A Star Manque

The enormous sea of people near the Ram Charit Manas Temple in this part of Gujarat, was uniquely different in one sense from any other huge crowd of people; and the difference was in their oneness of mind with their thoughts polarized in the same direction. In this gathering, every person, with his mind sequestered from his worldly bonds, was finding himself dedicated to only Almighty. Looking below from the temple’s height, one would have failed to espy a piece of earth without presence of devotees. Only "Ram Nam" was written on the blank slates of their minds. It was like seeing the entire expanse of the earth covered with sacred bricks of “Ram Nam” without missing a single square inch. This temple was just on the other side of the highway along which work on the buried pipeline for water supply was progressing. Gagan Singh Shekhawat, hearing the obstreperous enthusiasm of the crowd near the temple, ignored the recurring urge for a smoke, as few inches of welding was still left undone. The supervisor, standing at the edge of the trench, was yelling at a helper. Few yards apart, a pipe was being lowered in the trench by the crane. Finally, having done the job, Gagan manipulated an aluminum ladder to lean reliably, against the trench’s wall. He started up the ladder and exiting the trench, dug in his pockets for cigarette pack. The laying of pipeline was within an ace of completion. After that, he would again run up against the old challenge of finding a job. He was determined not to go again to Railway Recruitment Board’s office, come what may. Nobody here, at this site of Gujarat water supply department, had the foggiest idea that a former hockey star of eighties was working here as a welder. Gagan had represented India two times in Asian Games; but later, due to a long illness, he was disqualified in tests for fitness for the third consecutive Asian Games. The joint secretary of Railways Ministry had assured him a job in Railways. This was, however, just an assurance at personal level of the secretary to the star player. Gagan badly needed such a job if he had to continue his pursuit in hockey. His father, retired from service, could hardly support any further, a non-earning young son. Then unearthing of a scam forced the government to resign and political milieu of the country again caught the fever of mid-term polls. When Gagan visited again the office of Railways Recruitment Board, he found the old Chief Personal officer replaced by a new officer. Nobody was interested there in listening about a commitment made by a former joint secretary. All desperate attempts of Gagan to see the new Chief Personal Officer, Mr. Satish Chandra Awasthi, during his several visits to RRB proved futile. The officer would simply not see him. Somehow, Gagan managed to talk to Mr. Awasthi while the officer stood in wait, near the elevator for going somewhere. Gagan showed him his neatly filed certificates. As Gagan explained about the papers, the officer turned over the filed certificates of international recognition, with a grossly apparent stiffness of dismissal in his manner for the folderol before him. His few words in appreciation were abruptly followed by a blunt termination of the conversation with his one-lined advice: no case could be entertained by railways directly without a formal application, against a formal advertisement in national newspapers. Exiting the RRB office, Gagan felt determined not to go again begging for job in government departments. Upon reaching Indore, he passed a course in Welding from Industrial Training Institute; and started doing lowly paid temporary jobs. And destiny had now brought him to this far-flung part of Gujarat, miles away from Indore. After doing a 10 hours night shift, Gagan was feeling dead on his feet. He left his welding gear near the joint he had completed and walked towards the exit of the pipeline. Near an overhead manhole, he stopped; and stayed there for some time. A large mass of light had dipped inside and diverged into the cold darkness of the pipeline. Gagan looked back into the nihility of the darkness. Like a tiny winged creature in a flight through the darkness, a name with its branching memories irrupted into his mind. Having been jilted by Nayana had made Gagan flame the print of her smiles too in his heart of hearts, as he burnt her letters. On 15th September, a half-day off was given to all workers, as The Health Minister of India - who happened to belong to Gujarat-, was coming to visit this project site. Gagan had reached late. The reception events were over. After some speakers had talked, the mike was carried to Health Minister’s place. He rose from his place and covered the water supply and some relevant local issues, being careful not to make it appear noticeably brief. Then in an adroit, ostensibly not intentional divagation, the minister picked up threads of national politics. The reclusive air about his expression gave way to a politician’s smile. Gagan had not seen many politicians, in real life earlier. It appeared that the Minister’s party followers and voters must be having a strong faith in his abilities to act as their savior against all odds, with the same kind of assurance with which, patients of all kind of illnesses, walking out of a hospital with altogether different prescriptions in their pockets, walk towards a big and reliable medical store. Nearing the completion of his speech, the Minister restored his empyrean smile; and rearranged it on a resumed reclusive face. With words of thanks and best wishes to all for success in their project, he resumed his place. 