Episode 383 : To Mo, with lots of love

Dear Mo,

Remember how we became friends? Way back in 2009, you had DM-ed to me a link to a video clip in which Aruna Irani breast-fed a cobra. And I took “revenge” on you by asking to “make fransipp with you”.

Mo: why did you get it?
i forgot.

Hyde: we were discussing on twitter, and you DMed me with the link
i didnt even ask

Mo: you did ask
we were discussing
you asked
i sent
and hence i have to say hiss 5 times a day

Hyde: i asked what is it about, not the clip to the movie

Mo: :D
you did
ask for it

Hyde: no i didnt!

Mo: oh lord
its gone
i cant find it

Hyde: yay!

Mo: nono
i mean the reason when you asked
and then you threatened me into asking for fransip with you

Hyde: yes, as a part-revenge ploy
good deeds should never go unrewarded

Do you remember how we devised a system to measure poor jokes, and the poor joke that followed?

Mo: imaginary.
ok will tell you bad joke
and then will do some work
okay?
you know complex PJ?

Hyde: where i am real and you are imaginary?

Mo: what is a complex PJ
com'on you should crack it.

Hyde: i just told you

Mo: aiyyo rama.
P + iJ
now tell me why.

Hyde: because it is poor and the jock is imaginary

Mo: good job
the joke part is imaginary
hahahahahahah
HAHAHHAHAHAH

Do you remember how I used to pester you to teach me French grammar, and how to understand spoken French because I was having trouble at class? I even went to the extent of using a French keyboard layout for my laptop.

Mo: hola
como estas?

Hyde: je suis bien
excusez moi; j’utilise un keyboard frqcqis

Mo: bien.
and your a and q displacement is proof enough

Remember I had sent you a postcard from Leh, and you had sent another one to me from Andalusia after the first one went missing? I still have it.

When I go over our chat conversations, it feels like we chatted yesterday. The goofy conversations, the bad jokes, the need to stump the other with outlandish replies, the exchanging of songs: I miss them all.

I wish I had not gone off the grid and focussed on work so much that I forgot how to keep in touch. Instead of waiting for you to respond on chat, I should have sent you an email. I should have done something to break the complete silence we had between us in last three years.

I still cannot believe that you are gone and I will NEVER be able to hear from you again.. In the mornings when I wake up, I ask myself whether it was just a bad dream. And whether I am still in that bad dream. Then it dawns on me again that this is what I ask myself every morning, and that nothing has changed since that afternoon when I first heard the news.

Sometimes all this feels surreal, and I think a chat message will pop up with a “HIIIIIIEEEEEE” that had vainly attempted to annoy me every time back then.

If I wish really hard, will it happen? Will you return?


Remember me, though I have to say goodbye
Remember me, don’t let it make you cry


Je me souviendrai de toi, mon ami.