The Final Letter:
Mechanical Operations was a vast, very boring subject in Chemical Engineering discipline, quite befitting it’s name. Still students need to mug it up and pass somehow. No choice. You get one supplementary, can sit again, with twice a supple you get a year back, the 3rd one will land you straight out the college right there in the streets fending for yourself.
In a sultry June night, Anurag, a 3rd year student of Bihar, in his single-seated NIT hostel room at around 2 am somehow completed mugging up the huge quantum of notes, staggered to toilet, came back, had a glass of water, climbed the metallic-cot which goes in the name of bed and was planning to doze off. But he jumped right back from the bed and stared at the floor, his gaze fixed near the door of his room. A piece of paper lies crumpled near the gap at the door-bottom. It seemed someone has slithered it beneath the door.
Anyhow, not able to remember whether he noticed it or ignored it when he went to washroom and ignoring that thought right now, he picked up the folded paper and opened it. A line is handwritten, scribbled hastily in it in Hindi which translates to “Best of luck for your exams, study hard, I’m going.” (Tum log poro, main jaa raha hoon).
The handwriting is familiar to Anurag and the tone of the letter left him half-perplexed but set alarm-bell ringing in his mind. He banged out of his room, banged the door of his next-room neighbor Alok (also from the same state), who was also studying late and awake. He immediately opened the door. Anurag showed him the paper. The next moment the two boys ran towards the corner room of the lobby, which was dark. They kicked the door hard, it was closed from inside. Aloke pushed the only window of the room facing the lobby, it was loosely bolted, hence opened up. They gaped and stared inside, shocked.
There was nothing left for them to do, it was already too late.
Tears welled up in Anurag’s eyes..”I knew, somehow I knew…that’s why I called up at his home yesterday and asked them to come immediately, at least during this semester time…but…nobody cared, none listened” he couldn’t finish, his voice choked, he sobbed.
Aloke’s eyes was almost glaring in darkness, fists clenched he growled..”Why crying like a enunch? WHY??? We have endured too much. We’ll now take out all our bedrods and raid the m**fucker professor’s house before dawn and put these rods inside him in his bed. This is his 3rd victim. Now we’ll make his family cry for him.”
By this time, the entire hostel is wide awake. The aftermath till next seven days was very common and inconsequential for this topic (e.g. student unrest, breaking of all furnitures in hostel, en-masse attack / morchas / dharnas / strikes / fast-unto-deaths in the department and campus, targeting the professor with bedrods, calling the police, post-mortem, flashing the news in paper, adding some color to it (adding a girlfriend angle and a failed love-story), deceased family members visiting campus for funeral and making a scene out of Rudaali there – lucky that time there was no mobile phone else somebody would have shot and posted the same in facebook). Finally, a false case was put up against the professor by the remaining faculties of the department who were also equally shocked, the professor was suspended for a period, then an inquiry was held, in the inquiry he boldly defended himself saying “I can’t permit an ineligible student to largesse out a degree per-se just for the sake of getting him passed out and bagging a job”. Whatever it is, soon the case fizzled out and the professor is reinstated. That particular hostel-room was permanently sealed. Nothing so great about it.
*
Before the room was sealed and cleaned up, a post-card was found inside the drawer of the study-table. Anurag and Aloke hastily hid the postcard. The content of the post-card was shared by the deceased student with his two best friends a few days’ before; they were aware of it; however absorbing the full impact of that letter was beyond the level of maturity of these two 3rd year engg students when they read it first time, but now they could understand, hence hid it before it lands up in the hand of police:
“Bhaiyya, we’ve gone thru’ your letter and we do understand that you’re distressed, you find the subject very difficult, but how can we help you we can’t understand. Your father has no job, as you know here there is no employment, once he has lost both his legs, he’s now dependent on us. Mummy had not studied and married early. We only have a few piece of land, as you know, we had to sell a part of it to finance your studies there. My parents are scared of me as they look at my face, thinking of my marriage and my dowry. Your younger brother is looking after the piece of land that we have. This piece of land on which our hut remains and you yourself is our only hope. Bhaiyya, the whole family is looking at you, that you’ll pass out and get a job, so that our family will get relief, so that I can continue my studies. If you break down, what will happen to us, where shall we go? We are so much dependent on you. If you think you are getting victimized, kindly meet the authorities, kindly meet the professor, catch his feet, request him, inform him that you are very very poor, you need to pass the exam, get the degree, so that you get the job and we are faced from starvation. Sorry bhaiyya, I can’t understand even if one of us happens to come there, how can we be of any help for you. And this is after all consequence of your own deed. We did not ask you to give proxy for your friend in the class of that professor; when you knew he was so egoistic, why did you do that misadventure? Why couldn’t you think of the consequences of your act that may land you and all of us in this misery? We’re poor we can’t afford to be mischievous, we need to be serious. Please study seriously, please request the professor to forgive you, please catch his feet. We don’t have enough money to come to your place right now.”
(Of course the letter was written in Hindi, gist of the matter translated here)
No comments:
Post a Comment