3 times we met

Mummy was instructing the sweeper boy to clean my newly allotted hostel room. I was sitting on the bed brooding. All admission formalities were done and I was to start my classes the next day. I would be away from home for the first time (if you discount one summer holidays I spent with my grandparents). I was feeling a mixture of things at once. Mostly I was afraid to figure out things on my own. I was marinating in my thoughts when I noticed the sweeper boy. He was vigorously pushing around the edges with his mop, trying to get the last bit of dirt out. It suddenly occurred to me that he was doing a perfect impression of Mr. Miyagi’s “Wax On Wax Off” move. That made me smile. I had spent a lot of time watching Hollywood movies after my college entrance exams. The Karate Kid is really a classic movie that continues to feature in pop culture to date with the latest revival being Cobra Kai. I had become a fan immediately.

The boy had a dark round face with large teeth and hair like a black bowl covering his head. He was wearing an off-white shirt and brown half-pants. He would have been around 15 but was well built for his age. He stood up now and waited expectantly. Mummy asked his name. ‘Vijay,’ he said. Vijay didn’t seem to speak much. Mummy asked him a bunch of questions about himself and the college in general. He restricted to one-word answers mostly. He had a sweet, husky voice that had not broken yet. As parents do, Mummy chose to embarrass me at this point. She told Vijay that I am new here and she is depending on Vijay to take care of her son for the next 4 years. Vijay nodded in a typical way that Indians do; a yes and a no at the same time. I wonder what Vijay was thinking then. Maybe he was just in a hurry to get to more cleaning work. The college admission period I assume would be one of the few times in the year when Vijay could make a decent sum of money. As I sat there feeling humiliated, Papa paid him 100 rupees. He rambled away to the next room and I saw him leaving with a broom in one hand and a mop bucket in the other. That was the first time I met Vijay.

I had always been a shy kid. During the year, I would sometimes spot Vijay wandering through the corridors after he was done with his daily duties, looking for extra cleaning work. Once or twice, we even exchanged a glance in passing. I am sure he recognized me. But perhaps both felt that we didn’t have anything to say to each other. We came from different worlds and had nothing in common. Except perhaps the melancholy in our hearts. A condition common to everyone. Desperate to make a connection. But we ignore that and tell ourselves a story of who we are, and in that fortress of imagination, there are only certain things we do and certain people we talk to.

I returned to college the following year. I had managed to score well in my exams and now carried a reputation. It is easier for our minds to put everyone into brackets. Perceptions help us create a worldview. I wasn’t sure which bracket I fell into. I was decent at academics but not much else. I could be funny and outgoing sometimes. But mostly I kept to myself and a few close friends. In the second year, you get to choose your wingies (hostel neighbors). We helped each other rally the luggage up to our rooms on the first day. As we took a breather after all the heavy lifting, I saw a big burly young man coming towards us. That was the second time I met Vijay. ‘Bhai,’ I called out. ‘Aap room saaf kar doge please?’(Brother. Will you please clean my room?). He nodded and went to work. That was the extent of our conversation.

Life went on. With the new academic year, arrived new anxieties. As the course load increased in the third year, so did the questions on what to do after college. People started to make up their minds about where they would fit best. Again, it gives us a certain comfort to arrive at an answer and understand our position in the world. Not knowing is not an option. On the first day back, as I was setting up my room something seemed off. I realized Vijay was not around. I finally managed to track him in another hostel, hard at work. I did not have the courage to say that I just came to say Hi. I needed a pretext. So I asked him if he could clean my room. That was the third and last time I met Vijay.

There are many college memories and experiences that are a part of me and to some extent made me. But none of them seemed worth writing about. The story of Vijay is not about romanticizing some kind of bond we shared or some misplaced sense of nostalgia. Vijay is as full a person as I am or you are, without me writing about him. He has his own story to tell, with different influences and circumstances. I am just privileged enough to share my story. What is the point of this story then? I think we are too self-obsessed most of the time. “My ambitions, my hopes, my desires”. And that keeps us busy. Try passing the mic to others though. Get out of yourself and take time to hear them out. Maybe in helping and enabling others, your ambition will be finally realized through its dissolution.