When I travel alone I want to be alone. I am not a kind of person who glues easily with the surrounding people. I don’t even want to hear them saying. My earphones and novel are my tools to indicate that I m least interested in their talks. I was traveling to my home almost after 3 months and I was excited. I stepped off the train on the Kanpur junction to have something to drink and when I came back to the seat I found a teen aged girl sitting on the seat next. The girl must be in 10th standard I thought but her sparkling eyes, round face, frameless glasses were giving her a look of bright young girl. I finished my drink and begin watching the scenes passing by the window of my seat. The window pane was looking like a tv screen. You can’t feel it but you can watch it.
“IIT kanpur” was the word said in a feminine voice which caught my attention and I realized that the girl sitting beside me said it with a smile broader than her natural smile. The middle aged man on my front seat asked has asked her about her school and the girl has replied it with IIT Kanpur.
OK, I thought, these bloody proud IITians. They think they own the whole bloody world.
“What is your favorite subject?”, asked the man at my front seat. He was a middle aged man with signs of baldness on his head, sullen face with contrasting bright eyes. I was thinking what the profession of that man could be.
“The girl replied, chemistry”.
H2O came to my mind. This is what chemistry means to me now days.
“Chemistry, an interesting subject indeed”, said the man with a fake chuckle over his face.
“Ok, can you tell me what the relationship between melting point and atomic radius is?” asked the man in interrogating voice and it was written on his face that it was not the genuine question, he just wanted to check the knowledge of the girl.
“As you go down a column in the periodic table, the atomic radius increases and melting point also increases.” The girl replied without taking anytime more than required to utter the statement.
“No”, the man replied.
My eyebrows raised, I never saw an IITian beaten on technical grounds.
“Iodine, I2, with a large radius, is solid at room temperature. It hasn't hit its melting point yet. Bromine, Br2, with a smaller radius, is a liquid at room temperature. If its melting point was lower than I2; it has already melted.” Then man replied in single breath.
The girl shuddered and she straightened her back and said, “yes that true”. She moved her sight in the whole compartment inquiring who was listening to the conversation.
I begin reading my novel thinking that it has been already too embarrassing for her.
“Actually the random London dispersion forces come into act when we are comparing the elements of similar nonpolar molecules.” The man replied in a tone too sooth.
“Oh yes, those London forces, I read a little about them”, she replied in a remorseful voice.
“Are you a chemistry professor or something”, the girl asked.
“No.”, he replied.
“then?”, she asked with curiosity.
“I am a auto rickshaw driver, I pick and drop children from school. I have learned all this while talking to them only. All of them are used to talk to me and they are normally used to teach me what they learn in school”
“And while talking to them from years I have learned a lot and also I developed an interest in physics and chemistry”, he continued.
The girl was looking at him with an open mouth. Screaming within her mind “No, hell. You are joking”
The man was smiling, half pain, and half pity.
“But pity over what?” I thought.
He continued “I studied in a school till senior secondary. I passed it just to get the marksheet so that I can get a job. At that time no subject or anything made me interested. I was used to roam and have giggles with my village friends hoping that on the completion of my schooling I would get a job to lead the rest of my life happily”
“But everything in our life does not go as we plan it. I came to the city and had a very bad time there. No one was willing to give me a decent job. Better than the starving I decided to drive rickshaw. Nothing has really changed during all those years. First there was only me who cursed that lack of money and comfort, now my two kids and wife bark along me”
I wasn’t able to see into the eyes of that man. I saw the real pain, I was learning what is known as regret, I was learning what a life those people live.
“The possibilities of growth are negligible for a person like me. You must have seen many people in your life, check the locality where u live. You must have noticed that the man from whom you purchased toffees in the childhood are still selling the same kind of toffees. The color of their hair has changed but the size of their shop is still the same. What do you think, don’t they want to progress. Indeed they want. But with the given unlimited responsibilities and limited resources all of them die in dark. They have keep doing the same thing from generations. Same routine, same people, same life, each day, every day”, the man was looking outside the window. It seemed as if he was able to visualize all that he is saying. I also started looking in the same direction hoping to understand and feel the same pain. But it was useless. I never can. The one who has gone through such tortures can only understand what those things mean. As a charted accountant I can never understand what he really means to say.
“I am sorry I am not used to tell all this to anyone. But you know what; I have something to say that will make your dropping head upright”, the man said looking at both of us.
A cheer came to the girl’s face but I was still calculating what that man said. May be my processing speed is much slow or may be I started doing many more calculations.
He continued, “I am coming from a private university of lucknow and I was there to fill up the form of Bachelor of Science. It was very hard for me because it’s been over 15 years I completed my 12th standard. They putted me through a test and the physics and the chemistry professors took a personal interview over my repeated plea and finally they recommended me to the principal of the collage and today I have registered myself as a student there. I will pursue a private study over the subjects and will try to do my best in the part time.”
“What are you planning to do?”, those were my first words in last 1 hour of journey. I didn’t ask it consciously, the situation made me ask it and at that time getting the answer seemed most important to me.
“I have quit planning a long ago. I just do what I want to do. I wanted to study, so I filled up the forms on the first opportunity. But I will hope for the best, the best I can do is to set myself as an example for my own children, every other thing will be a plus”, he said.
The train slowed down its pace as it was approaching the Etawah junction. The man stood upright with a smiling face of a hero and bent down to pull his bag out.
“Are you departing?” the girl asked.
“yes, dear but it was nice to have a conversation with you. I just wanted to tell it to someone, not like an epic or any heroic story, I just wanted to tell you all this so that you can realize the value of time. You have got a seat in an IIT, please be fruitful for the technology. Give back what you have learned. You read not to earn money, you read it to take those studies to the next level. Contribute to the literature as it has given you a lot. Contribute to the mankind, every study you conduct must be helpful in the better living of the creatures of god. I will remember your face for the rest of my life”, he said it while queuing himself into the queue of departing people.
His last line was tuning with my thoughts.
