Sunday is a very lazy day for me. I don’t wake up at 5:00AM, don’t go for jogging, skip my pranayamas, don’t take bath at 8:00AM and off course don’t bother about the trouble of hurriedly getting ready for the office. Like probably many millions working people like me, I just pamper myself and don’t leave bed till 9 AM in the morning. So yesterday was not an exceptional Sunday for me till my cell started ringing at around 7:30 AM. It was from one of my very close friend who called and told me his plane just touched down the airport runway and he will be staying for a couple of days in Kolkata. He is from Delhi and due to this geographic distance, it’s more than 5 years since we last met. You might say, common, Delhi is not in the other side of the world, but hey, our lifes becoming so fast and busy that we even don’t meet friends who might be 10 KMs away from us for years!!!
I had to push myself out of the bed, got ready and drove to the hotel where he checked in. It was a 3 star hotel and the guard at the main lobby door with his professional excellence saluted me and opened the door for me with a nice smile. I stepped inside the hotel and suddenly something struck me, hey I have seen that smile somewhere. I turned back while rushing through the lobby and saw the guard also turning back and looking at me though it might not be a very good manner for him to check out a guest inside the hotel. Our eyes met for a split second and I thought “oh my God, where on heaven I saw those eyes”.
I met my friend at his room, had my breakfast with him, and had a good chit chat as we met after such a long time.But back in my mind still that smile and those eyes were disturbing me. They were so familiar to me. My mind was busy searching for an identity of that unknown guard of this hotel where I visited for the first time.
My friend told me that he had a small client meeting at the lobby and so I can stay back in the room and he will be back in 1 hr. I could go down but somehow I did not want to face the same smile again till I recognize the person. I was just watching TV and suddenly…Eurekaaaa…I got him…he is Raju. Yes he is Raju, my classmate from my Primary School days!!!
Memories started flowing and like a time machine it took me to many years back…. I was the first boy in the Primary School in my native place in Assam and was a typical first bencher. In the last bench there was another boy, much bigger in size as he was older than the rest of the class, his shirts and pants were not very clean, hair is not properly combed, he was in the same class for last two years and the reason he was famous was his brute strength and nobody dared to mess with him. His father was a driver in the oil company. He was very fearsome and even the senior boys also don’t dare to bother him. But this ferocious classmate of mine had a very sweet, heavenly smile. We were 10 years old at that time. In every class either he was scolded or beaten by almost every teacher of the school as he was really very poor in studies.
But Raju was my favorite friend as he used to make kites for me. He could make very good kites with blue, red and green papers. I used to call him to my home and he used to make those kites with the papers and gums I used to buy from my piggy bank. My mother used to cook food for both of us the day he came to my place, mainly in Sundays. So though we two were completely different, still we had a very good bonding and because of him no other big boys could dare to touch me. One day I accidently hit a bicycle of one of the senior boys as I could not use the break of my bicycle on time. There were four of them and they jumped on me and started punching and kicking and soon I found myself lying in the ground testing the dust. Raju appeared in the scene like a superman and alone he fought with those four and saved me that day. When my mother saw me bleeding and came to know that Raju saved me, she gave him a big piece of homemade cake and I still remember that smile in his face while he was enjoying his prize!!!
(Continued in comments)
