Letters & Blogs

“Hey, Avichal!"

"Do you want to go to Everest with me ?” - Sure, he said.

I looked at him with my eyes wide open for a moment.

There are two things you should know about me. First, I am a percipient observer. I can gauge the intensity of the words forming on your lips.

I was astounded because when he said yes he meant it.

The second thing you should know about me is that I am very bad at restraining my excitement, it just floods all over my face. Beware of me 'cause if you are sitting by me on a train, I’ll poke my finger on your shoulder - Hey! you know I’m super happy right now. Then my monologue will commence and which will continue forever until you decide to get down on the next station.

One day, I pulled my chair beside him in the office, sat there, and kept staring at the ground for a while. He understood & said - something happened, tell me the story. I said - After four years, once again, Yesterday, I landed in the city of lakes & waited for her on the lake but she decided not to show up. Right now, the thoughts are looping and spiraling in my mind. If you want to keep me sane, get me out of my mind.

The next thing, I know is that I found myself standing on a cliff and I looked down — “shit”. I heard a voice behind me - “jump” & I was in the air. It was Christmas eve, one of the coldest days in India, and jumping into the river was the craziest idea. When I came out of the water. My limbs were shivering vigorously.

You’re feeling cold, “let’s go”, he said. Funny thing, whenever I go to a bar, I’d say to the girl on the counter - “whiskey on the rocks, please”. Most of the time people treat me like a child but when I hold the whiskey I feel like a man. “Let’s get on the floor”, he said. The funny thing about me, If I hear the word ‘dance’, my body becomes stiff and my muscles freeze. But I couldn’t refuse him because we had a deal before the trip that I will be following his chain of command. “Okay tell me what to do” - “do this” — “okay, next move”, “do this”,... As the alcohol percentage was rising in my blood, I kept pounding vigorously on the floor.

I don’t really sing, not even in the bathroom. But that day, I was just lying in the back of the car, watching the trees passing by on the wavy road & singing that song again and again. “Let’s sing it together on the summit” - I heard him saying from the front seat. At 2 o’clock of the starry night, the temperature was twenty degrees below freezing point & the tent was half submerged in fresh snow. Wrapped in eight layers of clothes, Four of us, huddled together, were remembering the lyrics of the song - “Bekarar si thi raate, Besumar teri yaade, Bebakoof the ye dil mera…” The next day, we were sitting on the wooden slab with a cup of tea in hand, singing out loud in unison, sun-lit, snow-clad mountains were echoing and everyone at base camp was staring at us.

As Robert Frost said - ‘Nothing gold can stay’, after six months, it was time to say goodbye. We both were staring at the fumes rising from the cups in the cafe and it started drizzling. Raindrops were falling in the cup of tea but I didn’t move in an effort to pause those last few hours with him, in India. On our way back home, he told me about his past and now I understood the reason why he said ‘yes’ to Everest. I was packing my bag and he was lying on the bed scrolling insta. I caught a glimpse of a teardrop shining at the corner of his eye but kept quiet.

Uber arrived & I said only two words while parting - ‘maza ayaa’. ‘aur ye maza mere hone wale Amrika ke har ek dost ko dena hai ki -- sare bolenge maza ayaa.’

"""""I want to dedicate this toastmaster’s ice-breaker speech to you buddy.""""

Yours,

Joon Hwi - 준휘