The Last Known Lunch
Once you finish college or uni, there are a few people you will probably not see anytime soon in your life. Not a few, probably most.
Near our college, there used to be a queue of shops. You would get assorted Indian breads (rotis) and different curries. They used to be very pocket-friendly (40-50 INR). We often had our lunch from those places. And once a week, we would have the Chicken Biryani. That would be a whopping 60 INR.
I remember this one particular guy from my college days. We were part of a bigger group. Relatively close. After finishing college, I was trying to figure out what to do, and I started preparing for GATE. I knew that he was also preparing for the same, but we didn’t keep in touch for the next six months. On the day of the exam, we met accidentally. And decided to have lunch at that same place.
We had our usual lunch and parted. We agreed to stay in touch.
It has been more than 7 years since that day, and we haven’t spoken.
I had once tried to contact him during COVID. I have made a few attempts after some recent misfortunes that I faced. But all attempts have been extremely futile.
Anyways. This prosaic monologue was not completely random. I was thinking about the old friends, acquaintances, and relatives. Specially the ones with whom I used to be close once but am not in touch right now. And what was the last activity we had done together? Almost all involved some kind of a meal. Mostly lunches.
The somewhat interesting part is this: when I had those meals with them, I had no clue that this would be our last encounter yet.
When it comes to noticing or bookmarking the firsts, we are usually quite good at it. Be it the first day at a new job, the first day at school, or the first date. We write about them in a journal. We take pictures. And we often tell the stories at parties years later.
But when it comes to the lasts - we are generally not good at all. Because it is a bit trickier. Sure, some of them announce themselves. The ones which are kind of an official event like a farewell party, graduation ceremony, final work day, etc. Everyone involved in those events knows that something is ending.
But many events in life come with no huge announcement or ceremony. You are having a usual lunch where you are mostly catching up and discussing the paper. After finishing it, you tell the other person that you should meet again sometime, and mean it (mildly). Neither of you know that it might be the last scene. There is no “farewell” tag attached to that conversation.
In statistics, there is a term for it (bear with me - one paragraph only!). Say someone is tracking whether an event will take place or not. And a study is being conducted for that. But your study ends before the occurrence of the event. So one would never really know what happens after that. You only know one thing for certain. The last time you checked, it hadn’t happened yet. It is called right-censoring.
When I had that lunch with my friend, nothing unusual actually took place. We didn’t need to log our meeting as “the end”. It was simply the last time we spoke, seven years ago. Since then, the case has stayed open. Probably forever. And this might be true for far more people than I realise. There must be many in my life with whom I have already had my last conversation. My last cup of coffee. My last lunch.
There is something absurdly strange about these ordinary moments. We can only assign their importance, that too sometimes, only retrospectively. At that moment it meant almost nothing.
That lunch after that exam was completely a very mundane thing to do. Two people ate at a place where they had eaten before. Dozens of times. They finished their food, their was some usual chit-chat. And then they parted. That’s it. Nothing unusual.
Nothing about the afternoon suggested that it needed to be remembered. But it has been more than 7 years since that day, and I still remember it.
Most of my relationships, technically, are still ongoing.
Ordinary thoughts, shared with hope. Pass it along if it resonated.
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