Is he just a colleague … no…. is he my friend … not really,
but he is more than a colleague for sure. To me friend is part of my soul
residing in other body. Friend is one whom, I can share at least a part of personality,
with….whom I can talk my heart out, to, about something. One who does not scare
me with the targets of expectations from each other. One can say that should be your spouse, but no…
being a spouse I do expect from my partner, so does he and fair enough. But a
friend is a person where I get and grant forgiveness on not fulfilling the
expectations. Sorry I went off track … so the bottom line is he is not the very
special friend for sure. But I can’t put him in the dry list of “just colleague” category
too.
In prologue I said I would write about people who teach me
something special… So if he is not special what makes me write about him……It
takes me to memories when I first met him 4 years ago. He was neither my boss
nor the junior. He was just a consultant outsourced for one of the projects in
the company. So certainly I was not supposed to prove myself in any sense. I
was not compelled to be in his “good books”. I had no burden of being the most
efficient team member. I had no targets of setting an example of a brilliant
senior either. In short, I needed no mask in front of him. I was just myself
and it’s the same till date even when we are working together or sharing about
the common interests.
Yes, we do need masks while we deal with people. Mask of sugarcoated
words when we actually want to kill the person. Mask of sanity in some place
when some other stuff is making you insane. Mask of detachment when you want to
avoid some undesired things along with the desired one. Mask of smile when you don’t
want your tears to be seen by the whole world. The mask of being “anonymous”
while commenting for various reasons. Mask of pseudo anger to teach lesson to
someone at fault. The list is endless and we do wear them at some point of time
in our lives. It may be my weak observation or least knowledge or inadequate
experience … but I haven’t come across a single person who has never put a mask
on himself at any point of time. If somebody claims that, at least for now, I
will call the person a big liar.
But with this person, this colleague of mine, I don’t remember
wearing any mask. Junior colleague are
even scared of me while talking about him for they think I could be his spy. J This certainly does not
mean that we agree upon every single point. This also does not mean that this
is the best relation I have ever had. No. But this is pure for sure. We agree
to disagree easily. We tend to respect each other’s opinions effortlessly. Being
a senior, he has taught me some techie stuff, some tips of the art form which
he is better in; but more than anything else, this person has made me realize that
‘relations where you don’t compare, expect, moreover be yourself without any
mask and don’t want others to wear one… turn out to be the relations, you would
cling on to, all your life’.
Some day, I hope to see myself with all the masks disappeared,
anywhere, everywhere. The day when I would not be scared of anyone, when I am
not concerned about my so called “image”, when I would not explicitly try to
impress anyone, when I would do the things only because they are right to do
and expect nothing in return…. Just needed to pay heed to this distant but
respectful relation and thank this person to give this dream of being a pure
beauty with “all masks uprooted”.
image :courtesy: internet.
