I don't remember being a happy teenager. Many times when I think of my college days, I sense being too unfit for anything, anyone, any circumstance. It just felt as if I was carrying a dark hunk of granite inside me all the time.
It's quite a marvel how I managed to do the coursework, graduate in Sociology, and even make friends. How I could say hello, have a chat, form a connection...I don't remember being pleasant. But I remember people hanging out with me.
One of them was a girl called Alka. I think she was in my college for only 1 year or so. She was a huge fan of Shobhaa De and wanted to write novels like her. I didn't really like Shobhaa De too much until I read 'Sisters'. Then I found her voice fresh and observational.
Anyway, it so happened that Alka actually wrote a book and brought a whole sheaf of handwritten pages to our Political Science class. These classes would be held on the terrace and although the classes were dull, the daydreaming was gold. We had glass doors and windows and you could see the pointy steeple-like tops of the Art Deco buildings that pepper town, especially near VT station. It used to get really hot in summers, cool in winters, but during the Bombay rains... that's when it got gorgeous.
We would see thick, deep grey clouds hang in patches overhead. We'd see rains lash out across the glass panes. The windows would clatter as if they would break or get unhinged any minute. It would be so loud - the rain and the roar of the wind that classes would often get dismissed because the professor could not be heard over the din of a season that meant business.
During one such day, when classes had been suspended, I started reading Alka's story. It was a sweet, simple story of a sweet, simple girl. I stopped midway and asked Alka if the rest of the story would pan out a certain way. I listed a couple of plot points that were similar to what was going on in her life. She said yes. I then asked her why write a book about yourself? There's nothing new in the book for anyone who knows you.
"No one knows me."
I don't know why I remember that phrase so vividly. That plaintive, definitive way in which she said, "No one knows me." I think she was also sad about no one wanting to know her either, unless it was neatly and conveniently laid out bare in a book. I don't remember if I countered her with, "But I know you." Looking back I sense that I didn't matter.
When people say 'No one...' like that, they usually mean 'Someone...'
I handed over the pages to her and told her to insert a murder or a crime midway. As an editorial suggestion, it was junk and received that way.
The rain had stopped and the class resumed. I drifted off.
By the time the class had ended, it was bright, hot, and sunny. Around this time, I had started flaking off from college quite a bit. So I thought that I would just get out of college and return home. And flake off there.
Alka stayed elsewhere but we both took trains from VT. As we were walking out, Alka held my elbow and pulled me back. She pointed to the sky and told me to look there.
I did.
I didn't see anything.
Then she pointed again and said, "Rain."
Right at one end of the wide, bright blue sky, there was a splotch of grey. Sure enough, that grey had started spreading. As I watched, that grey splotch tore across the blue like a rip in a stocking. And then suddenly, even as we watched, the entire sky was overcast again. And it poured. Not just poured. It thumped with rain. Incessantly.
Alka and I waited in the foyer. Went to the canteen and got coffee. And a couple of hours later, we left for home.
Today I came across a quote that is crafted to spread optimism I guess. It goes, "Every storm runs out of rain."
I think of Alka and that very ordinary day and how she pointed out something that made me look, made me remember, and made me realise the speciality of 'Nooneness' all at the same time.
So, in memory of that day, I hope that every storm moves with a belly full of rain always
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