A forgotten friend (Part 3) —

(Recap– In the last episode, I gave the description of persona of Bind bro, the lead character of the story....)

The very locality where I had taken a cubic sized room at a cheap rent, that locality in itself was an old location and inhabited by tattered people like me. The main attraction of the place was, it located near an important square of my city. The location of the room was inside a narrow lane. It was a small Muhalla ( In India, an old congested, densely closed cluster of houses.) You just need to step out of the mouth of the lane and after a few paces you were present on the location of the square. This square in the city in itself was of its own kind.

It was consisted of main five roads. Still I don’t know, what is the suitable term for a conjunction where five different roads as such cross each other. At one corner of this square there happened to stand an old three storied building. The ground floor of the building had a raised platform and on that some shops were constructed. All with sufficient room. In one of these shop, a gentleman with an inclination to literary test used to run a cafe in the name of Coffee cafe, though tea too were served there as usual. You see! If you give the name of your tea-stall as Coffee cafe, it resounds a higher status. The same factor happened to apply here as a  commercial tactic some where.

Only selected group of customers used to used to place the order of coffee for they  could ably afford that. Otherwise crowd like me and Bind bro ever used to place the order for tea and that too in cuts. I meant, If we two friends visited the cafe, we used to ask to serve one cup of tea divided in two cups. Or three customers used to place the order for two tea cups served but divided in three parts etc. This cafe had an attraction like a meeting place for journalists, petty local leaders and unemployed students like me. If you tread some paces downward from this cafe, there lied a famous public library. The opening time of the library was in the morning session and evenig session.

But library administration happened to charge monthly fee for reading newspapers and issuing of books separately. Though the charges of Public library were quite reasonable, but a “needy’ student like me felt those charges costly. Here in this cafe,various newspapers from National level down to local level, both in Hindi and English languages  were available to peruse at no cost. There too, I noticed the presence of Bind bro as a regular visitor. Often I found him to become a participant  in some topical discussion with any of the group and putting his views.

The period of time I am relating is about the year of 1980 of the last century. But his surprising appearance, I had already noticed at the main gate of my Evening law college. My this notice of his was unintentional. Till that time I had not been introduced to him ceremoniously. Back to my Evening law college’s classes episode. As I already mentioned, majority of students in the law classes were adult people. Some of them were either in government job or in trades or in some other callings. All they had the sole purpose to adorn their name plate with the inscription of degree on it.

As I told earlier, bout one third of students were fresh youth like me. We had had main goal to try hands for judicial services and in case of failure work as an independent lawyer in the District courts. In that era, girls or women hardly opted to join the law profession. Meant, the same conservative thought prevailed that law profession was a”male dominated domain.” Though the initiative to break this shackles been started. In pursuance to this breaking of shackles, in our classes some antique type women and paltry some young age girls had begun to seek admission. But their presence easily could be counted on fingers’ tips.

But if you talk about their personal appearance ( in that young age group of boys, a girl or woman was must to be charming one,) all they were of no attraction to us. Merely a cursory glance could be given to them. Here comes the narration about Bind bro, I repeatedly mentioned.  But the reason that had prompted me to take his notice unintentionally was some what “off the tracks”. Our evening law classes as usual were bound to finish at 8.oo p m. There I found him regularly present on the main gate of the college, waiting anxiously for some one.

His sole purpose there was to receive a girl student from our classes and to drop her on foot to her place. Even at that odd hour of the evening I found him harnessed with the leather box which contained his camera for still shoot. As far as, features and looks of student girl were concerned, she was below par in appearance. She was a lean-thin, short-heighted girl with dusky complexion. The expressions of “on alert and selfishness” rested permanently on her face. She gave an impression of a lizard on the wall, who at once hide behind some photo-frame on a slight warning.

All male students gave her merely a cursory glance since she was a female. This was her appearance in all. In general, such type of girls on road always pass without coming into the notice of any one. But her being lack-luster was helpful to Bind bro. That was a conservative  time and if she had been some what attractive or charming, then the daily evening routine of Bind bro to receive her might be proven perilous to Bind bro. At that period of time, some young hooligan type jealous minded boys hardly could overcome their jealous to watch walking of some beautiful girl with a man of no appearance.

This was a natural mind set of that era of frustrated scoundrels. Since, both girl and Bind bro had their own weird appearance, so it was a farcical pair in the eyes of other people. Hence the frustrated gang of youth too had a sense of pity for them, fraught with a notion, ” Oh! Come on! Let this poor pair let live their moments.” (End of the Part-3. Cont’d.) Penned by — Vinahy Pharasi —–