In one parents teacher meeting , my sports teacher told my mother to put my energies in sciences, because I played football with hands and cricket with feet. 4 minutes later, in the next hall, my science teacher told her to focus my energies on sports, she thought my 12 brain cells were not enough to understand the Newton laws of motion. On the way back to home, I could see my Ma’s face turning pale as an ostrich’s egg.
“You look worried” , I said with a face that was holding the shame of a man and innocence of a boy.
She was silent as a squirrel, resting on the tongue of a lion. The abysmal, “I wish I could grate you”, look she gave me that day traveled through my thick skin and ego and rested in my heart. Years aged, but that look has always remained inside me. With shattered ego and pride , I was just a piece of meat, holding her sari and drifting away with the fuel burning inside her conscience. C grade and “Can do better” on the report card meant more science tuitions and some sports classes. Parent teacher meetings are enough to kill a man inside a boy.
She had decided ; Math’s, French and a Judo class.
“Are you sure, Judo?”- I asked with the body which seemed to have already taken the beating. No answer meant she was sure. I was put into a judo class, with little mercy and hope. There, inside the judo hall, it looked like Israel was on a war, I had never seen such an aggression outside the human‘s body.Initial days passed with exercises and warm ups. Then , the day came, first fight was on the cards. I was up against a skinny man , of about half my body weight. Before I could calculate the probability of my wining , I was lying on the mat with my jaw and eyes wide open. His right fist was resting on my chest to resist the last drop of fight left in me or to celebrate the vulnerability of my will. As I stood up with help of the coach, I checked the other players sitting on the periphery of the hall. I had seen those eyes before, filled with mockery and disgust ; Whenever I had lost in life, those eyes always came free with the loss. Though right leg and chest were burning with the pain , my ego was still to realize the pain of losing. Till I saw eyes of a girl beautiful enough for the boy inside me; she was sitting at the corner with eyes questioning my loss. Only then I realized that I had lost my first fight to a ‘thinner’ man.
With the tired feet, I sat besides a same aged Sikh boy, with good built and eyes honest enough to befriend a stranger. He had also lost his first fight and that was enough for me to put faith in him. “Sometimes a loss unifies your belief more” - he recited in Urdu. I was irritated to the core; after being thrashed like a dog I was in no mood to be the ear for his philosophy. I felt like stuffing my red socks into his mouth and seal it with coal tar. Though I always had the uneasiness to listen to his poetry , but still the profoundness of his initial words, “Sometimes a loss unifies your belief ” imbibed a little respect for the boy, Angadh Singh. He was the only son of a famous heart surgeon, and was born ,as his dad said, to become a finest fighter pilot. Their fascination with the air and speed was so evident from the huge collection of books, jet models and a ‘painful’ Mig-16 tattoo on their shoulders. Off the Judo class, every second word in our discussions was related to fighter planes or speed, and gelled with other words with Urdu philosophy. Though I was not sure how much calculus and fight I was learning, but I knew, by just listening to their discussions, passion and belief was growing on me. I was stupefied by how their passion had defeated the human’s basic tendency of deflecting towards ‘ just being happy‘. After listening to his dad, sometimes I wished I were Angadh.
Though I was doing good in math’s classes, Judo class meant defeat and that too from a ‘thinner’ man, day by day. Once after a fight with an obvious outcome I was resting besides Angadh, and he was prompt with Urdu , “Every man inside each being, is the same, with same ego and love, its that some of them are playing in the right arena, that makes them”. The moment I knew it wasn’t my arena, I had lost respect for the rules; I knew next fight would be my last fight with the thinner man. During the fight I bit him twice on his shoulder, pounded my fist on his left eye. He was lying on the mat, and after a hard beating from the coach , I was expelled. Before leaving the hall I looked into the eyes of that corner girl, they looked calm, so were my shame and ego.
No Judo classes meant no Urdu philosophy and no Angadh. We only used to meet at ‘Ankhand Paath’, recital of GuruGranth Sahib, holy book of Sikhs. One day, Angadh got an admit for defense academy program, So, he had to leave the city. Seeing my faded eyes,while staring at my weak thought, he again murmured into my ears -"Sometimes a loss unifies your belief ". I was convinced again.
For people I truly respect and love, I try to maintain a vacuum in between; so , as the ugliness of a human does not dissolve the love for them. Angadh is one of them. So, we talked sparingly , only when there was something worth sharing. As I was busy cuddling with the sciences , there at the academy his passion and dream was turning his body into a human weapon, everything was ready , just the time was keeping him away from being the finest fighter pilot.
8years after the day I left Judo classes, last Sunday, when I was browsing books in a store, my eyes caught attention of a girl standing across the rack with a confused grin. “How are you?” - I asked abruptly , while lending the risk of being stupid. “How are your teeth?” - she said with a wider but relaxed grin. She was her, with the eyes exactly same as on the day I had left the hall for the last time, but with a healthier and confident plum body; the girl who sat at the corner of the Judo hall, she was her. “better than his shoulder” - I answered in a low but extruding tone. She laughed, with each iota of her healthy and beautiful voice, a deep feeling of remorse seeped inside me for not being with her all those years. We planned to meet next.
Now this was the news, I rushed to call Angadh. His Dad picked up, and invited me to Akhand Paath on next Sunday with a low voice. May be he didn’t recognize me and Angadh was nowhere in his talk. I called Ma with a muddled mind.
Angadh had lost his life during a flying drill in Faridkot, 7 months back. I was numb, numb and I wish I had cried that day.
For Akhand Paath, the Guru Granth Sahib was placed in Angadh’s room, which was still filled with fighter jet models, aviation books. His dad was sitting at the front wearing a white kurta, which was hiding the ‘tattoo’ on his shoulder. His face was clear of everything, everything a man can hold onto in his mind. I had never seen him so silent , without a cause.Thoughts of Judo classes, Golf club discussions and Urdu poetry were weakening my bones.In our lives, we come across, dreams , love, beliefs that starts defining our lives, and with just one blow, they stand alone, orphaned not connected to anything but a lie. The lie that we need to keep telling ourselves to justify their identity, a lie we need to keep telling ourselves to stop wandering why they ever happened. That unanswered true love, that intense unfulfilled dream, that unkept promise all remain alone,undefined and orphaned.Today, I again wished I were Angadh, only he could have understood his dad's silence and put a drop of dream and belief in him.I so badly wished I were him.
Angadh, I don't know how true your words "Sometimes a loss unifies your belief " were. But right now siting in your room with your dad, all I can say is that sometimes after a loss, you are left with just an orphaned belief.
