Tuesday 12 April 2011

A month later...

So much I wanted to write at the end, but couldn't. Tears would have ruined the pages of my beautiful book. Soggy hand made paper wouldn't have worked, however gorgeous the pink silk cover that binds my precious memories together.

The wave of emotion that flooded my being absolutely, was so huge, it was hard to handle. Same same as the first time I had to say my goodbyes to my special place.

It was Anthony Fernandez who really tipped me over my emotional edge. He was my first Indian friend, the first local I learnt to love all those years ago, having stepped off the plane an India virgin, with a head full of cautionary tales about the dangers for a woman travelling alone in this mighty subcontinent.

But Anthony Fernandez slipped seamlessly through those warnings with his warmth and honesty and simple joy. And on all my subsequent visits, I only learned to love him more.

So ten years since our last meeting, I had to wait until the very last day of our trip. Anthony had been away since we'd arrived, having taken some tourists to Hampi.

Then in last few hours, he finally appeared. Seeing him standing in the shade of a palm tree, more portly than before, hair shorter, but with the same gap between his two front teeth revealed by his gorgeous grin, the same twinkle in his beautiful black eyes, utterly overwhelmed me. My heart swelled instantaneously, forcing a lump in my throat and a river of tears to sting my eyes.

I couldn't contain it, running into his arms and sobbing into his neck.

"I'm sorry. Anna, I'm sorry," he hugged me tight, "I'm so sorry I wasn't here,"

We hugged and we talked. And we galloped through life's biggest events of the decade. We talked of weddings and children and changes to our lives.

He still wears his "Hamish side cuts" with pride. (All that time, we thought Hamish had modelled his sides on Anthony!) he told me news of the possee from 2000. He knew more about our friends from Nottingham than I did.

And what I realised was this: for all the years that I've held the memory of him so dear, and the other local friends we have made on our travels, we too have been a precious memory. I guess I assumed they made friends with so many visitors, so many hundreds or thousands of people who walk through their welcoming doors, that we were just one of the masses.

But we weren't. We aren't. For each encounter where a glimpse of friendship changes the dynamic, making us more than a customer, we have remained a memory. We are part of the stuff that has shaped their lives.

When I said to Abel, Anthony's big brother, on that first night, "I can't believe you remember us,"
His simple reply, "Why wouldn't I?" explains it all.

We have been so very blessed over the years, along the long roads of our travelling, that we have had the privilege to meet so many awesome folk, both locals and foreigners living the dream with us. And of course for them the feeling's mutual.

As we confirmed, reading, by strange and crazy coincidence, in the 12th edition of the Lonely Planet Guide to India, left in our mountain abode by some long ago explorer, "Thanks to the travellers, Hamish and Anna,"

Well I thank you all, each and everyone one of amazing people with whom I have shared the joy...

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