Singh - Part I

I first met Singh on a warm afternoon in 1989 on a local city bus in New Delhi while I was travelling back home from college. He was standing next to me holding a black loopy flap that hung from the one inch wide pole that ran parallel to the roof of the bus in the same direction as the bus itself was. I was holding a similar flap next to it. These support flaps were put in there at equal distances for people to hold onto in case they had to stand in the absence of any vacant seats.

“Hi”, he said to me and smiled. I returned the same and asked him which college he was in as he looked like a college goer just like me. His response was the name of the college I was in too.

“Which course”, I asked. This time he really surprised me when he said the same course and year as I was in. He was in my class! I was in second year of my three year degree course and so was he but I had never seen him there before.

He was wearing a blue turban. Sikhs always wear turbans or some other form of head covering scarves in pursuance of their religious beliefs. He looked very smart in his wrangler jeans and white tee shirt. His sparkling grey eyes were trying to say something as he had guessed the suspense that encroached my mind as to why we had never met before if we were in the same class for last more than a year. I thought may be he was transferred from another college. He clarified this was not the case. He had been in my class since the course began. I was perplexed.

The green and yellow coloured bus was continuing to its destination amidst the wide variety of traffic ranging from a bicycle rickshaw to a 4x4 Ford, all on the same road. As it approached my bus stop, I readied myself to get off. So did Singh.

“Where do you live”, I asked.

“G block”, he replied.

Something was very weird about the whole situation as we even lived in the same block. The walking distance between our houses was no more than 2 minutes. He told me his house number. I told mine to him and invited him to come over some time.

Walking from a point which stood in the middle of our houses, which we later called “point of separation” as it became the point where we would separate each day and even meet each day in the evenings or whenever we wanted to, I was thinking about the reason for him not being at college for such a long time. I could not think about it for long as within 2 minutes I was at my house.

After that day, he regularly attended college and we started knowing each other more and more. We travelled together most of the times. Soon, one day when I was doing some college work, he came over to my house to surprise me. It was nice to see him. I introduced him to my family.

I become friends with sikhs easily and get along with them very well. I don’t know if it is something to do with me or with them. Soon we became friends and gradually very close friends. Within the next few weeks we were going to college together, coming back home together, sitting in the class rooms together, missing classes together, eating in the college canteen together, going out together, eating each other’s packed lunches, getting attracted to the same girls, and what not together.

We became very used to each other. Our day started with ringing each other to confirm the exact setting off time to meet at the bus stop so we could get the special bus to the university. We never wanted to miss the university special bus as it was packed of university students and there was a special charm in travelling with the fellow students rather than public at large. We never got a seat in the bus as it was already full by the time it reached our stop but we never wanted a seat anyway. We just used to squash ourselves in the very rear corner of the bus near the back door of the bus as it was possible to get full view of the bus and the girls in the bus from there. Our college was the last to be reached so we knew which girl was in which college as the bus lingered through them one by one dropping the boys and the girls off to their colleges. We loved going in that bus. If one of us was late in getting ready then we would miss the bus rather than choosing not to travel together that day. We could miss the bus but not each other.

After college, we would hardly spend any time at our own houses before ringing each other again. We would talk to each other on phone for long as if we had not seen each other for a while. After our evening meal we were programmed to go for a walk every night just after a quick check with each other if we had finished our meals. We would walk to the point of separation and actually start our formal walk from there.