I am Sorry

.I am Sorry

The breeze from the window blew over the tall glass cabinets of the Zoology Lab at St. John's School, Kolkata. The air was thick with formaldehyde and anticipation. Boys in white shirts leaned over steel trays, scalpels glinting under the ceiling lights. A small green frog lay on its back on the tray in front of Yashveer.

“You see, Kamal,” Yashveer said, eyes twinkling, “this is where the heart lies. Like a little seed in a fruit. Feel it?”

Kamal looked up from his notebook, his pen poised mid-sentence. “I’d rather not. You know how I feel about—”

But Yashveer had already picked up the frog, slippery and lifeless, between thumb and forefinger. He grinned and said,

“Just science, my friend. Don’t be such a poet about it.”

He moved with the ease of a cricketer, swift and confident, and in one practiced motion, he tucked the frog into the back of Kamal’s shirt. There was a moment of silence. Kamal froze. Then the world tore open. Kamal screamed, high-pitched and raw, knocking over his tray. Formalin splashed across the floor. He danced like his feet were on fire, clawing at his back. Boys turned, laughed. A teacher shouted something no one heard. The frog fell out with a wet plop.

Yashveer was laughing and giggling.

But Kamal wasn’t. His face was pale. His eyes—usually gentle, shy—were burning. He picked up his notebook and left without a word.

That was the last day of their friendship.

Years passed. Yashveer wore Nehru jackets. He had learned to speak in clipped bureaucratic tones. Meetings, files, the smell of government paper—it was a far cry from frogs and mischief. He had risen steadily through the ranks, now Joint Director General in the Ministry of Tourism. His daughter, Barkat, was twenty-five and sharp as a blade. They sat on the balcony of their Lutyens’ bungalow in Delhi, evening jasmine drifting in the breeze.

“Did you ever have a best friend, Papa?” Barkat asked, sipping her nimbu paani.

Yashveer smiled. “Yes. A boy named Kamal. We did everything together. He was quiet, always drawing. I’d play football; he’d sit under a tree sketching my moves like I was some kind of god.”

“What happened?”

Yashveer paused. He chuckled. “In school, during a biology class, I... I put a frog inside his shirt. For fun.”

Barkat’s eyes widened. “Was it alive?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Dead. From the lab.”

Her brows furrowed. “But you knew he was scared of animals?”

He looked away. “Yes.”

“Did you say sorry?”

“No,” he admitted.

Barkat tilted her head. “Then he wasn’t the only one who stopped being a friend.”

Yashveer didn’t speak. The sounds of Delhi at dusk filled the silence.

That night, long after Barkat had gone to bed, Yashveer sat at his desk and typed the name: Dr. Kamal Basu.

Facebook did the rest.

There he was. Silver-haired now, spectacles perched on a long nose, smile unchanged. Photos with students, a campus in Boston, a man beside him in every other photo—tall, American-looking, always smiling too. Yashveer’s throat tightened.

He sent a message. “This is Yashveer from St. John’s. I’ve thought of you often. Can we speak?”

The reply came a day later.

“Yashveer! After all these years. Yes.”

They spoke on a video call. Kamal’s face flickered into view—older, yes, but the same eyes, the same cautious way of smiling.

“You haven’t changed much,” Yashveer said.

“You have,” Kamal replied. “You look like someone who signs files all day.”

Yashveer laughed softly. “I do.”

A pause. Then Kamal added, “You’re the last person I expected to hear from.”

“I know. I deserve that.”

Another silence. Yashveer’s eyes dropped. “Kamal... I don’t know why I did it. That frog. That day. It was stupid. You were my closest friend. I never said sorry.”

“You didn’t,” Kamal said quietly.

“I should have. I was a boy, and boys are cruel when they think they’re being funny. But I should have known better.”

Kamal looked away. When he returned his gaze, it had softened.

“We were kids. But that moment—it changed things for me. Trust doesn’t break loudly. Sometimes it slips away with a scream.”

Yashveer swallowed. “Would you meet me? You’re coming to India, I heard?”

