Sundaram's self-respect {880 words}

 

(This is a fiction written in first person for effect)

The one question that bothers me always is why success in life is not guaranteed to genius and why happiness is not always a possession of good people. Life turns out to be cruel to a few even when they do not seemingly deserve such a fate. I was recently a witness to such an oddity of fate. Some of the memories of the young days are sharper than the recent happenings.

I clearly remember my classmate Sundaram for he was a class topper and always sat next to me. We were close friends. Lean and tall with a sharp nose, he frequently fell sick. He had a large birthmark on his right forearm. He came from a poor family and he used to wear the same brown 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 friendly chap and we would walk home together in the evenings after school hours. He confided in me his wish to be an engineer along with his doubts about his achieving it. He had two younger sisters. I lost touch with him when I left the school in my ninth class on my dad’s transfer to Delhi.

 It was more than three 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 other friends who were all well-placed in life. It was a marriage done in style and ostentation.

As the servers in white uniforms were serving the food and different delicacies, I saw the large birthmark on the extended arm of a tall lean man in his late forties who was placing a jangri (a sweet delicacy) on the plantain leaf. Recollecting that my friend Sundaram had a similar one, I looked up and could instantly recognize him. The same tall figure and the unmistakable sharp nose confirmed that I was not off the mark.

When I asked him whether he was, Sundaram, he nodded in agreement. I asked him “Don’t you recognize me as Rangan? We sat adjacent to each other in classes eight and nine".

 He hesitated for a moment and said that he had not met me before and tried to retreat hastily. I persisted by asking him, “Do make an effort to remember me and the ink mark I had made on your shirt.”

 For a split of second, his cloudy eyes cleared but when he saw many eyes on him, he left denying any knowledge of me or the incident.

 I was doubly sure that he was Sundaram and that he wished to remain unidentified. I could not thereafter enjoy my lunch and the conversations around me. I was left wondering how such misfortune could befall such a bright person whom I had hoped would rise to high positions.

 I rose from the table earlier than others to wash my hands. I rushed to the kitchen area looking for Sundaram. Not finding him there, I approached the head cook and asked him,” Where can I find Sundaram?”

“Sundaram came just now to me and pleaded of severe headache and wanted some rest. He assured me that he would be back in an hour. Do you know him?” replied the head cook

“We studied together in school and were close friends. He was intelligent, hard-working and a topper in school. He used to be soft by nature with a very warm disposition. I had high hopes of his reaching high positions in life.  How did he come to work here in such poor circumstances?” I asked

 The head cook, an elderly man, said,” Sundaram’s father died suddenly in his middle age leaving behind his large family of wife, one son, two unmarried daughters and an aged mother with no resources to fall back upon. The entire responsibility of looking after his mother, grandmother and sisters, their schooling and marriage fell upon the young shoulders of Sundaram. He had not completed even class eleven. As his father was working for me as a cook for several years, I took pity on the young boy and took him under my fold. I offered some financial help to the family initially. He worked hard and has since educated and married off his two sisters. But he chose to remain a bachelor in the dilapidated house  to look after his aged mother.”

 I could realize now why he wished to avoid me. He must have seen my shock and pain on seeing him in a server’s uniform and being a man of high self-respect, possibly wished to save me from further embarrassment.

 As I was financially well placed, I resolved to help him monetarily or by renovating his old house I left my card with my mobile number with the head cook and requested him, “Please ask Sundaram to contact me without fail within the next two days of my stay in Chennai. Tell him it is my fervent request.”

But being a man of high self-respect, he never made a call.

(The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs-Joan Didion}