Sayonara My Friend.

As I enter the International centre Goa expecting to be hailed with, “hi, sexy”

But no, more yesterday on world friendship day our Lord in heaven called forth one of the few friends I have.

I don’t know how to say goodbye to someone who you love, and took for granted. I don’t know a painless way to do it. I don’t know the worlds that capture a heart full of bewildered feeling, guilt and loss.

Our relationship and friendship is not defined by one moment. It’s an accumulation of all the moments we spent together. All the little ways in which we say I love you, or I respect you are you are important to me add up and that cannot be erased with a few careless words. Though my friend has left the physical world, she leaves her memories here and they represent her in her absence! So, in reality, she will continue to be in every place and role she departed from!… then am I tethering her to the earth school… I do not know.

All that I can say is “sayonara”.

Sayonara literally translates ‘since it must be so,’ of all the good-byes this is probably the most beautiful. It does not cheat like, Auf Wiedershens  and Au Revoir  there is no false promise or bravado here. it does not try to alleviate or postpone the pain of separation like till we meet again. It does not evade the issue like the sturdy farewell  is patriarchal, a father’s good-by it says, “Go-out in the world and do good son.” It holds so much it has the sweet sound of reluctance but says too little it, it is encouragement and admonition, it is hope and faith. Yet it passes over the significance of the moment for it says nothing and hides the emotions. Adios on the other hand is too dramatic and says too much it almost like the effort is to bridge the distance, or even deny it.

Good- bye like the khudha hafiz is a prayer a ringing cry. “you must not go~ I cannot bear to have you go! but since have to go, you shall not go alone, unwatched. God will be with you, and God’s hand will cover you. But undeniably very deep within the ‘good-bye’ well hidden, subaltern  is the incorrigible~ “I will be with you; I will watch you always,” this a mother’s good-bye. Paradoxically it is short and final a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties the past to the future.

But sayonara says neither too much or nor too little. It is a simple acceptance of fact. All understanding of life lies in its limits. All emotions, smouldering is banked up behind it. Yet it says nothing. It is really the unspoken good-bye, the pressure of a hand.

So Sayonara my friend.