Adi’s prologue
On learning that I was going to study
medicine in
At that time it seemed kind of
inconsequential; one of the hundreds of ‘drugs are bad,’ ‘don't smoke,’ ‘you
must call every week’ pieces of advice that people litter on an impressionable
eighteen-year-old about to live alone 2,500 kilometres away from home. Amidst
the chaotic litany of arrangements that such a long, unexpected move generates,
my recollection of its author got mired in the ambiguity of the advice itself.
However, this semi-pubescent line stuck in my brain simply because of its
inherent quirkiness.
So on that hot, sticky afternoon in July,
Baba and I boarded a train from
Candidate
Number:
0069385.
Candidate Name: Adityaman Bhatt
Rank: 166
Course: MBBS
Date of Joining: July 15th 1990
I
accepted its dullness readily, reconciling it to reflect the true eminence of
my achievement. In fact, given my terribly mediocre academic record in school
and college, my success as one of the 900 lucky ones out of the 120,000 who had
taken the exam was as much of a surprise as my choice of college. And thus,
* * *
After two days of exhausting travel, as
our train slowly rolled into Victoria Terminus, the first thing that struck me
was the size of everything. The platform seemed to continue forever, before the
train lurched to a sudden stop with an array of loud clangs and forceful
hisses, as though begrudging the absence of tracks ahead. I stared outside with
the newfound enthusiasm of having finally arrived – the dead end giving our
journey a vehement sense of completion. People spilled onto the platform of the
cavernous station, emerging briskly from the train like angry termites from
wood. They straightened out their crumpled clothes, paused for a moment to
orient themselves, and then hastily joined the hordes swarming towards the exit
with an asynchronous orderliness. Thin porters in blood red uniforms, balanced
a pyramid of suitcases on their heads; their sweat-lacquered faces frozen with
concentration as they advanced towards the main gates with curious bobbing
strides. The passengers followed them closely, finding it difficult to keep up
with the porters’ pace despite carrying nothing but themselves. An official
looking gentleman, braving the heat in his authoritative black coat, stood
collecting everyone’s tickets, while his experienced eyes scanned the crowd for
potential freeloaders. Departing passengers, waiting for their train to arrive,
fashioned makeshift beds out of their luggage, whiling their time in a game of
cards or with music on the radio. Everybody else, including the stray dogs that
gallivanted around uninhibited, understood their plight, carefully sidestepping
their sprawled out arrangements with great consideration despite the limited
space and the traffic jam it produced.
Outside, Victoria
Terminus stood like a spectacular citadel of beauty, shining amidst her bedraggled surroundings like a
lotus in the middle of a mud pond. Her yellowish brown granite walls,
intricately decorated with domed
clock towers, stone animals filigrees, soaring phallic spires, stained-glass
windows and cathedral-like pointy arches, glowed
mystically under strategically placed lights. Atop an enormous central tower
was the figure of a lady with a torch in one hand, whose facial features
clearly pointed to the building’s colonial heritage. Large silver colored
letters, with the insignia of the Indian Railways, announced of current
occupancy by the Central Railway offices. Although more recent
non-architectural additions like rear ends of air-conditioners and makeshift
wodden partitions, clashed with the historic pomposity written all over the
building, the overall effect was still stunning.
In contrast to her stately, dignified silence, a boisterous sea of humanity hummed
outside her perimeter, buzzing with manic energy. People moved with a keen
sense of purpose as though none had a minute to spare. Music blared from the
shops, taxis and ubiquitous loudspeakers. Giant billboards and gaudy cinema
posters cried for attention. Roadside vendors, selling everything from roasted
peanuts to jazzy electronics, sat with their colourful wares, intoning their
products in strange accents and harmonious phrases, each trying to outdo the
other through sheer decibel power. Their eyes keenly searched for gullible
newcomers in the crowd who could be lulled into inspecting their wares. Bulky,
double-decker buses, grotesquely corpulent with clinging passengers, farted
great big plumes of thick black smoke as they chugged along languidly. Smaller,
more intrepid mini-buses jostled for space with a hundred other cars on those
narrow roads, the widths of which were steadily compromised by both vendors and
pedestrians. Mopeds and scooters skirted in and out of the traffic, finding
room where none existed, while a hapless traffic cop tried to maintain some
semblance of order in this chaos.
