This is how it all begins:
Dr. Naakwaa of Gyan Shakti College couldn’t help smiling to himself as he looked at the sea of eager, animated young faces. They all seemed to speak at once, or so it seemed to an old man like himself, their ceaseless chatter outdone only by sudden bursts of loud laughter.
Even as they talked and laughed in their own groups, he saw their eyes covertly watching the others. An air of breathless expectancy hung about them, as if something momentous would sweep them up on a wing and fly them away to an unknown destination. Without exception, they all clamoured to go, even the ones standing at the periphery, hesitant and slightly lost though they appeared to be.
Without any warning a wild screech hit his eardrums. He turned, mildly reproachful, to look at the youngster responsible. Even as he tried coming to terms with the sheer pitch and volume of that awful, grating sound, a sudden whoop of joy caught his attention. Sheer relief written all over her face, a young lady dashed across the room, grinning and waving to someone she recognised in the roomful of strangers. The sudden flurry of action startled those nearby. Whatever they were doing suspended mid stream, they turned to watch the five meter dash and a very joyous reunion. Sweeping somebody completely off her feet, the young woman refused to put her down. Uncaring of curious onlookers, the two laughed, one a little helplessly, suspended as she was in mid air, and the other, in blissful abandonment.
Suddenly noticing Dr. Naakwa in the doorway, they stilled. And following the direction of their eyes, so did everyone else.
This was the new batch of ‘99. They were the brightest in Mumbai, the crème de la crème. Dr. Naakwaa had every reason to feel satisfied. Like every other college affiliated to the University of Mumbai – good or bad, near or far – the college had to turn away more students than they enrolled each year. There just weren’t enough seats. Gyan Shakti’s reputation ensured they had the pick of the herd. Their seats were blocked for the toppers, those who earned maximum marks in school …unless they were blocked for the progeny of families with connexions like the erstwhile politicians of Mumbai, their minions, doctors, judges, actors, producers and of course, the underworld.
The college was on the outskirts of Mumbai. Started in the early sixties by a philanthropist who named it Gyan Shakti – Gyan for knowledge and Shakti for strength – it boasted wide open spaces, plenty of resources and the very best faculty Mumbai could provide. The fees were hefty but parents, many of them middle-income, paid up happily. It was their sincere belief that an education was the only inheritance they could give their children. An education at Gyan Shakti was even better. The ones who gained admission through the clout of their parents’ influence or money eventually passed too, knowing it gave them an advantage simply to say they’d studied at GS.
“Line, line,” a familiar, high pitched voice broke into his thoughts. He turned, smiling slightly, to glance at the entrance where it came from. Seated on a high stool behind a long desk, a man glared with a malevolent eye at a crowd of students, obvious newcomers, standing before him. Good old, dependable Jayaram, the principal thought fondly. He’d been with the college since its inception, almost thirty years ago, and was their very efficient, one-man admin department.
Thin, neat and small, with an ego inversely proportioned to his stature, Jayaram disliked students, tolerating their very presence at the college with grim determination. He found their exuberance loud and brash, unless they were quiet, when he labelled them dumb. As expected, he was being perfectly disagreeable with the new comers, watching crossly as a queue of sorts stood before him.
To get a better view of what was transpiring at his desk, each student moved slightly to the left of the one ahead. After a point, having reached the furthest distance from which they could see his desk clearly, the sideways line of students did an about ‘U’. Soon they were standing two deep in front of his desk. As the second row slowly started snaking out rightward, Jayaram glared with irritation.
“Line, line,” he yelled again in his thin, reedy voice. The youngsters shuffled obligingly, almost aligning themselves behind each other. He ignored the young lady standing at the head of the queue for as long as possible, assuming an expression of grave import as he kept her waiting. He fussed with his list, sipped water from a glass and glanced at his watch. Running out of things to do, he finally deigned to look at the young woman, barking out in Hindi, “Which line?”
“What?” said the poor, baffled thing, darting a quick look at the line behind her and wondering if she ought to be in another one.
“Arré[1] Arts, Science or Commerce?” he said, enjoying himself hugely as he glowered at her. The luckless sixteen-year-old mumbled, “Commerce”. Jayaram, unable to resist a final well-aimed jibe, raised a bushy eyebrow high above the rim of his thick spectacles and wondered out loud how she would go through five years of college if she couldn’t understand a simple question like his. Having scored his victory, he pretended to lose interest. Glancing at the young man behind her, his next victim, he cleared the formalities with the young woman and dismissed her.
The hopelessly disintegrated queue took one step forward en masse.
And so it was for much of the next half-hour as Jayaram, eyebrows high, barked at the youth in his thin, high pitched voice. Within no time, at his insulting best, the impossible yet indispensible clerk had efficiently despatched six hundred new comers to their rightful classrooms. Dr. Nakwa breathed a sigh of relief.