“Yes. For a conference. Richard’s coming with me.”

“Richard... your partner?”

Kamal nodded, smiling gently. “For ten years now.”

“I’d like to meet him too,” Yashveer said. “If you’ll let me.”

They met at the Hotel Imperial in Delhi. Yashveer had chosen it carefully. A quiet lounge, maroon drapes, jazz in the background. Barkat had insisted he wear his beige jacket. Barkat said,

“It makes you look less like a minister and more like a human.”

Yashveer saw them walk in. Kamal, thinner than he remembered, in a linen shirt. Richard, tall and cheerful, held his hand gently, like it was something sacred.

“Kamal,” Yashveer said, standing up.

“Yashveer.” They embraced awkwardly, then sat.

“This is Richard,” Kamal introduced. “Richard, this is the boy who ruined my childhood.”

They all laughed, the tension breaking.

Over coffee and lemon tarts, they spoke of Boston, of Delhi, of Barkat’s painting trophies and Richard’s love for Rabindranath Tagore. But Kamal’s eyes kept flicking to Yashveer, as if waiting. Yashveer reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded paper.

“I wrote this the night we spoke,” he said. “But I thought I should say it out loud.”

Kamal nodded.

“I’m sorry, Kamal. Not just for the frog, but for breaking something precious. You were my home in school. And I drove you from it from it.”

Kamal’s lips parted slightly. He blinked fast.

“I remembered your sketches. You used to draw with this intensity... as if the world was whispering secrets only to you. And I, like a fool, wanted to draw attention to myself instead. I lost something sacred that day.”

Kamal’s voice trembled. “I was scared for a long time. Not of frogs. But of friendship. I thought I wasn’t meant for it.”

Richard reached out, touched Kamal’s hand.

Yashveer’s voice was low. “I didn’t understand you then. But I do now.”

Kamal looked at him, his eyes moist. “I had forgiven you long ago, Yashveer.”

They sat in silence for a moment. The air outside hummed with the weight of Delhi’s night. Then Kamal chuckled softly and said, “Remember the old guava tree behind the chapel? Where we buried your cricket bat after you cracked it in the match against La Martiniere?”

“You still remember that?” Yashveer laughed.

“Of course. We gave it a funeral. You cried more for that bat than I did for the frog.”

They all laughed, and it wasn’t awkward this time. It was full. It was real.

The next evening, Barkat joined them at her father’s home. She brought her sketchbook shyly.

“You’re the artist?” Kamal asked.

She nodded. “Papa told me you used to draw him scoring goals.”

“He was quite the show-off,” Kamal grinned.

Barkat opened a page. It was a sketch of Yashveer sitting alone on the balcony, looking at the stars.

Kamal stared at it and said,

“You perceive him better than most people ever will.”

“She’s her father’s daughter,” Yashveer said.

“No,” Kamal corrected gently, “she’s her own person. But she healed something her father couldn’t.”

When they parted at the airport, Kamal held Yashveer’s hand a little longer.

“You know,” he said, “I always wondered what it would be like if we met again.”

“And?”

“It feels like coming home. Even after all this time.”

Yashveer hugged him. “Some friendships don’t die. They just wait.”

Kamal’s eyes shimmered.

As the gates opened and Kamal walked away, Barkat whispered to her father,

“Did it hurt?”

“What?”

“Saying sorry.”

He looked at her. “Yes. But it healed more than it hurt.”

In 2025, somewhere in a classroom at St. John’s School, a teacher unpacks a new set of biology trays. Boys laugh. Someone screams as a frog slides off a tray. And somewhere far away, two men—once boys—carry in their hearts the weight of a small green frog, a buried cricket bat, and a friendship reborn.

Relationships also have a second innings.

A famous Urdu couplet pertinently states,

“Abhi iss raah mein manzilain hain baaqi,

Naya aaghaaz hai, phir se chalna seekh lein.”

(There are still many destinations remaining on this path,

It’s a new beginning, let’s learn to walk again).