I was mesmerized in this carnival-like
atmosphere and a sense of the impending adventure of exploring this city on my
own began titillating my senses. Unable to contain it effectively, I chortled
with glee. Baba looked at me questioningly. I sobered up immediately and shook
my head to indicate it was nothing.
With a rigidly straight jaw line and a
thick mustache that sat gravely above his lip, Baba looked every bit the
disciplinarian that he was. Unimaginative dark rimmed rectangular spectacles
complemented the effect. Everybody who knew the two of us, agreed, that other
than the glasses, his broken nose and his receding hairline, I was a splitting
image of Baba’s youth – an observation that gave me considerable pride. A
recent growth spurt had seen me shoot past his head rather rapidly – a
phenomenon that had given Baba considerable pride. But there was nothing other
than irritation on his face at that moment as he looked away, the exhaustion of
the long journey making his battle with the heat and noise a less successful
one than mine. Dark circles of perspiration had turned the cloth around his
armpits into a darker shade of the blue that imbued the rest of his shirt. His
forehead had creased into glittering lines of sweat as he scoured the area for
an empty taxi. Soon he spotted one and flailed his arms wildly to hail it down.
The driver swept in next to us, screeching
to a halt amidst a dust cloud inches away from our feet.
‘How much to go to
‘Where?’ asked the taxiwala somewhat cagily, his beady
eyes squinting into small apertures of incertitude.
‘
‘Never heard of it,’ said the taxiwala, waving his thin arm
dismissively.
‘What? Never heard of it?’ exclaimed
Baba, raising his voice to a new pitch. ‘It is 150 years old, the top college
in
The taxiwala scowled. ‘What is the whole address?’
‘Here it says…’ scolded Baba, waving my
letter of admission close to the taxiwala’s
face as an objective justification of his annoyance. ‘
‘Arre! Say JJ Hospital! You should have said that first!’ retorted the taxiwala, matching the decibels of
Baba’s angry inquisition. ‘It is about ten kilometres from here!’
A brief, awkward silence followed.
‘So how much do you charge?’ asked Baba,
his voice full of hesitation at the inauspicious beginning.
The taxiwala gave him a strange look. ‘By the meter,’ he said.
‘What? By the metre?’ started Baba. ‘We
have to go so many kilometres and you are going to charge per metre?
‘Arre,
sahib, this meter shows the
charge here!’ mocked the taxiwala, cutting Baba off and pointing to the
square piece of machinery jutting from the left front door panel. ‘Haven’t you
ever taken a taxi before? Which village have you come from?’
Baba was suddenly at a loss for words.
Suitably embarrassed, he shot one quick glance at the ‘meter’ before looking
away from the pointed gaze of the taxiwala.
‘Okay, Okay, let’s go. No point debating
these things…we are getting late,’ he said, followed by a host of mumbles under
his breath that I couldn’t catch.
The taxiwala tossed our luggage into the trunk. He returned to his
seat with a huff and slammed the door after him. He scanned our faces in his
rear view mirror - his own
bursting with righteous indignation - and then set off.