20th December. Gagan was waiting in a compartment of Bhopal express, for the train to depart from Rajkot station. Many armed policemen were aboard the train. It was post- Godhara carnage time. Gujarat was burning in communal hatred. The train was nearing Surendranagar town. Due to a warning received by the Railways, the train was not being allowed to move into the sensitive, riot-affected town ahead. The train had halted in the outskirts. The slag-dumping yard of Narmada steel plant, about half a mile away was visible from the place where the train was stalled. Triloki’s brother was an employee in this steel plant. Triloki’s brother ran into Gagan at the pipeline’s project site office two months ago, when Gagan was entering stores and purchase department of the project office, and Triloki’s brother was leaving from there. Even now, sitting in the waiting train, Gagan didn’t have the foggiest idea that soon, he would be destined to turn to Triloki, his friend of childhood, for shelter. Bhopal Express was nearing Belapur town in the Madhya Pradesh-the place from where Gagan and his family had shifted to Indore some fifteen years before. In some part of the town, parents of TV star Nayna were still staying. The train was now speeding through the parts of the town that had undergone little change since Gagan left the town in his adolescence. It was likening to a memory typewriter, typing line by line in Gagan’s mind, his old intimacy with these areas of the town. Nayana had ventured in the TV world, and had soon become popular, as she broke new ground in her performances. During those days, she was based at Pune. Gagan, after his long illness, had been longing to see her; and therefore had traveled to Pune. Gagan had informed Nayana in advance; but he found a lock at the door of her flat. He inquired from a neighbor lady and learnt that Nayana had left a few minutes before. He found it hard to explain all this to him. He went to ‘The Film and Television Institute of India’; and Nayana was there. In his shock and disbelief, Gagan watched and heard her, as she spoke in an awkward hurry, ending with few words to put an unbelievable kibosh on their emotional relationship. Just a few words and everything gone quickly. Suddenly Bhopal Express jerked out of its stillness without any warning, and started leaving the noisy platform. Bhopal express was speeding, in a spell of darkness, through the verdurous stretch of a wilderness, ignoring en-route the deserted small stations with few misty lampposts. Believing the tracks to be all hers, the speeding Bhopal Express head butted the cargo train, which was creeping on the same tracks due to a mistaken signal. The express train quaked, as the massive; corybantic jolt ran backwards through the compartments. The creeping cargo train, with its long array of wagons loaded with heavy rolled steel coils, had absorbed the shock to some extent; whereas the express train had landed in an awesome doom. Gagan was among the seriously wounded, with his one arm claimed by the train accident. With no resources for survival and with an arm lost, Gagan found his thinking ability incarcerated by despair. But he possessed something in him that had made him a sportsman; and this very ‘something’ aided him to outperform the overriding emotional incarceration. Gradually he started experiencing that he was on way, to emotional recovery not only from the loss of one arm, but also from all others of the past. He was determined to do what it would take to bear him up in the genuine struggle of life ahead. He recalled Triloki who was those days a canteen contractor, in hostel of an engineering college in Tehri Garhwal, as had Triloki’s brother had told him. Triloki recognized Gagan at the first blush, though the two friends were meeting after an interval of nine years. In bits and pieces, Gagan told his friend how unkind the fate had been to him. Triloki’s background and sports were poles asunder; nevertheless finding a quondam hockey star reduced to the level of scraping the barrel, was something that brought disgust for government departments even to an illiterate Triloki. As Gagan had in mind, he started sharing responsibilities of the canteen management with Triloki. Triloki was almost relieved of his duties. He whiled most of his time away, reading romantic novels and magazines. Some final year students were watching a hockey match, being telecast live by DD India, on 14" screen of a TV set that was installed in a corner in the canteen. Triloki had gone to Almora, so Gagan himself was attending the cash counter. After sometime, all students but one left, without waiting for the telecast match to come to an end. This last student was intently watching the match and did so till finish. When a reporter started asking questions to a promising player, the student reluctantly rose from his place and moved towards the counter, to pay for his tea. The player in the TV program was replying to some question, “There have been so many in recent times in Indian hockey who have won their spurs by their impressive techniques in the game. For example Gagan Shekhawat…." The unexpected mentioning of his name by the hockey player, had caught Gagan flatfooted. The awkwardness of the situation loosened his grip on a coin, which fell and trundled on the floor. Gagan switched off the TV and tried to resume arranging the cash counter. The student, in his confusion and wonder, watched Gagan’s actions to figure out what in the TV program might have struck a chord in the mind of this man at the counter. Gagan felt the chill of the student’s stare on his face. The youth was apparently trying to recall something. Then suddenly, a surprise broke out on his face; and he looked at Gagan in his curiosity in the way one would look at a distant, high