Payback time

I'm not sure when I first realised that we'd met before. In the beginning, you were just the elderly man I often noticed pottering around our communal rooftop.

All the inhabitants of our building were encouraged to use the space up there to nourish our souls. The progressive architect who had designed our spacious, cleverly-ventilated apartments with their indoor waterfalls and cooling systems that did not require energy consumption also believed we should be outdoors and engage with nature as much as possible.

Perhaps he had a point. The benefits of "green exercise"–as gardening was now referred to by the wellness gurus - was clearly documented, with evidence showing that it improved mental health as well as providing much-needed physical activity for the "murgis" that the denizens of our mega-city had been reduced to.

But I had never responded positively to coercive measures, however well-meant, so gardening remained very much a spectator sport for me.

I watched you lovingly curate your little kingdom, from the hydroponic vegetables you grew organically (which the innovative architect would undoubtedly approve of!), to the blossoms that flourished under the caresses and conversations you bestowed upon them.

You were less forthcoming with humans. I noticed that you rarely spoke to anyone else in the building.

The guard insisted you were a good soul, shaking his head sadly at your prolonged grief over your wife's passing.

"His children live abroad, you know. They didn't even visit their parents properly before she died. He looked after her all by himself for two years. But I never once heard him complain about it!"

I couldn't imagine your loneliness, living in my rambunctious household with an affectionate, if absent-minded, husband and three delightful teenage demons.

 Perhaps I too would someday be reduced to relying on roses for company. I shuddered at the thought.

When I was finally able to place you, I lost no time in launching my campaign for casual interaction, ostentatiously displaying some potted plants that cried out for attention.

You resisted my overtures at first, averse to what you must have feared was pity on my part. But you realised soon enough that my plants were the ones deserving of my (and everyone else's) pity!

Why did I do it? Because one good turn deserves another.

And I remembered–eventually–a time when a heartbroken young girl on a river cruise encountered a kind middle-aged man.

College is meant to embody the best years of our lives, and quite often it does. But it is also a time when raw emotions hit the hardest. So it can seem impossible to get over a rejection from the person you considered the love of your life.

"It's rarely as bad as it seems, Ma. Even this shall pass. If it makes you feel any better, it is sometimes easier to share your problems with a stranger. After all, It's not as if we'll ever meet again."

But we did.

Even though a quarter-century would pass before that happened...

Farah Ghuznavi is a writer, translator and development worker. Her work has been published in 11 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe and the USA. Writer in Residence with Commonwealth Writers, she published a short story collection titled Fragments of Riversong (Daily Star Books, 2013), and edited the Lifelines anthology (Zubaan Books, 2012). She is currently working on her new short story collection and is on Instagram @farahghuznavi.