen to it.

Years had passed. Life had got busier and Chat House had become a staple. Sindhu and I would look for each other in the house. Searching in the crowd, the pile of faces. She would leave a message when she didn’t find me. Sometimes I would. Sometimes we did find each other and we talked. I could predict and recognize her overstretched Hi anywhere. Her short forms. Her final bye. Her three course Good bye routine. I would know she was sitting right infront of me and yet sometimes I was not sure if she was listening to me all the time. At times I felt I was sharing my time with her with the entire world. I knew something was missing. I just didn’t realize it. What I missed was her presence. Her complete presence. Her presence as if my time with her was just my time with her. Unshared. Uninterrupted. Real. And I missed her voice. The crispness of the hello, the stutter before the lie, the coolness of the don’t worry and the warmth of the good night. I just didn’t realize it then. Such was the power of the House.

We got more used to being in the crowd at the House. Just knowing that we were there in the celebration of red, green and orange lights and decorated walls, We could see the exhibitions of the pictures in the corridors and heard the chatters echoing through the walls but we did not call out. Did not call to hear her voice because she would always be there. Because Life had got busier. And Friends were becoming strangers.

Of all things God created, Time is the most complex – if we can assume God did create Time. Its relation with events is complex. Its relation with emotion is that of unconcern. A day came when Sindhu left. Left all worlds – real and otherwise. I would look for her among the pile of faces and hers would be grey forever. The Walls of the House echoed with a requiem for days and then faded in the corridor of time. I wished I could break the chat House and see her for real for one last time. In skin and flesh. In scent and voice. In smile and sigh. But the relation of time with emotion is that of unconcern. I didn’t break away from the Chat House. I needed the sea of faces to believe that she was lost somewhere. People would ask questions. Friends would ask questions. I tried Silence. Friends understand Silence but in the House silence meant absence. But I could face them because I know now. In the Chat House, Grief could be concealed, Smile could be faked, Faces could be masks. In the Chat House, Strangers could be Friends and Friends could be Strangers.