NEVER SAY GOODBYE……………………

I came into work today all chirpy and full of beans because it was FRRRRRRIDAAAAAAAY and then……….

THE AXE FELL.

R my colleague said “F and P called yesterday. They were saying bye as they leave to India today.” That was a double whammy. First, because the two of them are my good friends and second because they were going back home.

I was glad I didn’t have to say bye. I have a morbid fear of saying goodbye to people you see. Do they have a medical term for that too? Must look it up sometime!!!!

I think I have had more than my fair share of goodbyes in the last month and a half. I had to say goodbye to my family at the airport. I still remember how my son reacted when he figured out I was going into the airport and he wasn’t going along. He let out such a shriek. It still chills my blood every time I hear it in my head. In fact, I kept replaying it in my head through those hours and hours on the plane to San Diego. I was numb to the world outside. Now that is not a scene I want to go through ever again in my life. I remember my mom looking really sad and my dad valiantly trying to pretend that he went through such scenes every day. And hubby dear, poor thing, I can just imagine how he must have felt holding my sobbing son in his arms and watching his wife disappear into the vast maw of the airport. Now hubby dear and my dad are the typical macho males of the mallu species you see. They think they have to be tough all the time and god forbid if they let any emotions show!!! In fact, my husband has this down to an art. No wonder I call him the “Buddha”.

My good friend went home too, from Boston. Now that hurt because he was my proxy family here keeping me to the straight and narrow while I navigated the bewildering country that was America. I just hope he gets back on the double!!!

My earliest remembrances of goodbyes that really hurt were when we would leave Kerala to come back to Bangalore. Invariably, my grandmother would start crying and that image would haunt me all the way back on the train.

And some of the goodbyes were goodbyes in the true sense of the word. Specially the ones I bid by 10th standard pals as we all stood on the threshold of our new lives. I studied in Army School and it was pretty rare that you would have the same friends for more than a year, because of all the transfers you see. I was able to keep in touch with just two of my classmates because they were based out of Bangalore. And they are lost to me too, lost in the maze of jobs and lack of time and whatnot. All I have left of my friends are those scribbles at the back of the group photograph.

In fact I am so bad at this goodbye stuff that I simply refuse to go to the railway station/bus station/airport to bid goodbye to people. My parents have had a tough time explaining to relatives why I wasn’t there. Especially since I was most enthusiastic showing them around the city and seemed to love having them around all this while.

Now before this post turns completely maudlin, let me hasten to add that there is one goodbye I like saying. The kind where I bid goodbye to my long week at work. ITS FRIDAYYYYYYY……………… GOODBYE WEEK AND WELCOME WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!