I pass a pair of schoolboys; they must be about 7 or 8 years old. They're walking back from class, ties loosely undone on their grey uniform and black socks pulled up almost to their knees.
They have their arms draped around each other as they walk -- typical for boys here yet something rarely seen in the US. They're smiling, and I realize one of them is on the phone -- his friend nodding in agreement to just about everything Boy #1 says.
I watch them for the five minutes it takes to cross paths. The whole time Boy #1 is on the phone, and it looks like quite an intense conversation.
As I pass them, I realize that Boy #1's "phone" is merely his left hand -- thumb and little finger out and three middle fingers curved in.
Still, the conversation is quite intense. And still, his friend nods in agreement at everything said.
Boy do I wish I understood what was being said into the "phone"!
Makes me think of Adam Gopnik, who writes in the New Yorker about his 4-year old daughter's imaginary friend Charlie Ravioli, which makes him wonder about the mental health hazards of raising children in Manhattan -- where even their imaginary friends cancel lunch and who are always too busy to play.
This is one of my favorite lines because of how true it is: "Why...are grownups in New York so busy, and so obsessed with the language of busyness that it dominates their conversation? Why are New Yorkers always bumping into Charlie Ravioli and grabbing lunch, instead of sitting down with him and exchanging intimacies, as friends should, as people do in Paris and Rome?"
And after this afternoon's walk, I now wonder what characterizes imaginary friends in Delhi or Hyderabad.
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