by Vani Viswanathan
Abhay Srivastava settled into his seat and nervously looked around. Short and skinny, he fiddled with the seat’s height so he could see above the cubicle walls. He jumped nervously every time someone passed by, wondering if it was a ‘senior’.
Abhay, 20 years old, with the hints of a moustache, looked every bit the newcomer to corporate life; a third year mechanical engineering student, Abhay was to spend six months interning in this automobile company, in an office in Gurgaon, far from the city he’d known all his life, Kanpur. Quiet, serious and intelligent, Abhay hadn’t been the kind to travel with his hostel friends to be comfortable outside of home; this made him extremely uneasy in the city that had towering buildings, dusty, barren grounds, breweries and deserted highways all at the same time.
Despite his quiet pride – his seat had his name, he had an ID card bearing the company’s world-famous logo, and he had a sleek laptop – Abhay felt out of place. He longed for familiarity: the chaos of Kanpur, the quietude of his sprawling campus, the comfort that he knew where he could get his next meal, the few delicacies of Kanpur that he indulged in, especially the paan. He was never one to have many friends, so he missed the company of his two classmates with whom he spent all his hours away from home. He longed for the company of one soul with whom he could feel comfortable even in silence.
To be fair to his fellow other interns, they were inclusive and took him on their many chai-and-smoke breaks, and called him along for lunch and after-work drinks. He would quietly listen to them, nodding along, smiling when appropriate, as they talked about their heritage walks, smoking up sessions, partners and Pink Floyd. He knew of these typical engineering students’ pursuits – he was from an established engineering college too, after all – but most of this felt alien to him.
A couple of weeks in, Abhay had established a mild rapport with their floor’s admin person. Gaurav Dwivedi was jolly, everything that Abhay was not – Gaurav, in his early 40s, had a sharp mind and a quick wit; he knew every one of the 180 people on their floor by name, and each one of them instead relied on him for a multitude of tasks. Sending an envelope by courier, scanning a document, ordering lunch for the group, reading local newspapers for information on competitors’ automobile manufacturing plants, dropping cheques at the bank, etc. Everyone liked Gaurav, everyone was kind to him, and yet, somehow, Abhay sensed, Gaurav was, like him, lonely.
Striking up a conversation, Abhay realised that Gaurav was a fellow Kanpur-ite, much to his quiet delight. ‘Andubaksai!’ Gaurav had said some day, and that had woken Abhay out of his reverie. ‘Are you… are you from Kanpur?’ – the phrase was unique to his beloved city. And that was the beginning of an unlikely friendship between the two – unlikely because while everyone needed to speak with Gaurav, no one wanted to.
Over a few cups of tea, Abhay got to know that Gaurav was a post-graduate in Chemistry, and he’d moved to Kanpur for his studies while his family lived in a village three hours away. Gaurav wanted to take the exams to be a teacher, but couldn’t manage to save enough after getting two sisters married and seeing three brothers through their education; he’d landed in Gurgaon after doing odd jobs at the company’s manufacturing plant.
Abhay wondered how it must feel to work in something completely unrelated to what you studied. Gaurav was clearly passionate about Chemistry; his eyes glistened with joy when they discussed engine oils or the transfat drama that gripped the world then. They developed a quiet bonding that amused the other interns; why was the quiet one friendly with the admin guy of all people, they wondered. But in the broad anonymity of a large corporate office, Abhay and Gaurav enjoyed their occasional chats, got in touch when something reminded them of Kanpur, and Abhay even got Gaurav a box of paan from home, stored neatly in dry ice. Abhay was mostly the quiet one, as Gaurav regaled him of stories from his college days, the ambitions of their batch, his home and farmlands, his sister’s husband’s family and their subtle demands, and how he had to stop being a lab assistant and take up a job at the manufacturing plant for the money.
As he heard Gaurav’s stories, Abhay felt that the country had failed his friend. He questioned the need for his dedication to his studies; after all, Gaurav had done the same, and yet it had brought him to a pointless position that he could never sell in his résumé.
***
Abhay dressed in a Lucknowi kurta with jeans and put on his Titan Slim watch, reserved for special occasions. He was going Chattarpur in Delhi to attend the wedding of the son of his father’s friend, a bureaucrat from Kanpur that his father felt they always had to be in touch with, for who knew when one needed help from someone in the government.
Abhay walked into the wedding lawns, loaded with anxiety. Weddings made him nervous, he didn’t like crowds and he detested the glitter, the chatter and the idea of strangers asking him questions. He took a glass of Pepsi and hovered near the entrance to the main wedding venue, as the baaraat was on its way, and he needed to catch a glimpse of the uncle to let him know he’d come. He couldn’t understand the fuss around these wedding processions, which had the groom on horseback and took hours to arrive, with relatives dancing and blocking traffic, with a band marching up front performing cheesy songs from the 70s up until the latest hits. This wedding was no different, thought Abhay, as he heard the brass trumpets from around the corner, playing Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast. He watched the procession slowly turn the corner. Men in band uniforms, glittery gold on red, with ridiculous hats on, marched in various roles – some playing the trumpets, some beating the drum, one with the cymbals and a few carrying their band’s banner: ‘Shiv Mohan Band’. Women and men, young and old, danced behind these band members, as the groom perched unsteadily on his horse, a string of flowers covering his face.
Abhay stood impatiently, watching the procession take 20 minutes to cover 100 metres. As they neared, Abhay’s eyes wandered to the band, where he spotted something familiar. As the group wandered in and out of light and reached him, Abhay found himself staring at Gaurav, who held aloft the band’s banner. Gaurav was looking straight ahead, marching as if he were at a military parade, until his eyes fell on Abhay, who looked aghast. Abhay watched his friend’s face crumble in shame and pain.
***
As he sat in office the Monday after the wedding incident, Abhay was restless. He hadn’t called or messaged Gaurav and hadn’t seen him at work, although it was close to noon. He looked up and around his floor every few minutes. At long last, he saw Gaurav, helmet in hand; he had clearly finished some errand and just reached. Gaurav walked towards Abhay’s desk. Abhay sunk in his seat in relief – for some reason, he had this unreasonable idea that he would have driven Gaurav out of the office. Gaurav had after all been with the company for 11 years. Abhay felt ashamed that in all his interactions with Gaurav, he hadn’t realised Gaurav desperately needed money – he knew that many men moved to Delhi during wedding season to earn money working for these bands. He wondered how he could politely, respectfully, bring up the money discussion with Gaurav, and leaned out of his cubicle. He watched as Gaurav looked at him, and then walked past him without as much as an acknowledgment.
Abhay knew things had changed. That afternoon, Gaurav called him ‘Abhay babu’, something he used out of respect for seniors. They stopped talking after a few attempts by Abhay led to ridiculously formal conversations. As Abhay finished his internship a week later with as much as a ‘bye’ from Gaurav, he realised that India existed very differently for them even if they had so much in common.
An immensely evocative read! 🙂
Thank you, Artohus! 🙂 – Vani