CHOCOLATE DREAMS - Story of a Rickshawalah Conversation!!!

While I was drafting my final email, I started thinking - 'Wow I did it again'

I resigned! Again!

Every resignation has given me strange happiness. The new assignments and moving to a new city - I called this true excitement. And with this shift, my salary has literally doubled. Nothing fuels dreams more than money i guess.

I, was typing my final- Thank You mail.

I dont know who brought this culture of writing thank you mails but I find it amusing and offensive.

First- If in case, the good things people write are true, then they are just too late to convey it. As after this all this good feeling won't matter much.

It could have been great, if we send this 'Thank You Note' every month end with the Sales Reports, to tell people how much we loved their work.

And in case all the good things are fake, then what's the point of saying all this anyway.

However, I kept writing; thanking everyone, in my company in DESIGNATION Order. Now that I have grown up, I know, Designation is the thing which makes you Big or Small. And bigger people often have bigger egoes. So maintaining order is important. I had no intention to break this ritual! My relieving letter is still pending with my bosses.

But the narration of the mail felt like, I have won some filmfare award. And I have to thank everyone on stage in a super short speech.

"What the hell are you writing for past an hour now."

Bijay was standing next to me from past 10 minutes only. Exagerration was a part of our ways of dealing things!

I was busy, finding the most apt words for my final email.            

"Just write- fuck off, I got a new one" Bijay said.

I smiled. My eyeballs were still glued to my laptop screen.

"Ok... just write... Boss I quit- short and sweet." Bijay was waiting for me to join for dinner.

"Thank you, but I am done."

I clicked send.

There are many whom we meet in new jobs and places we go. Some remain known faces and a very few become a part of life- friends for life types. Bijay was one of the later. Without him Chennai would never have been so much fun.

"Do they make Chicken Fry, this amazing in Delhi too." Bijay said.

"I hope so. Its a paradise for Non vegetarians." I loves delhi. I will defend my delhi with every challenge which comes along.

"You anyway love delhi! Chicken fry or not! Right? So, what's the plan?"

"Well, there are a few plans." I said.

"Like?"

He kept his words minimum and kept rest of the mouth busy eating that, Amazing Chicken Fry.

"I want to live in an apartment, enough of hostel life! Now that the salary has doubled, may be I can afford it now."

I looked around.

The wall and the yellow paint; painted probably 10 years from now. The hostel lights were making it look like the place, where the shady villains of bollywood reside.

"I want to start my own by next year. May be a website to start with, then a youtube channel too! May be I will start working on my book, and yes will start saving some money too!"

"You should save. I won't be lending you any money now." Bijay said.

"Yeah I know. And yes will think about PhD. and my career in education too!"                                          

"So many plans." Bijay was not amused. He was busy tasting his own chicken.

I was probably telling all this to remind myself that these are the dreams, and I needed to plan for each of it now.

We had a quite walk after dinner that night.

We didnt say that the time of chennai was so much enjoyable because of we were together! We were competitors at job and brothers at home. However we didn't say any of these.

I generally, have chocalates after dinner- today i was in a mood to treat my tastebuds with a Cadbury Silk; and he, took his resular pista icecreams.

Tonight is my last night in chennai. Tomorrow many new dreams will start with a single journey.

...

"Go safe. And yes go f*** delhi." Bijay waved good bye as I looked back from my auto.

4.30 am. The wrist watch silently said with his both hands.

I was smiling. The prospects, the people, the city, the dreams excited me.

" Sir Bombay....???" The auto wallah asked me.

"Yes, bombay first, delhi full stop."I spoke in a language which is best understood by auto rickshaw wallahs. No preposition, No conjunctions!

"So will you take two flights sir?"    

"Yes" I was surprised, that his english was not at all bad. It was actually fair by every standards.

"I worked in bombay sir, for four years sir."   

"Oh wow! Good"

"I am a graduate you know." We were crossing the empty mount road In thw wee hours of the morning, but his sentence was filled with packets of pride.

"Why rickshaw then?" I was genuinely intrigued.

"Long story sir, some other time." I smiled.

You know I have observed that rich people avoid topics as they don't want to waste their time, poor ones are just scared to waste yours if they share their story of struggles.

Who wants to spend their time listening to a struggle which ended with a FAILED tag. People only prefer to listen to struggle who make it big.

I kept mum.

"Sir you from Delhi?"

"No, I am from Bengal."

"Kolkata? Ohh, good placaa... good food, good fish, cheap food sir."

I laughed. Apparently most of the words are true. Amd I could only imagine the love of fish extended From bengal to chennai.

"I was there in Kolkata too for 2 and half years sir. I was a guard at park street store."

"Wow, you have seen whole India then"

"Yes sir. But only in trains sir. No planes." He smiled.The auto maintained good speed and I leaned a little bit forward to listen to this Auto wallah's lines.

"You are not coming back to Chennai right sir?"

