Jini and Ryan, an unusual friendship

One day as I sat and watched TV, I remembered an incident of a rather unusual friendship which many of you wouldn't have heard of perhaps. It was an experience I had 20 years ago when I was just 18.

I used to stay in a rickety, dilapidated old building in Singapore when I heard a sudden noise like a thud and lots of footsteps. I ran across the room, opened the door, and looked at the staircase. I saw this young guy perhaps my age, thin, wearing spectacles, quite tall and well dressed holding something which looked like a bottle in his hand covered with cloth. He looked a bit out of place according to me considering people of low-income groups stayed in my building and this guy was quite well dressed to be in here.

He looked at me and quickly ran to the next-door apartment where he had moved in. I waited and looked all around hoping more people were moving in, his parents, siblings, girlfriend, wife but nope there was nobody, he had moved in all alone.

I picked up my bag and headed to college carrying on my normal routine.

After few days I again bumped into this guy again and since he was after all my neighbor I thought why not make a conversation with him. "Hi there, I'm Ary and you are," I said stretching my hand across hoping to be polite and shake hands, but in return, he said " uh, hi I'm sorry but my hands" he lifted his hand where he was holding a couple of plastic bags which had clams, fish and crabs in there. "Excuse me but I am busy right now," is all he said and rushed back into his apartment. What a weird guy I wondered and quite a manner less fellow did not even tell me his name.

That very evening as I sat outside my apartment listening to music he opened his door and said " I'm sorry, I was in a hurry in the afternoon, I am Ryan, I had to keep all those fish and crabs in the water they were alive after all. Why don't you come over someday." ." Yeah sure I will, but I'm curious to know one thing, you stay alone and all those fish and crabs were for you? " I asked surprisingly. " Oh no no, I'm a vegetarian, those were for Jini my pet". " Jini!!" I exclaimed, " you mean your pet cat " though I hadn't heard any meow for days now, " well. no not my cat my pet octopus".

"Your pet what? did I hear that correctly, you said Octopus"?, "well yes, I have a pet Octopus, come in tomorrow and I shall show you around". But tomorrow was too late I had heard of people keep exotic pets but Octopus? I went straight into his apartment, and he was very welcoming. It was as if I had entered a different world altogether. Huge glass aquariums covered all his walls full of rocks inside them, and his bed was right in the center of the room with a small table and chair next to it. I could clearly make out he had no guests visiting him ever.

"well, you see, when my parents got divorced I decided to move out and live separately so I came in here, and since I have rich parents," he said as if making a statement why he had such an exotic pet and expensive pet, " I asked them if I could keep a pet octopus, they had no reason to deny me that. And I know since it's strange to keep an octopus as a pet and people will make fun of me I chose this building where I could be secluded on my own with Jini", Ryan said.

"You see that's Ryan, hiding behind the rocks, he eats live fish and crabs and that's why you saw me carrying all of that the other day," said Ryan while passing me some chips and a bottle of coke. " Jini loves to play games and solve puzzles, I put him in various shaped bottles and tries to find a way out of it, it's actually good fun to watch that", Ryan said while laughing. While I sat there listening to Ryan it seemed as if I was lost in a different world altogether, w=, he was living alone, yet so content had no human company as such, yet so happy. I thought to myself he's actually not as weird as he seemed the first time I saw him but we usually tend to judge people by looks, clothes, and definitely by the pets they keep, which is so wrong.

"Can I be Jini's friend too ?" I asked. " well yes of course just that you will have to come every day to visit him and play games with him so he can get familiar with you", " sure, every evening ill be here playing games and puzzles".

That day when I went back to my apartment I felt happy that I had made a new friend rather than two counting JIni in too and hoping I could play with him too. It was the most unexpected and unusual pet experience I had ever had and the experience stayed with me forever.

Today, Ryan and I are the best of friends though we live in different countries now, we both are married and our spouses are great friends too. Jini would've been a great pet rather a friend too but we lost Jini while Ryan was shifting homes, Jini managed to escape from the container and we only hoped that she had found a nice place in the ocean between rocks along with other friends there. What I experienced 20 years ago is something I always narrate and tell to every young person I come across, never judge a book by a cover and definitely never judge a master by the kind of pet he keeps.