As the Zodiac Said !
Anyone could have met me in daylight on the roads of Raigarh, so I decided to move quickly. My house was near railway station. I walked about one and half kilometres and reached the cyber cafe, where I usually came for all online works. There was two or three cyber cafe near my house but I had a habit, if I got attached to something, I would not prefer even the better option provided instead of that. Earlier I was living near that cyber cafe, my address had changed but the attachment with the cyber cafe and the people working there never lost.
I reached there and asked the charges of half hour of surfing in case if it had been increased in last one year, but it was same as the previous time. In the process of filling form, a step was included of scanning photo.
While scanning my photo, an incident of two years back busted me out of laughter. One of my friends was filling form of an institute in which photo was required in fixed dimension. He scanned it number of times but failed in uploading the image. When he realised that the photo is required in fixed dimension and his photo is of larger size, he frequently asked for a scissor to cut the photo. The owner of the cafe smiled in sarcastic way and cropped the photo in computer itself to upload; when we noticed the incident we taunted him all the way.
I filled my form, paid money for it and while coming out of cafe bowed my head in-front of idol of Lord Ganesh kept there. While coming to the cafe I had aptly saved myself from any known, and I had to do the same while returning. I started moving by taking long steps.
The cyber cafe was at perpendicular to the street where we my two best friends used to live. It was a routine to come there for playing and sometime even spending whole day in their homes, doing all the thing which entertained us. It had been two year since I had not met them. One had changed his school after 10th which increased the difference in friendship and other had changed his home to other place.
It had been a long time since I had put my foot on that street. Playing cricket, gossiping about what we are capable of doing and what we should do, the innocence of everyone, the laughter, and some bitter memory of our childish war, all reminiscence in my mind, and also all those with whom all my memories were associated. I walked inside street to find whether the friend who had left the school after 10th was there or not. The bitter memory with them were too mind affecting that I never desired to meet them again. The reason I wanted to meet them was not friendship but the fact that I was very lonely.
The failure has huge potential of giving you loneliness. Your success always matters and by this only you will be judged. And I don't oppose this, think of a situation where you want to help a poor, with insufficient money you could not do it efficiently.
It needs success for earning resources for helping others and if you haven't got it, means your dedication was not enough. One is judged only on the base of works, so why a person with insufficient resources shouldn't deserve loneliness? For consoling me, few people said failure is always for taking you to the right direction. I doubted on their thought, the Almighty who runs this whole universe had no way other than failure for showing someone right path, if he has to do something he can do it in any condition. Human always need some illogical explanation for satiating their self respect.
My loneliness had the power of letting me forget all the bitter memories which had managed to create envy and hate for them. With all this thought going in my mind I stopped in-front of my friend's home; his bike was parked below his home. This gave me surety of his presence. I attempted a number of times but probably the door bell was not working. Whenever I went to his home I had a habit of ringing the bell and hiding around for getting inner pleasure. I slowly opened the gate towards his floor and closed the iron lock without making any sound. The time when we used to meet every day, I and my friend Rohit predicted, who was coming inside the building by hearing the way iron lock sounded while locking it. Our prediction varied in correctness but we always precise about our third friend Rakesh.
He always found us laughing when he came inside the room; he looked confused while trying to find the reason of unexpected laughter. When we three met there was no other plan than playing cricket, either only we three or brought out every cricket lover out of their homes.
I came upstairs and knocked the door. His mother opened the door and with all her trueness and asked my well being, 'where you have been for so long?' 'I was not in the city,' I replied. She welcomed me inside the room and asked to sit on the sofa. He made two loud calls and said, 'see, who has come.' Rohit came out in his green T-shirt and check Bermuda, his body had extended excessively, height too seemed increased to more than six foots. With his smiling face he came out of room. He seemed too happy seeing me there and same was the case from my side.
Our few of previous meets were not like this; some or other issue always emanated and destroyed the essence of friendship.
Whenever I went there, his mother always treated me as her own son. It had generated huge respect for her. Once we decided to play cricket directly after a half day in school. We all gathered at his home, as he always kept the bat and ball with him. We took the bat and ball and moved out of his home. We had reached the scaffolding of his door when his mother asked from behind, 'you all have done your lunch or not?' I nodded in no to her question. I had just managed to make my mother understand that I would eat only after returning from ground. He urged to come inside for having food, saying her no would have been very rude. Three of us came inside and sat on dining table. Rakesh had done his lunch, so she brought only a plate full of chawal dal for me. The food given by love is always tasty, but she had made it so nicely that anyone eating this would be amazed. I finished my lunch and thanked aunt.
It's said that mother is always like a huge wall between problems and his children. If she knows any trouble is coming towards her child she would stop it in the way. So much love towards me might be god's inspiration to her, because whenever he did anything wrong against me, thinking of her mother's love towards me stopped me from doing the same. I knew if I did anything against him, he would definitely complain that to her mother and that would make me bad in eyes of his mother and I didn't want that. I always feared from being wrong to the people who cared about me, sometimes even I compromised saying something right if that didn't match their point of view.
All the plans of unconscious mind vanished in-front of that love. Having a feeling of revenge at any condition is not at all subject of conscious mind. The ego of unconscious mind always gets hurt very soon, but his works against me were never ego hurting. It was always mind affecting and made me stock of laughter in-front of everyone.
I always wished, if we could have been good friends. I always tried to sort out reasons for his behaviour towards me and finally concluded it as the result of the competition of getting better score and complementation from the teachers.
Probably his room, with his mother in home was not a safe place to talk all that we had experienced in these two years. We decided to go on the roof of building for further talks. As we reached on the roof, the view of huge ground where we played cricket refreshed many old memories.
I stood along the railing of the roof and looked around the whole ground. That place was actually for weekly market, arranged so that poor people from village could sell their stuffs easily and at a nice rate to earn profit. Such an arrangement was an innovative to encourage the rural people towards business. On Sunday that place used to be full of people but rest six days it was left only with remaining of all he goods brought there to sold.
The ground was not so ideal for playing a cricket match; there were lots of mud made platforms raised to comfort the shopkeepers in selling their goods, and lots of bamboos were left which were used in making roof of the shop using plastic sheets for saving themselves from sun rays.
It was not a ideal place to play but the country where ninety percent of dreams starts from being Dhoni or Sachin, people of that country could find ways from nowhere for playing cricket. We played there with self made rules which were easier than the duck/worth/lewis/stern method.
Looking around the ground, first thing I said was, 'The boundaries we have made for fours and sixes seem very small.' He agreed and said, 'yes, now we could easily hit the ball for a six to this roof where we were standing, which was a rare incident then.' He asked me whether I play cricket somewhere else or not. The reality was that I had not touched the bat since we had left playing here.
Our next topic were some of our intellectual friends, we discussed about their current position. There was nothing that I knew so I asked Rohit, 'tell me if anything excieting, if you know about their personal life.' He was also busy in fighting his failures that he too knew nothing.
In the absence of something interesting there was a big silence for few seconds, and then he suddenly asked about girl. 'Sarvesh, do you know where she is now?' I said, 'I was in talk with her six months ago but she deactivated her id and now I didn't know, what she is doing.' I asked him in sarcastic way, 'you are asking a lot about her from everyone, can you describe the reason behind it.' I wanted to confirm the fact about her in his mind. What he replied was out of my expectation, 'can you arrange her phone number, I want to talk with her.' I said, 'I think she might be engaged somewhere now.' He said, 'I will look after all that matter, you just give his contact number.'
The way he was demanding information about her, I never thought he was so passionate about her. He said, 'I had this feeling from first day I saw her.' 'I never got a chance to express because of you.' Now what did I do in all this, I tried to memories. 'What did I do?'
'You remember the first Rakshabandhan after I joined M.V.M, a girl in class tied rakhi on your wrist and you wanted me to do the same. When the school reopened after the holiday I was absent due to some reason and you convinced everyone in class that I was absent because I had something else in my mind for the girl who was going to tie rakhi. Everyone in the class including the girl started believing your words and I never dared to disclose my feeling to anyone.'
I never imagined that this could be the reason for his internal envy for me. Sometimes you do things unintentionally for making fun out of it but you never know how it can hurt others. You always need to think things from the others frame of reference too. A bread is sometime is just a garbage for a rich person but its life for any poor. In your frame you might be right, but in this world others also exist, for your every decision you have to think whether it has fine or adverse effect people effecting lives on the earth. If you did mistake of misunderstanding others frame of reference you have to suffer.
