short story 2- engineering student

Engineering Student
All engineering students smoke cigarettes, told my Mech. Roommate,
handing me a long, white one. ‘Haven’t you seen around?’ Till then I
had tried smoking only once, my uncle’s foul smelling bidi. But now
in this hostel room of my engineering college it seemed alluring. I
did regret accepting that fag, as I learned the slang for cigarette,
which made me cough and tearful and an amusing story for my roommate
to spread around about his ‘ghati’ (again a slang for naive or
unsophisticated) roommate. Yes, that was me, the first one from my
family to pass 10th standard exam and 2 years later get admission in a
far away engineering college.

I was always a loner. In my village, shunted because I was far ahead
academically there and in here because I am far below in
sophistication and coolness. I am also falling behind academically;
everything is becoming more confusing. I am unable to understand what
my classmates do to manage so many activities together. During
daytime it’s bunking lectures and hanging out in the canteen and at
night going out with girls wearing shockingly short and tight dresses
or partying in somebody’s room and keeping awake half the hostel.

For the first time in my life I started hating my slim, wiry frame,
my dark colored skin. My lousy clothes and white rain shoes which I
thought as hip when I bought them from the town Parnala, near my
village turned traitors and pointed me out for every one as the crude
village idiot and sneer at. And money, it haunted me day and night.
After two terms in college I could have faced all the ghosts in my
village together, but everyone in my family at village refused to
understand my plight, they had remained as village idiots all their
life and also force me to remain one. “You are not supposed to talk to
elder’s like that” or “is this why we sent you to the college?” was
their final statement. By the end of my third term, I was almost
crazee trying to find ways to earn some extra money decently, so that
I won’t have to borrow a few puffs from my hostel mates or have a
peaceful drink at least sometimes.

Things turned when news came from village that my grand uncle is
seriously ill. I left for village immediately as I knew this will
spark few fights for divisions, as most people in my village died
without leaving a will. He was dead and burned by the time reached my
bullock-cart village. There was already tension regarding division of
land etc. And I sensed opportunity and did my best to bring about a
division. After all, I have reached age of legal maturity. I missed
my third term exams, but didn’t miss out on the land deal, though so
many of my uncle’s were selling land after the division the price’s
had gone down. It fetched me a decent amount and I returned to hostel
as a hero. Now I had enough money to enjoy the tid -bits of life.

When you have money then it’s amazing how easy you can deal with
practicals, journals and exams. I always found a bar more soothing
than library to cool off during my next two term examinations and the
waiters were so understanding. But now my backlog was a total mess.
Even though I got one of my journals written by paying a student to do
it, nobody could help me to fill my term admission form as I didn’t
know which subjects I had opted and should opt for. My department
head was also pestering me and I decided to take a break from college.
I had enough of that dreary place, same old faces, same old nervous
freshies, and these days everyone seems so intense and sincere. There
were no fun people anymore out there.

Outside world was like a fresh breeze for me, I found my own room
near the town and I had more privacy, no nosy wardens and no headaches
of college. By now, I had cut off all contacts with my family
members. But living out of college also meant higher living expenses.
Soon I had to leave the town as the people who I owed money started
pestering me.

The new town was bigger and more expensive. But getting a motor bike
was so easy. I could own one by paying a fraction of the actual price
and pay the rest in installments. Zooming around in my bike like the
hero’s I had seen in movies; those were the best days of my life.
But one night that stupid bike slipped and fell, and my leg got
fractured and I had to stay in hospital for a month. The police
troubled me and tried to extract every penny for not charging me with
drunken driving and finally left me alone when I told them I am all
alone and broke and don’t mend spending time in jail. And there was
this one physiotherapist who tried to talk me out of addictions and
prodded me to do all those painful exercises to make my leg better. I
would have listened to him had he not told me about joining his cult,
whose members I had seen enough for a lifetime during my hostel days.
If the ward attendants there couldn’t have smuggled in the stuff I
needed every night I would have crawled out of that filthy place. It
was the longest month in my life.

My inheritance had disappeared so quickly. I had to look for cheaper
housing and I ended up in a hutment area where the rent was cheap and
cheap liquor plenty. Even at those cheap rates just after 23 days of
living in that hut, I was completely broke. Again, my clothes and
appearance became my enemies when I tried to borrow money. People
generally tend to be rude to a person whose appearance is shabby. I
had grown a bear and had only shabby clothes to wear. I had stopped
spending on all non-essential things and on top of that, my accident
had left a live scar and a limp. Now people started treating me like
a cripple. I couldn’t control myself if I didn’t have a drink or two
now and then. Finally, I decided to look for a job.

