Tricky question

When a friend of mine called me up a few days ago and asked how was I, I said I was fine. It seems absurd but I feel pretty uncomfortable answering questions like that. She asked the question out of formality and I, too, had to maintain formality and I said I was fine. Every acquaintance asks the same question every time I meet him or her and every time I have to repeat the same answer. Out of formality, I say I am fine, but can it make me fine? At times, I ask people not to ask this question but to no avail. No one realizes how simple but difficult the question is for me to answer.

People too ask this question without thinking. One day I was lying on bed due to typhoid. A friend came to see me and his first question was ‘how are you?’ I said fine. One time when I was mourning the death of a close relative, it was just first day and a friend entered the seen and asked ‘how are you?’ But I realized the degree of difficulty of the question when she asked this question.

Life had become a serious business for nothing when she, my only friend, left the city. I was alone, so alone; I had no one to talk to, no one to share my feelings, no one to turn to when I faced problems and no one to comfort me when I faced emotional lows. When she asked me the question, I wanted to cry. But I asked to myself ‘for what?’ And I let it go and said ‘fine’. When she was around, we used not to talk to each other, send mails or make phone calls sometimes even for months, but just the feeling that she is around used to comfort me. But now, she is gone and everything has gone from my life. I wanted to cry and say I have forgotten to smile, forgotten to hope, forgotten to live but the God has not forgotten to make me breathe. But I said nothing like this and lied to her. And the question forces me to lie every time I face it. I hate to lie but the question forces me to lie. Isn’t it a tricky question to answer?