I would have liked to correct my mistakes but for it you need to discuss it with me at least once as my self-realization wasn't able to reach the point where you suffered because of me. I was feeling guilty, though I did this unintentionally but it was I who ruined something what could be one of the best friendship stories.
I was ashamed but then I thought, how could be I so wrong. I tried to look in his eyes and said, 'Why didn't you ever described you feelings towards her, I would have surely helped you from any stage.' 'How can someone predict someone's internal feeling?'
He replied, 'If I would have told, you surely have told it to everyone in class and it could have done more damage.' This time I didn't agree with him, if you love someone you should have courage to face the things which would come in way of showing it to her, you can't blame anyone else for your cowardice.
The first stage in this way is to let the girl know about your feelings, it would keep you in girl's mind, and if you are good enough, today or someday she would consider you while thinking to chose a life partner.
How could someone love anyone so secretly if he is good enough to empress that girl easily? It was beyond my understanding. One part my of mind which was searching the reason for correcting me suggested, probably he was trying to prove himself innocent for the works he did against me by giving me a strong reason behind all those things, and the only reason for all those was my competition with him in which most of the times he fell short of me. The love I got from teachers and popularity amongst students that I had in those days could have affected anyone who was in competition.
I always rated him as nice guy beyond my personal conflicts with him, this thinking always tend to convince me that he would do nothing without any strong reason. This time too my mind gave first preference to his words.
Could I rectify my mistake that was the question? Did I really desire doing so; the answer was 'No'. I knew that girl was in relation with someone else, resolving my error meant causing a breakup between those two. For the sake of coward feeling of any guy, it was a wrong idea to hurt someone else. It was against the rules of humanity that I had set for myself.
He was still busy in describing the entire incident that made him fall for her. These incidents had happened before my eyes, so it was difficult to not believe in his words. The incident which was normal from my frame of reference was something special in his frame of reference which I could not understand due to lack of divine eyes.
'Her boyfriend is son of a powerful politician, I will suggest you to forget her otherwise you would be in trouble.'
He had gained enough experience in life to understand this fact and said nothing other than, 'leave it, world is very large enough for getting anyone better than her'
I remember the first day he came to M.V.M. I had habit of reading the fate of zodiac sign before going to school. It always provided me the necessary confidence that I required at the start of day, even if I read something unfortunate in it instead of being worried I avoided all the risk full work that day. I had seen many people, after reading those fates they try to do all superstitious work suggested at the end. If people are in trouble, in lack of knowledge they follow every hope that they are shown. But I had seen all episodes of B.R Chopra's MAHABHARAT twice so whenever an unwelcoming prediction was there I emphasised on finding opportunity of doing some good, however small or large it might be.
It's obvious that when you consider things negatively your worries would force you for doing everything that could change those results. But instead of that thinking positively would make you do good works and even if those zodiac fates are not true, good works at least never hurts anyone in anyway.
That day my fate read 'The entry of a person in your life would bring major change in your life.' 'Change,' this word always fascinated me. Change doesn't means it would always happen in positive direction but the world which is already so inhuman; could it be even more critical? So whenever it was pronounced, I felt very inspired because that it all what we require at this time. Change in mentality, change in priority and change in everything that might lead us to a better society. That was time of new admissions, the first thing that came in my mind was based on my experience of Bollywood; was this new entry in life would be a girl with whom I will fall in love?
Our first period was of mathematics, in the preceding year we had seen more than half dozen of maths teacher but no one of them were good enough for us. That day too we saw a new face introducing himself as maths teacher. He was very young and seemed to be in early twenties, he was thin average heighted lad with rural tone.
After his introduction he started telling us facts and uses of mathematics which could make us believe that nothing in this world was interesting than this. He taught us some special mathematical tricks which convinced about the fact of its being interesting, but it affected my mind for just a while. Maths remained boring to me for the reason that it required lot of time for practicing and in that much time I preferred reading the other subjects whose application were more visible than mathematics we solved. In childhood my father gave all his time remaining after his duty in teaching me maths, many times I was beaten brutally for the wrong answers. The fear of being beaten forced me to solve question correctly but I never gained interest of solving those questions if there was no pressure on me.
I was often mocked for being a poor at mathematics by my relatives who knew the fact that both my mother and father had very accurate knowledge of mathematics.