The only job with dignity, which offered to me, was that of a trainee
mechanic. But I had to take it, as could easily get petrol to drink
if I didn’t have money for alcohol. My engineering background helped
me to learn about repairs quickly. But sooner or later, one of my
drinking spells would be too much for my boss to bear and I would
start looking for another job. My reputation as a good mechanic and
worst drunkard grew quickly. But by now, I had mastered the art of
shifting from one town to another. It was my third town that year; I
had found a very good place to work. It was a large junkyard and a
huge garage. I had found a girl to stay with me also. Though
everyone called her crazy idiot, she could cook well and asked me no
questions and was very comforting during my crying spells when ghosts
from past came to haunt me, even alcohol couldn’t stop them and they
substituted for my violent spells. The crying spells were much better
because nobody hit back or fired me for that. For the first time in
my life, I had started saving up money for the future. But the past
was something I couldn’t do anything about. Those wasted chances to
make it big in college; it seemed I was condemned to live with people
who always want to remain idiots all their life.

It had rained in that night of December 31st and dampened the New Year
festive spirit of many. I had gone to work as usual. Most of my
co-workers were sleeping off their hangovers after the New Year
drinking spell. It was a good opportunity to scourge the junkyard to
see if I could find something small and valuable. It was tedious
working in the rain soaked piles. After some futile searching I saw a
funny type of wire structure with a working digital clock attached to
it. But the clock was not showing time but the date, month and year.
I tried to pull out that contraption but it was all mingled up. I
started prying it out but slipped and fell down into the mass of
wires. I was shocked-literally as electric currents started flowing
though the wires. A pad of lighted switches slid out from the digital
clock. My curiosity over came the mild current and confusion. I
fiddled with the lighted switches, and the date, which came out in the
digital clock, was the first day of my engineering college. Tears
rolled down my eyes and another crying spell started… How I wished I
could go back to that day again. My body writhed out of my control as
it happens during my spell and I fell unconscious as I received a big
jolt of electricity.

When I came to my senses it was night and I was in a strange railway
station. No, it was early morning and the railway station was the one
near my old engineering college. Somebody offered me a coin. I was
too shocked to refuse. After some time, I felt my senses coming back
to me, and I walked to the nearest book shop and bought the newly
arrived English daily. Now people started watching me curiously. I
read out the date and day first and couldn’t believe it. I had gone
back in time and it was exactly the first day of my engineering
college. According to the time shown on the huge station clock, I had
reached my hostel room and would have finished unpacking. My brain
began to race. I sat down near the station entrance, put the unfolded
paper in front of me and started begging...

It took me more than a week to get enough money for decent second
hand clothes so that I can walk in to even a college campus
unobtrusively without everyone staring at me. That one week also gave
enough time to plan what I should do. I went to my hostel room in the
afternoon, and without hesitation knocked loudly. There he was!! The
younger me opened the door apprehensively and after one look at me
started reciting the hostel anthem. It was the ragging season and I
still knew the whole anthem even now. My other self forgot the anthem
in the middle of a swear word and stared stupidly at me. I entered
the room and closed the door and told him to relax. Fortunately, his
room mate was out. It took me around an hour to explain him the
things. I knew he would believe; I would have in his age.

I started working in a garage nearby and we started planning together.
Teaching him about coolness was the toughest part, that it was
nothing but how you feel about yourself and nothing about what others
think. His insecurity and lack of confidence made me to forcefully
change him. I knew it was just a question of time for him to learn
about it himself, but I didn’t have that much time. By the third term
he was prepared and had improved dramatically from his awkward
appearance, academics and my leg and our English improved. We had
long discussions as how to invest the money he received from his
family inheritance. I also knew that a first class or 60% every term
is the margin set by some multinational company’s who come for campus
selection to filter out the crowds, so we would do a lot of
discussions on that but I couldn’t help much in the way of giving him
old question papers as I had forgotten about them. It was the hard way
out for us, and we slogged together. I could help him to understand
to some extend the practical side of theory thanks to my experience as
a motor mechanic.

It was New Year again, after the long wait of four years. It had paid
off. He passed out with flying colors and grabbed a lucrative job in
a big MNC with a car and a flat. Today we are going to inspect the
flat together. I had already made some inquiries at few furniture
shops. But somehow I feel a little uneasy as my other self was not
very enthusiastic about taking me along to the new flat in the posh
housing blocks the company had built recently. But this New Year’s
Eve I am going to celebrate opulently with peace of mind in my own
house, come what may...

It was the first day of another year and Major Balram was standing on
the door of his train and enjoying the rush of air. The train was
slowing for another signal. Major looked around the familiar
territory. He was shocked to see the new building complex with a huge
logo of big MNC come up in one year. These MNC’s thought major sadly,
change things too fast. They were the grounds where he had learned
first lessons in martial arts, and it had become his passion and in
the army had made him a legend. “Major Balram can name a person by
looking at his shadow”, his superior had told while recommending him
to the chief commanding officer. Major shrugged those thoughts aside
and looked angrily at those jutting buildings. Two shadows fighting
in one of the few lighted flats caught his eye, this is a fight which
will end only at death, thought the major and he started betting with
himself.

As the Major watched, some thing confused him, the style and body
movements of the two shadows were so impossibly similar. Major was
sure that not even identical twin brothers could do that. Because of
the similarity the fight went on and on, both seemed to sense the
other person’s movements. The Major observed anxiously but the train
started moving away...