Do Loners Even Need Friends?

I think yes!

Today, when I woke up, Google Photos displayed a memory of me meeting my friend Ayushman in New York. The photo took me into a dizzy spiral, bringing back so many memories of a strange bond and something more that the image reminded me of.

It was in 2011 when I met Ayushman at a filmmaking workshop where, in a group exercise, he narrated the story of the film he wanted to make, and everyone laughed at him. Some who were empathic people didn’t laugh in front of him. They, however, did it in private when they smoked Marlboro Lights in the balcony overlooking the green tree of Delhi in pre-AQI counting days.

I was by then a veteran in the department of humiliation, and it was among my top three emotions that I knew very well. I met him and told him, “Your idea isn’t that bad. It needs some polishing.” Perhaps in those days of early loserism of life, that’s the small assurance one needs.

That was the first time we met, and a bond was formed among us with a basic understanding that we are misfits in the world and hence designed to be doomed. Over the period of the next few months, we shared films, poems, and songs with each other and discussed cinema and the purpose of art during the drinking session, in pre Manish Sisodia times where there weren’t schemes like one plus one alcohol for those who were broke.

I had a kind of hope that I’ll make it in this world, yet a dejected assurance of failure that this world might grace me with. It’s difficult to explain how both emotions can coexist, but they did.

Ayushman, I think, had made peace with the terribleness of the world, and he had no interest in fighting back unnecessarily. He wasn’t one of those motivated kinds whom we see doing the theater of hustle these days on Instagram. Hustle itself became a kind of performance where you are doing boxing matches, but there are no apparent opponents in sight. Hustle is infact act of burning calories so that the feeling of existential dread is replaced by burnout.

Ayushman wasn’t that motivated to make it big in the arts/films, but he did want to make a film—a surreal drama about an engineering college student who was loneliest person in the world.

He was very much interested in my work. He was among the first people to be fully convinced that I would make it big one day. “Your talent shall be recognized and that time is about to arrive very soon.” He used to say it many times while sipping green apple vodka and eating sad local chips fried in palm oil.

I also thought that time would come soon. But it didn’t really come for many, many years.

We lived in different cities, and I used to send him my poems and short stories. He would read and respond with something assuring that would keep me going. A belief that what I am doing is good. He would also send me some of his work that he was writing, and I would respond with the same. A mutual support center!

Ignore the spell mistakes. It was from 2011.

Sometimes, he would email me, perplexed, thinking out loud why I haven’t made it in life. “Why no one has recognized your talent”.

I would reply back, even if I didn’t know why I haven’t made it in life yet. I then told him that perhaps we must leave things in the universal justice system. Even if there is no such thing, we must pretend there is such a thing to keep the purpose of living alive.

As time passed, I almost felt guilty for letting him and other people who thought that one day I’d make it big in life down. I almost felt like an assassin of hope. It reminded me of Bukowski’s line from a poem: “We are like roses that have never bothered to bloom when we should have bloomed, and it is as if the sun has become disgusted with waiting.”

The days converted into weeks into years, and the wandering continued. I had difficulty finding the audience and earning from my work. The and this whole idea of perhaps never be able to make it life seemed like a reality. At that point the most relatable quote for me was by Proust: Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.

At that time, my audience was three people whom I would send my poems or my work to by email and waited for their reaction. Ayushman would reply to my work, but after a point, he also stopped replying to emails. He once told me he got a job and isn’t really thinking of trying to make films anymore. I understood he isn’t in the middle of mess and broken life anymore which was suited for such activities of poems and short story writing.

My audience shrunk to two. Further downfall.

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Eight years passed. I had no contact with Ayushman.

Cut to 2021. I found myself in the USA. I was invited to a conference. So much was going on at that time. My videos blew up on the internet. I became somewhat popular and also found some way around earning for my work. But most importantly, I found the audience (more than 2 now) for the work I do, and people did recognize my work.

I was walking near Columbia University in New York when I got a text. This was from Ayushman.

He asked me: “Are you in New York?”

I said: “I am.”

He replied: “Let’s catch up.”

I said: “Catch up? You in New York?”

He replied: “Yes, I work here.”

I was quite surprised to see the message. In the evening, I walked outside the European restaurant where he invited me. He didn’t come at the time which was expected, and I sat outside a small park nearby, where I saw kids playing in the playground, singing a song which I think was viral on TikTok these days.

He finally came and looked pretty much the same as he looked eight years back. Still had the same energy of a relaxed nihilist bored with the world. Last we met was when I used to live near Munirka in Delhi. Now meeting in USA. Munirka to America rhymes and that was the only purpose of this information.

But obviously I asked him: what are you doing in New York ?

He told me he is working. Finally happy that he is working in the music company- Spotify. He has to work closely with many indie bands, so life is somewhat bearable now because of some kind of closeness with art. This isn’t typical corporate job.

He isn’t on social media. So I was wondering if he even knew about my work. Or most importantly, about the fact that I have finally made it in life. As he always predicted and hoped for.

I asked him if he knows that I make videos on social media.

He replied, with boredom: “Haan. Pata hai. Mein tujhe 5 dollar bhi deta hun har mahine Patreon pe.” (Yes, I know. I pay you 5 dollars monthly on Patreon)

I replied: “You are my patron?”

He replied: “Yes, for 2 years.”

“Wow!” I said.

Then he lit a cigarette and pressed the switch to turn on the menthol.

We sat inside the restaurant, where they played music, and he told me he is also handling this indie band.

He then told me: “Your videos are nice. I even showed them to my friends. But none of them liked it. They thought you are overrated. But I think some of your videos are nice!”

I took a bite of the bland food of which I had no idea about: “Not everyone can like what you do.”

He replied: “Yes, I think people don’t still understand your work. But it’s okay.”

It appeared to me that he had nostalgia for my underdog phase, and he was trying to reimagine me in the similar setup. His comfort space. Maybe that’s how he always knew me: someone struggling to make it in life. And that was the shared bond of our friendship: we both were decaying in the same space.

Friendship, I realised, perhaps, among many other factors, is also based on signed pact of sharing the slow collapse of life together.

I had to go early because the guest whom I was staying with used to sleep early—too early—9 or something, and I didn’t want to piss them off.

I told him I have to go. He said, “it’s okay you can leave. I’ll eat the food and spent sometime here.”

I waved goodbye and walked out. The waitress looked at me like I hadn’t paid the bill. I pointed inside. "My friend's still there," I said. She gave a small smile, not fully convinced but letting it go.

Through the glass window, I saw him sitting alone at a table meant for two, lost in thought, chugging his beer—perhaps still thinking about making that film about surreal dream of an engineering college student who was loneliest person in the world.

Me and Ayushman in Brooklyn, New York.

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