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Prabuddha and I were both intrigued by Leonard Cohen?s ?Famous Blue Raincoat?. What is going on, in that song, between three people who seem to be connected to one another by life, longing, and a sadness that looks beyond regrets at something truly mysterious? Trying to figure that out broke the ice between him and me when we first met properly in Goa last year. There was a strange mix of shyness and awkwardness between us. The awkwardness was mine: I was meeting someone about whose latest book I had been critical in a review. And the shyness was his. But I?m glad today that it never quite went away even after we became deeply fond of each other in no time. For me, Prabuddha?s shyness was his truest, and most attractive, quality. There was nothing covertly manipulative or falsely modest about it. It was a genuinely humble, yet peculiarly self-assured, acceptance of his own vulnerability and unsureness as, first, a human being and then, an artist. It was like a gift that he was bringing to you, and if you received it, it settled into a combination of gentleness, affection and trust. It was what kept him and his work remarkably young and open.
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