Together

Let me tell you a story, which will be a story for everyone.

There was once a girl, who had a Big Job in a Big City. Correction, who thought who had a Big Job, because it paid her well and kept her reasonably busy. Her bosses were uninspiring clods, but she liked her job and liked the Big City and so she kept getting busier by the day, with work or make-believe work, as she could manage.

To start with, she would call her family at least once a day and make checks. But soon, questions of “have you had dinner?” and “do you have a cold?” or even “how are you?” started annoying her. After all she lived in the Big City and had a Big Job and no one goes from “doing well” to “terribly sick” in a span of 24 hours.

Then one day, she had to stay back at work till very late. This wasn't new, but this one day, something stuck her. A simple question of , who will worry if I don’t get home today? I am unusually late for a weekday and there is no one to check on me, no one in the Big City who will actually know if I land in trouble. But just as the thought began to settle and make her feel miserable, the phone rang.

“Where the hell are you?” an irate voice said, but that irate voice filled the girl with all the calm and honey of a cool breeze in hot summer.  It was the house mate, with whom the girl had not had a good conversation in weeks, thanks to both of their schedules.

Back from her work travel, the mate had set dinner. Tired of waiting, she had finally picked up the phone to check.

The next day, the girl took her house mate out for movies and dinner and celebrated their togetherness. They made a deal not to check their emails at all. And they talked. They had been putting off a discussion about moving to a better neighbourhood for months now, scared of having to do the rounds of brokers again and also because they simply never found time to talk about these things anymore. That evening, over wine and food, they decided to go looking. 

Then onwards, the girl made it a point to make an effort towards staying in touch with the people who cared, Even though her mum still drove her crazy with her wedding pitches.

Because that day in the crazy Big City, she had realized that in the end, it is togetherness that makes memories and gives you hope. That it was worth the while to make time to build those memories.

And that the little memories matter as much as the big ones, sometimes more.