A quirk of fate

I have read somewhere that success in life is not coming always to genius and happiness is not guaranteed to clever. Life can be cruel to a few even when they do not seem to deserve. I could witness such a quirk of fate recently.

 I clearly remember my class mate Venkat for he was a class topper and sat in the same bench adjacent to me. We were thick friends. Puny physically, he was lean and tall. He had a large reddish birth mark on his right arm. He came from a poor family and he used to wear the same khaki colour shirt. I remember my putting an ink mark to see whether it was the same shirt he wore and his getting upset with me. He was a nice chap and very friendly. He had told me of his ambition to be an engineer and also his apprehension whether it would materialize as they were very poor. He had many sisters and brothers. I left the school in my eleventh class when my dad was transferred to North and I lost touch with my good friend thereafter.

It was about four decades later when I was attending a marriage of my colleague’s son in Chennai that I came across my old friend in totally unexpected circumstances. I was seated in the dining hall along with my colleague and several other friends who were all very well placed in life. It was a marriage done in style and ostentation. As the servers were serving the food and different delicacies, I saw the reddish birth mark on the extended arm of a tall puny man in his fifties who was placing a sweet on the plantain leaf before me.

Recollecting that my friend Venkat had a similar one, I looked up and could instantly recognize him. The same tall figure and the unmistakable aquiline nose confirmed that I had not gone wrong. When I asked him whether he was not Mr. Venkat, he nodded in agreement.

I asked him “Don’t you recognize me as Partha? We were sitting adjacent to each other in classes nine and ten.

He hesitated for a moment and said." I do not think that I have met you earlier," and tried to retreat hastily.

I persisted asking him,"Do make an effort to remember me. I left an ink mark on your shirt and you were very angry with me."

For a split of a second his cloudy eyes cleared but he left denying any knowledge of me or the incident. I was doubly sure that he was Venkat and that he wished to remain unidentified. I could not thereafter enjoy my lunch or the conversations around me. How could this misfortune happen to such a bright person whom I had hoped would rise to high positions?

Immediately after washing my hands, I rushed to the kitchen area looking for Venkat. Not finding him there, I approached the head cook an old man and asked him where I could find Venkat.

He replied, “Yes, he came to him just a while ago and pleaded severe head ache and wanted immediate rest. He must be back in a couple of hours."

Thereupon I told him about my friendship with him in my younger days and asked him how he, a topper in the class, came to work as a server. The head cook, an elderly man in his late 70s, narrated how Venkat’s father died suddenly leaving behind a very large family with no resources to fall upon.

"I still remember vividly the tragic circumstances the family was thrown into with the entire responsibility of looking after his mother, sisters and brothers had fallen upon Venkat's young shoulders. He worked hard and I paid him liberally. He had not completed class eleven. As his father was working for me loyally for several years, I took pity on this young boy and took him under my wings. He had married off all his sisters and educated his brothers. But he remained a bachelor," he said with his eyes turning moist.

I could understand now why Venkat wished to hide from me. He must have seen my shock and pain on seeing him in such a role and being a man of high self-respect, he probably wanted to save me further embarrassment. I wanted to help him in some way to make his life comfortable with a light work to do.

I left my card with the head cook and requested him. “Kindly ask Venkat to call me on this number in the next two days when I would be in Chennai. I wish to meet him and help him in some ways. Please tell him that I am very eager to meet him."

But as I suspected, he did not make the call.