hoarding with matter known to the observer, in his attempt to read the unclearly seen matter on the board word by word. Finally, the young man spoke his mind, “my only hobby is hockey and I never miss any article or news or program telecast on hockey. This I have been doing for last thirteen years. Five years ago, I saw you play in a recast hockey match. Of course you are former hockey star Gagan Shekhawat." The student looked with expecting eyes, hinged fixedly at Gagan’s face, with intention of provoking a reaction. Getting no change out of Gagan appeared to have sobered the blunt assurance to a suspicion in the student’s look. A bemused expression was all that Gagan’s reaction was. In a still suspicious and vacillating voice, the student spoke, “aren’t you hockey player Gagan Shekhawat?" “I didn’t understand whatever you said, sir. It appears that you are mistaking me for some hockey player. My name is Prakash. I am a relative of the manager Triloki. I lost my arm in an accident in the factory and was booted out of the job, without enough compensation; so I came here to work with Triloki." Gagan found himself speaking exactly like the Minister of Gujarat. His unruffled face was likening to Minister’s face, having presence of an unbeatable evenness allover, which had thwarted the digging eyes of the student. Later in the night when Gagan was alone, he opened his trunk and took out his certificates of international recognition. Unnecessarily the looking of a young man at him with suspicious sounding eyes at Rajkot station darted into his mind. Gagan and the young man had been sitting on the same bench near the ticket windows, with Gagan holding his certificates file in hand with a pensive face for elapsed fifteen minutes just to pass time thinking vaguely and waiting for his train. Gagan’s thoughts from there further followed into his years of fall from his successful hockey career to his present day life as a canteen manager. Nevertheless the certificates were permanently valued possessions for him. The certificates of recognition were even this day serving his turn and were exclusive to him. There was a certain ’permanency in their exclusiveness’ for him, he thought, little amused: the way this exclusiveness would be in a railway station with a series of platforms and a line of ticket windows: the platforms becoming crowded and emptied; the ticket windows always remaining crowded. Since then, the student-whom his friends called Vinod-, made it a point to talk for few minutes with Gagan before leaving the canteen. In the evening of the last day of final year examinations, clumps of students crowded here and there; some even congratulating others on their having become engineers; some replying that they were happy to have become free birds after slaving for 16 years to books. Gagan watched them as they enjoyed their long awaited dolce far niente. Vinod, dissociating himself from a bunch of students falling about over some obscene joke, was coming towards Gagan. He warmly shook hands with Gagan and said, “Prakash Bhai, after few hours I am leaving for Delhi. If you happen to come to Delhi, make sure you see me there." “Ok. But I know only your name, sir." “My father is a senior officer in Railways. You come to Delhi. I will talk to my father. He is in a position to arrange for a job for someone in Railways, if he really wants to. Let me talk to him about you." The young engineer appeared to wear some kind of an intentional and purposeful look. Gagan knew the difference at once. The young engineer, while delivering his intentional sentences, had been looking at Gagan with his digging eyes in the manner one would look at the address of a clandestine letter stirring due to some concern a great curiosity- great curiosity because the reader of the address knew some words of the address as belonging to a certain place of importance to the reader himself. Presently Gagan just chose to smile; but Vinod cocked his eyes to judge the fugacious jitteriness in the smile. Again getting no change out of Gagan, Vinod looked sharp to pass it over, so as not to embarrass Gagan, with whom he now got on like a house on fire. Gagan replied, “Whenever I happen to be in Delhi, I will surely come to see you, not about the job but just for seeing you. By the way, what is your address in Delhi?" "My address? Let me write it for you somewhere." Vinod opened an account copy lying on the counter at the last page; and wrote slowly- ensuring clarity- his address, below his father’s and his own name. He shook hands with Gagan, took his leave and left. Gagan cast a casual glance at the address and the line atop the address, “S/O Mr. Ashok Chandra Awasthi, Zonal Director (personnel), RRB" caught him unprepared. The irony of his destiny made him smile. He tore the last page with the address from the copy, crumpled it and threw it out of the window, in complete ignorance of Vinod’s presence near the backyard of the window. Vinod looked at the ball of the paper that was shied out of the window. He went sufficiently close to it, being careful not to let an unaware Gagan know that. He stood at a distance from the ball of the paper, recognized bits of his handwriting on the crumpled paper; and smiled to have confirmed his guess about his clandestine friend. As Vinod left for his room to pack his luggage, he remembered the outrageous words of his father, shouted at him a couple of years back, " you are a big fool if you believe that one can choose hockey as his career in India. Who knows better than you about hockey star Gagan Shekhawat? A star player? This man is making rounds of my office for last three months and I am not letting him meet me; for I know I can’t help him”.