A childhood long forgotten

He was 15. I was 10 then. He introduced me to Scrabble, like how he had introduced me to Moneyply and Ludo and Bingo before that.

Those were days when computers still ran on DoS, STD / ISD calls cost a bomb and post offices were stretched beyond capacity. I was an egoistic verbose writer, he was a pathetic correspondent. Letters were not us, neither were postcards. We were not in need of them. He and I, we met once a year, sometimes once in two years, for a brief 10 day period. Our board game was our bond, far stronger than emails and Gchats and Blackberry connectivity.

He was the rules analyst, the Moneyply banker, the game administrator, always. I was just the player, always. I trusted him blindly; his judgment was the last word, his rule the rule of God. He was just.

He knew that I was no sport, that I would refuse to play further if I did not win. He never lost for my sake. He was unwaveringly just. He would coax, tease and force me back to the game, very justly, as was his wont. I would make a jig when I won. He would look on unperturbed, sometimes a tad amused too, as if he was 60 and had seen it all in life.

We were not major TV watchers, he and I. There was nothing much to watch on TV those days. We would hit the Moneyply board at 9 in the morning and be at it for as long as 12 hours at times. Sometimes, my parents would have to literally tear us away from the board to take us to the beach. We would play with the sand, collect sea shells, and eat ice cream. But, we would come back to our board like we had never been away. We would pass through Texas and Dallas and JFK Airport and Boston. We would buy and construct and mortgage and sell. He would keep track of all of it. He was a spectacle-wearing nerd, the kind who should have grown to become a banker in real life.

We would make up words in Scrabble, fair and square. One for him, one for me; one more for him, one more for me. He would note down the scores on paper, doing the additions and subtractions. We would play again and again and again, till we had no more rough paper to note scores on.

He and I, we never made small talk. He was 15, I was 10. We had no reason to make small talk. He would have a book in hand sometimes, a huge academic one. He would read his, I would read mine. And, then we would take a break to read a non-academic one each. He and I, we were not major outdoor players. Perhaps, he thought I would not be interested in outdoor games. I was not. Sometimes, we would play ‘Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta’. I do not remember now what it was. Just that it was played outdoors.

He and I stopped playing board games a decade back. He was 20, I was 15. We had grown up. Perhaps, we had better things to do. I don’t know.

I was playing online Scrabble with a friend last week. I missed him. He is 30, I am 25. The Scrabble sleeps peacefully at home, maybe it misses him and me.

He and I, we never celebrated it. Not when he was 15, not when he was 20, not when he was 25 either. Maybe, in his 30th year, it is time to tell him, “Happy Rakhi dear V :)” A tad too early, so you would say. However, it is a tad too late, I would say. 25 years late in wishing him a very happy Rakhi and a beautiful life ahead.