Boredom of classroom was awaked by a voice asking the permission of coming in, he was a new admission and probably was late due to confusion in school timing. He came in and stopped in the front for a while, searching for vacant seat but he was unable to find. Out maths teacher went out of class and ordered the peon for bringing a bench and a desk. In the lunch break as the bell rang we all chanted the mantras we were taught to speak before eating food and went out for washing our hands. I wanted to talk with that boy but the hero inside me said, let him start first. All the boys in our class used to share their lunch, we gathered at one place. The new admission had made mind of enjoying his box alone and it was our prime responsibility to not let him do so. We called him to our bench and made him aware of our rule of sharing and caring together.
A boy in our class had habit of making joke of everyone, in flow of which many time he ended up saying very objectionable words which anybody would not like. No one stopped him from doing so; his physical strength was very alarming. That day too he was on peak of his performance when he passed a very harsh comment on a classmate. I readily opposed him and warned him to stop if he wanted me not to complain about him to teachers.
He knew if I complained, teachers would believe firmly on my words, now he started asking everyone 'Did I said anything?' he enjoyed 'No' of everyone, no one found anything fruitful in saying yes. When his eyes went on new comer, he made an attempt of taking him too in his influence. 'Hey, did you hear me saying anything wrong?' he questioned. 'Yes,' the new comer replied. Now it was my turn of laughing on him. His gallant reply gave me a robust feeling of having friendship with him. His home was closest to mine with respect to any other classmate; travelling in same bus was more than perfect for strengthening the bond of friendship with him. He being a native of UP gave me another reason for considering him close in every terms.
There were no reasons that ever questioned our mind; why can't we put a great example of friendship? But soon one such incentive occurred.
Due to my casual approach towards maths I never accomplished the daily tasks and most of the time my maths notebook remained uncompleted. For the sake of eminence, whenever deadline of submitting notebook was announced, I sharpened my blunt mind towards mathematics and solved all the pending exercises in one night. The solving of questions in bulk gave me opportunity to skip few similar or difficult question of every exercise. It was obvious, while correcting copy in huge numbers the teacher would never go through every question.
One similar day when it was last date of getting copy corrected, I was very happy after prevailing one more battle of nights. In mode of satisfaction, I lost control over my tongue and unveiled my secret of completing my note book in one night to few of my friends. The fear of getting caught seized my mind every time I submitted my maths copy but the dialogues of sir on the student who never found it necessary even buying the note book for this subject relaxed my anxiety, I easily escaped of that situation every time so I was bit more relaxed today. Rohit was sitting beside me that day and today he too had left few questions as it were complicated to solve.
He got his copy corrected from teacher without discussing the questions he had left. When it was my turn, he stood up from his place and asked for the solutions of questions that he had left. The reputation I had made in-front of every teacher inspired my maths teacher for handing a piece of chalk and directing me to solve that question on blackboard and making everyone understands that problem.
The ground reality was totally different from my reputation and I pleaded for excuse from him for not solving that question too. My copy had been checked and as I was to move away from the teacher's desk, he countered the teacher with another question which he knew I had not solved. Teacher discovered that I had left fifteen questions. As a punishment for my falsehood, I was hammered fifteen times on my palm by duster. It was very difficult to hide the pain which was clearly visible by my swelled palm; more difficult was to accept the lost reputation in class of never getting beaten in this school for any reason.
Two months later results of our half-yearly exam was out, surprisingly I had topped in maths paper. It was a huge shocker for me, though I had a good examination, I believed that there were many who could have crossed my marks. All the toppers of my class were impatient, they checked their copies several times and hurried to the teacher for any increment but all their efforts were ruined.
This time it was my turn, I had squared up every question raised on me in the shortest period of time. Before the end of day my happiness was on zenith when I knew, across all the sections of my class the second highest marks were two less than mine. I had many academic achievements to make my parents proud till that date but this was appreciated most by them.
These marks were the result of effort I had put behind being punctual with completing the tasks given in this subject after being beaten in-front of whole class. With this another thought followed in my mind, the zodiac fate which said the person entering would bring change in your life. Is it the change which was discussed? Or the maths teacher was the person who was mentioned in the fate as he too was introduced in my life on the same day.
The next day when I met him, unaware of the fact that due to him I had topped, his uncomfortable eyes restricted me from giving him the credit for same. It was the inner story but differences had started to grow, the outer story went like; he had embarrassed me in-front of all and I had given him a befitting reply.