The taxi weaved its way through the
crowded roads. A cool breeze rushed in through the rolled down windows,
bringing sudden relief from the sultry heat of the July sun. The air was laced
with the mouth-watering aroma of melted butter and fried onions, sizzling in
the cast iron pans of the roadside pav-bhaji
stalls. I put my head against the window, staring at the stratospheric
buildings that flew past. The crush of people on those crowded sidewalks had
transformed into a faceless, featureless blur. These colourful humanoid smudges
waited for buses, rushed into trains, walked in and out of nameless buildings
with an unmistakable energy. A thrill ran down my spine, filling me with a
giddying sense of achievement. Having never accomplished anything worth crowing
about in my life, just getting to
Baba, meanwhile, was keeping an eagle’s
eye on the ‘meter’. His adversarial posture was sensed by the taxiwala, who, in the high chair of the
victor, decided to break the silence.
‘So where are you from?’ he asked.
Baba, unsure if this was the beginning of
an innocent conversation or the onset of more ‘small town’ ridicule, replied
somewhat hesitantly, ‘
‘Arre,
sahib, I am from Hazaribagh,’ said the taxiwala, his face lighting up into a smile.
The taxiwala’s delight at having found someone from a place
separated from his hometown by fifty kilometres of dusty, single lane roads wasn’t
something Baba empathized with right away.
‘Then how can you treat someone from your
place with such disrespect?’ he complained.
I looked at him with incredulity. ‘Stop
trying to pick a fight, Baba!’ I whispered forcefully.
Baba nodded with understanding. ‘So…how
long have you been in
‘This is my eighth year, sahib,’ replied the taxiwala with a cheer that completely
betrayed any memory of the recent acrimony. ‘But my family is still in
Hazaribagh… You know, my parents, my wife and three kids… two boys and one
girl. I send them money from here. Work is tough to get in Hazaribagh.’
‘So how often do you go back home?’
‘Maybe once or twice a year, sahib.’
Within a few minutes of discovering
common ground and trading sentimental memories, both of them acquired the
engrossment reserved for long lost brothers re-discovering each other’s past.
They launched into a discussion of life in
The air was heavy with small-town
nostalgia when the taxi came to a screeching halt in the midst of traffic,
sending us lurching ahead with a jolt. As we recovered our bearings while
trying to discern the cause of such sudden deceleration, I felt the taxi knock
on the rear end of the car ahead of ours. The other car’s owner turned around
and glared at us. He shifted gears to park his car, and then began to emerge
from it.
‘Nothing happened… It just touched… no
problem… don’t worry,’ said taxiwala,
reassuring us as well as himself. His eyes meanwhile were nervously tracking
the other car’s owner, now striding menacingly towards us. The man was a giant,
and snorted angrily as he opened the passenger side door and got in next to the
taxiwala.
‘Bhai…nothing
happened… Just a small mark on the bumper…No damage!’ pleaded the taxiwala, reflexively backing into his corner.
Before he could say more, the man clasped
the taxiwala’s head with one hand and started raining blows with the other.
‘
The taxiwala shielded his head between his arms and tried to duck
under the cover of his steering wheel. The man kept throwing blows with such
single-minded focus that he paid no attention to our presence less than a foot
away. Baba and I stared at him as though we had lost our tongues.
Then Baba said, ‘Arre, leave him; it’s only a small scratch, if at all.’
The man stopped and turned to look at us.
‘Get out,’ he said.
Baba started to protest. ‘But,
mister...’
Still holding the taxiwala’s collar with one hand, the man reached into his back
pocket and flicked open a vicious looking knife. Holding it menacingly, he
snarled, ‘Get out!’
I clutched Baba’s hand tightly and whispered,
‘Don’t say a word… just get out.’
We scrambled for the doors. Although
terrified, a morbid curiosity overcame me. I kept stealing glances at the
continued punishment of the hapless taxiwala, even as we spilled into the middle of
stalled traffic. Meanwhile, the traffic lights changed to green and the rest of
the vehicles on the road started to honk. The incessant beeps probably saved
the taxiwala’s life. The other man got out of the taxi, folded his knife,
strode up to his car with supreme nonchalance, and drove off. Baba and I
scampered onto the sidewalk, from where we managed to catch a glimpse of our
taxi racing away with most of our possessions.