Pictures courtesy Google.
If I remember correctly I have known him since KG—Kindergarten. We were in the same class, from KG till grade 12. He was a quiet boy. I have memories of him running around in the playground. There are not many memories. We did not talk much. He was a shy boy and being a dreamy head, I lived in my own world. There are very few boys from school I was ever close to. But I remember Abhay because he seemed synonymous with sincerity.
In India names are given great importance. Everything from people to houses are given a
name, in special naming ceremony. The
energy of the name is supposed to bestow the person, place or a thing with
respective energy. Therefore a house named ‘Anand Vihar’ can literally become
a reflection of ts meaning--‘an abode
of joy’.
Abhay means fearless.
And yet, I do not remember him ever being in an argument, let alone a
fist-fight. He was always a good student
with high and steady performance on his report card. If I remember correctly he lived near, around
or in the NPL campus. National Physical
Laboratory, which was right behind our house.
We used to set our clocks by its 9 am siren. NPL requires another blog-post.
Our school uniform was green and white for summer time, and
steel grey-wool, white and green in winter. So primary school memories are of girls in
green tunics and white shirts, boys in white shirts and green shorts. From my eyes today, we all seemed so
clueless, without any understanding of life.
I, myself, had many visions, hopes and goals. Most of them colored by the images I saw on
TV or the big screen.
Somewhere in there is the image of Abhay as a skinny boy in
white and green school uniform running around recess time in school
grounds. An interesting thing about our
school was that, though it is a big name today, it was a new school, set up in
residential area, had quite humble beginnings, but worked with high level of
teaching. Starting from grade three
students had to read newspaper and sometimes come to the school assembly and
read headlines. For English, Hindi and
math, we had three exams. For both the
languages we had three exams each, about three times a year, on literature,
grammar and recitation, and a dictation once a week to help us learn spellings
and punctuation. Recitation or elocution
was real fun, we had to memorize poems and passages and then recite in front of
the class. This helped us combat our stage fears and perfected our
pronunciation. Abhay, had a mild
stutter, but even as children, we never thought it awkward. May be because of Abhay’s sincerity. He delivered all his poems very well, with
appropriate stops, some deliberate others involuntary, but with
confidence. For math, we had alzebra, geometry
and the math quiz. The two former ones
are obvious, but the last one was something unique. We would have to 30 solve short problems in
30 minutes. It helped us build speed of
doing calculations in our minds, without using any calculator. For all other subjects, especially social
sciences we had something called the ‘open book’ exam. We were allowed to refer to our books during
the exam. It was not as easy as it
seems, if you had never opened your books before, there was no way you could
answer them. Often these questions
involved comparing chapters and concepts.
Another interesting thing about our school was that most of
the students came from the surrounding areas, and so we all not only knew each
other but also each other’s siblings, and parents, for we were very familiar
with ‘who’s who’. I do remember seeing
Abhay’s mom a few times.
One distinct and probably the last memory I have of Abhay is
when we graduated from high school. I
used to go for coaching to DPCC, Delhi Public College of Competitions. DPCC is a special coaching school to train
students for entrance exams to professional colleges and universities, namely,
engineering and medicine. I met him
outside the college, while he was riding his bike home. A true gentleman that he was, Abhay got off
from his bike and walked his bike all the way till we got near to where we
lived.
We were only sixteen
at the time. Today when I look back, it
seems like such a nice, simple, wise and honorable thing to do. Especially since our grown selves know that
we have little time for others. If we
meet people today we are most likely to bid good bye before we even hug each
other, and promise to meet sometime in the future, which may never happen. Because while we plan, and promise, we never
truly intend to sit down and talk, because nothing is truly invested in the
person. In that innocence, and age of
‘free time’ we knew that that is how memories are created.
By stopping, sharing
and slowing life down.
Or we did it, just because that was the only thing to
do. But it was a different time.
I have barely had any contact with Abhay since that day
except when about 13 years ago, I got an email from him. Which is when I got to
read his last name for the first time. I think it sounded Marathi (Those from the state of Maharashtra, of which Bombay/Mumbai is the capital). But for me Abhay was a classmate, a Delhite,
and a good dedicated student. And then we exchanged a few emails. He told me that he had moved to Bombay for a
while, where he thought people were more honest than capital city we both
called home. He also told me that he had
two daughters (if I remember correctly). I always felt bad that I never had the
time to write back long emails but mainly, with years, there is nothing much to
say.
Recently I saw him on linked-in and this time it was I who
sent him an invitation to connect.
I still do not have much to share or say. But I want to stay connected, to see where a
man named ‘fearless’ goes. To
occasionally hear the stories of his way of life. To people, he might seem an average guy
leading a family life. Regular, and far from extraordinary. But I know that Abhay’s sincerity in his work
and life is nothing short of a feat in a world where we focus on benefiting the
self at every turn. Some even might say that
its an act of fearlessness!!
