Unspoken

The 5am club existed in 1990s and most of the students during those days who were trying to make it big in life coming from an aspiring lower and middle class, were all members of it. The day starts with mom’s shouting to the young ones to start their day with studies. In some houses, it was the dad’s who led the wake up call routine due to the obvious fear that the kids had in dads. Most kid grew up with strong religious upbringing which did allow to respect all religions and of course value and practice their own. The 5am club was supposed to be the secret sect of people who were going to be successful in life come 2000s and beyond. This was kind of unsaid understanding and motivation these little ones derived from that was life changing. 

Laxman had woken up after incessant shouting by his mom. He was destined to become the top scorer in the upcoming class 10 board exams in his village government school. Laxman had earlier shown great promise in class 9 and also all practice exams conducted by the local public schools who allowed underprivileged government school kids also to take funded exams for preparing for a shining future. The whole village who never had a district topper was expecting Laxman to make them proud and set a new record. At times it felt as if not just Laxman but the whole village was preparing for the board exams. Local kids who always played in the nearby farmlands had long stopped Laxman joining them, he was also excluded from the fishing boys who made sure atleast once a week they fish and barbecue their catch staying back in the paddy fields whole night. Laxman was slowly getting excluded from every bunch and every sight of Laxman by elders guaranteed a motivational speech and why he need to top the exams. By now, Laxman was sure that even if he doesn’t want to top, the world might drag him to top of the district and reward him.

Hindi teacher Radha was his favorite, she would always find additional study materials from the town library and would photostat and take to Laxman’s home. She would even spoon feed the content to him even if it was not Hindi. She has kind off made it her personal goal to make Laxman successful. Not sure where it all started, when I first came to the village by then Laxman was the blue eyed boy already. Me and other boys were always trying to observe and learn how village’s champ conducted himself and demonstrated his mettle. Radha madam never bothered to even guide us on basic grammar in Hindi itself while she was busy tutoring Maths to Laxman. By then we all had understood that the game is rigged and it was all set for Laxman to win. 

Myself, Laxman and other boys used to walk through marshy lands to reach the school and at times swim through the streams formed by rain water to reach quicker. We had devised our own methods to wrap the books with a plastic sheet shielding from flowing water and reaching school dry while we were drenched and covered with dirt. Laxman and  all of us vented out to each other about the condition of the village and was always dreaming of a change. I still remember on that winter morning, one fine day Laxman started appreciating this dilapidated village and suggested me and others to grow a brain. While we all were wrapped with woollen shields during the wretched winter, spring never left from Laxman’s heart. He would often cruise bare chested in the village farms. We sensed Laxman could get the smell of flowers when flowers had disappeared a good half a year back. He could draw lush green leaves from a dried up tree trunk just looking at it. The movie trend had changed and it was all filled with violence but Laxman still saw romance in it and would always hum a melody without any provocation. We had planned to leave him behind and explore the nearby mountains as usual that year too using his exams as an excuse. Unlike other years he gave up without a protest, and moreover he seems to be excited about the idea of staying back without friends in the village. Once atheist Laxman was always seen at the goddess temple on the foothills that too before his morning study schedule. We all were sure something was not normal but we were too immature to understand it. 

Even though I called him by name, I was a good two years younger than Laxman and he was of my brother’s age. My brother by then had stopped his studies after back to back successful failures and was now helping my dad in our home kitchen business. He always had great respect and praise for Laxman which made me convert to Laxman’s fan much before I grew my senses. We would all look up to Laxman on everything that needed the use of brain. This boy whom much of the village idolised now had tunnel vision, he could hardly see us, at times I felt he had completely forgotten we existed. Some days we would find him sitting under the only tree up the isolated hill and looking at moon and stars, we thought maybe he found a new passion in them. Some of us even joked that he had really gone blind as he would just walk past us without a sign of recognition. 

As you could imagine, Laxman was always the talk of the village and now the rumour was that he had started to develop the main character syndrome. He seems to be moving around in slow motion versus his otherwise fast paced steps. A boy who would only look at books had started forgetting where he last saw them and had suddenly turned a music lover. He seems to be knowing every line of every song coming in the radio, imagine this is the guy who would turn off the radio after news was read. There were instances when he had left home after disagreement with his siblings and parents had to bring him back from railway stations. Again we all were sure something was not normal but we were too immature to understand.

Some days we would see Laxman fighting in the streets with olden boys and hooligans. Some days we saw him lying in ecstasy watching the stars on his neighbours rooftop after all of them had slept. Few days he would be over-joyous and would let every thing pass and other days would pick on anything and start a war. Whatever happened, he never left the village or the school. He even skipped the city tour which came once in two years courtesy to school tours. We all were looking forward to share a laugh with our hero but he seems to not care about us anymore. 

Fast forward 20years, today I met Laxman in the same village which is a town now and on its way to become first Tech city in the country. Laxman had not changed a bit, everything about him looked to be stuck in 1990s, for sure he had forgotten to live his life and I understood butchering goats and sheep in the local market kept him busy through the day. He started his day at 5am or maybe little earlier than that, and this time he had different set of books to read which was more related to the lifeline of the animals and which one would meet death that morning. Let’s call it habit or a fashionable word hope, he would wake his grand kids up by the time he was out for job and wishing them success in his silent prayers.

The scholar in him never left, he sensed that I would fancy reading with him and brought an old hidden notebook from his book shelf which was now filled with dust who recognised itself as a book in previous life with pride. I wish I could stop my eyes flooding with tears while my mind was busy searching for that little boy I once admired and the dreams which had Laxman as the hero. Some joys are short lived for no reasons, maybe I brought bad luck for him or maybe it was written all destiny, the little world that we were in for sure lost a star who forgot to shine; leaving his secret book in my hands before he fell to the ground with a thud all smiling with an eyes filled with mystery. 

The book had only one page written and it read;

“You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read.”  

— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations