Soul mates are exceedingly rare; but when they do come along they blur confines of age, sex, religion, size and shape.
Homi, a plump Parsi bawaji, was the sole proprietor and owner of a printing press on Mohammad Ali road. He carried out jobs for a retinue of steadfast clients he had built over decades. In the early 1970s, he befriended a lanky but like-minded bawaji, Firoze (fondly called Filly) who ran a similar business at Fountain. After they started working together, Homi (to Filly he was always Bawaji) would visit Filly at his press everyday to discuss the jobs on hand and chat in general over various topics under the sun. In the late 1970s, Homi sold his press and joined forces with Filly in Fountain. They trusted each other’s judgment and respected their decisions implicitly.
Over the years, as what happens with most good friendships, families got involved. They started visiting each other’s homes for lunches and dinners. Although Homi stayed in town and Filly stayed in Vile Parle (out of town for the uninitiated), home visits on Sundays became sojourns and picnics for their families. Filly’s wife was an excellent cook and treated Homi’s family to some mouth-watering dishes, the signature item being boiled eggs garnished with homemade spices. Both the buddies could gobble up a couple of eggs at any time of the day; Parsi, thy name is eedu. Filly also fancied a fruit salad dessert made by Homi’s wife. So, every time the boys met, boiled eggs and fruit salad was always on the menu, such was their care and fondness for each other.
Homi’s wife turned critically ill in 1992. Filly would come home daily and uplift their spirits. Just before she passed, she urged Filly to take care of Homi, and not only keep him company but also keep the press running so they would have something to be preoccupied with. Unfortunately, soon after, in the event of labour trouble for all presses around South Mumbai, they decided to stop their own printing operations and started contracting their work to presses around Worli and Parel. They also sold their premises and moved into a smaller office at Fountain, as there were no machines or labour to house. Filly would open the office by 11 AM and then sit there until around 4 PM, when he would leave to beat the local train evening crowd. Homi would reach by around 1 PM and close the office around 6 PM. That’s how they shared responsibility and enjoyed their time with each other. They amplified each other’s goodness through a boundless generosity of spirit.
In 2014, the landlord sent them a notice for a massive increase in rent, which made it impossible for them to continue their business. They shut shop. Their ink faded but the friendship blossomed. Filly visited Homi every alternate day at home at 2 PM, and in case he missed a day, he would make up for it with an extra visit the next day, taking the train from Ville Parle to Grant Road well into his late eighties. They spoke about cricket, politics, TV serials, enlarged prostates, and bowel movements. Both of them underwent surgeries over 2017-18 but their visits never ceased. Being a daily Agiari goer, Filly would source out special prayers that would heal them sooner. Not only did they meet thrice a week, they also spoke to each other over the phone thrice a day which slowly scaled down due to fading auditory faculties to a daily call at 8.30 PM sharp. You could set the time on your watch hearing the phone ring in Homi’s home. They were two antique pieces polishing each other’s gold.
Is it rare in today’s day and age for two perfectly heterosexual men in their nineties to arrive at the centre of a deep friendship? They may not be 3 AM friends like our generation boasts about, but they were 8.30 PM friends– for five decades. They were committed to each other just by being there for one another. It was no earth-shattering friendship, no hero’s journey, no gallant acts of sacrifice. Just simple friends. Kind, selfless, committed ones. Their relationship was filled with love, connectedness, and mutual joy that was both wondrous and unbelievable. A touching serenade to the little things that add up to the largeness of love, harmony and devotion.
While most of us focus on committing to a vocation, marriage, faith, or philosophy, few commit to deep friendships. We often tend to get so tangled in mundane musings, Monday after Monday, that we don’t invest in friends because of family, work, and the routine prosaicness of life. But we should, because a great friendship is indeed one of life’s crowning glories. “For in the dew of little things,” says Khalil Gibran on friendship, “the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
Last month, a few days before his 93rd birthday, Homi’s health started deteriorating. On the 12th of October, Filly had a fall. That day, the 8.30 PM phone call was longer than usual, detailing the events that led to it and questions to ask the doctor the next day. Medical notes were exchanged, and they ended the phone call wishing each other well. The next morning, Filly passed away unexpectedly. As Homi wasn’t keeping too well himself, the family decided to withhold the news from him until they returned from the funeral. The main concern discussed was what to tell Homi when the phone didn’t ring at 8.30 PM that day. He would be devastated. They decided to break the news to him gently, but when Homi’s son returned home from the funeral that evening, he discovered that his father too had passed – into the sunset and onto the clouds, somewhere over the rainbow, to be with his best friend, without putting the family in a dilemma on how to break the news to him because he already knew. No more local trains. No more phone calls. No more boiled eggs and fruit salad. Just an everlasting togetherness beyond time and space.