"How do you know?" I was surprised!"Nobody takes Airtel TV box with them for a short trip sir"          

We both laughed.

"Sir, I always think how this big heavy plane flies so high"

"Quite easily actually, just a 10 second jet fire and the plane takes off." I knew this was not the answer he was looking for.

"Sir, I leave people to airport almost every day once. I see so many aeroplanes. I have a dream!"He kept saying. For a change - I was listening.

"What's that?"

"My biggest biggest dream is to sit in an aeroplane. I want to see how it goes up. And how chennai looks from that height."       

I was moved a bit.

I have been living someone's dream and I hardly ever realised it!

I looked at him, the khaki shirt over this white check shirt gave him a look which we associate with any other auto driver. The dusky wrinkled face, and dark circles told a story of his struggle which he did not tell, thinking that I would not care.

"How many kids you have?"  "One sir. He is five."

"Oh great!"

I just said great, I didnt know if there what anything great in having a son of five or having only one son.

I just said it. Thankfully, he did not ask me back- what is great in it.

"He goes to school?" I asked.

"Not yet sir. But I am trying for that!"

"You should do that!" I said.

"Sir, a lot of times we do what we can! Should... comes a little later!"

I was silenced again. His words had pain and agony of a life which has seen quite a lot.

"But sir, he ia busy in playing and his own dreams." I smiled a bit while saying this.

Its always happens when you talk about the people you love most, and it hardly matters who the listener is.    

I didnt matter here. Probably I have just gave, him one more chance to      remember his son, who must be sleeping till now!

It was still 4.05 am.

"At five he has a dream!" I smiled too.

"Not that big sir. But still a dream!"He laughed.

"What is it?"

"Sir we live in a Tynampet. Just near the beach road. I don't know if you have noticed, there's a big, very big hoarding on that road... just at the Tynampet street junction"

"Yes may be I have seen that!"   

"Sir, that poster is visible from my house. Even though my house is in a narrow street and any view is a little tight-packed! But that big damn poster is visible, because its there on an exact height. And the big lights on the poster make it visible all night. There is a big photo of a beautiful girl on that poster!"

I started smiling.

"He dreams about a girl? Kids these days..."

The autowallah laughed too.

"Nooo sir. Not about the girl."

"Then?"

"Sir, the girl is eating a toffee in the poster with so much interest. She has smeared toffee on his fingers and her mouth! Who eats, like that anyway! That big toffee has become the dream of my son."

I straight away knew it was the ad- hoarding of Cadbury Silk. I loved this. The taste of the chocalate came in my mind. I loved it. And I remember I had a Silk just yesterday, while I and Bijay walked down the hostel lane.

But- Toffee... i mean Chocalate, a dream?

"Sir, my son started asking for that toffee, as soon as he first saw that poster! First two days he bugged me so much that I told it's still not in india  And uts nit available anywhere in chennai or even India. He used to sit seeing that poster for hours on floor peeping outside the window."

He continued.

"Within a week someway he found out that, its available nearby. That bugger sweetshop has kept it in a glass showcase."

" I found out the price, it was 85 rupees. How can you keep 85 rupees for a toffee? I can buy it sir one time, but if my son keeps asking that every seven days, how will I afford it sir? He is just five, he wont understand, 400 rupees a month is too much for a toffee!"

"I told my son, some toffees are just a little bit out of out reach. And he stopped craving and sitting near the window, seeing that girl!"

"Stupid he is sir. He doesnt know- nobody gives anything to anybody without any reason! And after sitting there for three days hope, he realised that!"

"Since that day, my son has been saving the two rupee and one rupee coin which I give him every day, that the day he has 85 rupees from his savings, he will eat that toffee. And hopefully he will eat it carefully enough, that he will not waste it putting it on his cheeks!"

"Sir, that is his dream. Stupid he is. He makes me count his savings everyday."

The autowallah fell silent for a moment. I was speechless.

"Sir I know my dream will always be a dream, so I wake up early at 4 and work late to earn a little bit more that Atleast my son can have his dreams in his hands."

...

The airport came I got off.I did not say much, neither I gave him 85 Rupees extra for that chocolate.I didn't have a Silk in my bag, I don't know if I had, I would still have given that chocolate or not? I just didnt know for a while, how much help is OK, and beyond what point it becomes a charity or Pity. I am still to be that matured I guess.

...

While the air hostesses welcomed me on board, I wondered how happy he would have been if he saw there are pretty girls as ticket conductors.

I kept think about the dream. The chocalate dream! So many rich people serve richer people! I am still to join more more rich company who will pay be double what I was getting in my last company. But I have started to lose interest in this game.

Probably I will soon say- I am done serving rich people. I will do sometime to may people a little richer. Rich enough that they can have their chocolate dreams everyday.

- Sunil Chandra Saha

4th May-2012

21st Dec '14

1.09 am