We were liberated from the burdens of acquaintance – strangers in absolute.

We just happened to share a dust-ridden, dug-up road for a few minutes, walking side by side in the same direction. She had suddenly appeared out of a narrow alley that was orthogonal to the road. She seemed to know where she was heading to – confident in her pace. I was just wandering around – manifestly honest in my ignorance. Perhaps metaphors for our respective lives. She stood out from other pedestrians – dressed in colors defying banality. She was using her rosary – Eternal Recurrence executed by an index finger and a thumb. Rephrasing Kundera, happiness, after all, is a deep yearning for repetition.

I turned towards her and greeted her with a smile. She reciprocated generously – with a wider, beautiful smile. She did not want to end it there – it was clearly not her way of doing things. She wanted to become friends over the next 50 meters or so that we had to walk before our paths diverged. Not an ambitious goal for her at all. She was too wise to feign interest in ostensibly deep stuff – with no care in the world to impress. She was definitely capable of talking profound and notwithstanding her disregard for it, she did impress. She did not talk about Existential Ennui, Federal Reserve or Typographic Number Theory. Instead, she started off protesting against the steep price of onions. No pretensions. Only things that really matter. We talked in three languages – English, Hindi, and Kashmiri. In that order. A quintessential conversation – we exchanged words, gestures, emotions – especially love – and laughter. We had reached the point where the path divided itself into two. So we paused for some time there. My father, who was walking behind us, joined the conversation. He took a photograph of both of us together – this elderly oddity and me, her new admirer. We laughed. We hugged. We parted.

It was the most authentic, warm and contagious laughter that I have shared with someone in a while.

I cannot help but recall Kundera again – “To laugh is to live profoundly.”