Aloneness

Aloneness

I remember an incident from my teenage days when I was once travelling in a bus, as I usually do, and an occasional meeting with a stranger changed my perspective over certain things. I was about to complete the first year of my Engineering. The externals were just few days ahead. Therefore I had kept few books in my bag so that I could read them while traveling. It was second week of May and the sun was blazing in its full glory. I was all sweaty until the bus finally moved and the air relieved my agony. I sighed deeply. Although, the bus would take probably half an hour to find its way through the chaotic roads and traffic of the city. And I knew that I wouldn’t be able to read peacefully anyway. Therefore, I decided to put on my earplugs and started listening music until we'd arrive on an open route. After few stops in the city, I got a companion. He was a middle-aged man, probably in his fifties, and had worn tailored pair of shirt and pant and old leather shoes. His hair were thinning from on the crown and he had grey patches on rest of the hair. His neatly trimmed thin moustache gave him typical Gujarati look. He had no luggage. He was just carrying a bag. He sat beside me, while I moved to the window seat. I wouldn’t give away my window seat at any cost.  

That uncle sat quietly while I had to adjust my bulky fat body in the narrow space of those two seats. 

(I was remarkably fat back then. I lost my weight afterwards.) 

Once we were out of the chaos, I shoved the ear plugs into my bag and took out a book. Elements of Mechanical Engineering… The book read. I started reading it quietly while that uncle was noticing me with the corner of his eye. I sensed his stare intimidating my focus. And then he also pulled out some book and threw himself in it.

After half an hour of quiet reading, he finally said, “Damn! The summer is too vigorous this year!!”

I glanced at him and quietly nodded with a humble smile.

“They say it's a global warming effect,” he said. “You must be knowing a thing or two about it. After all, you’re an engineering student.” He pointed at the cover of my book. 

It felt really kind words to hear when you’re in first year of engineering. But as soon as you face the reality, that excitement fades away eventually.

“Yeah, I guess I know its consequences and intense reasons,” I replied enthusiastically. “In fact, we have a subject based on that in this semester. Environmental Studies.”

“Must be boring, huh!” he chuckled.

“Sort of,” I hesitatingly nodded. "But it really inspires people."

“So what kind of engineer are you?” he asked, narrowing his greyish brows.

“I’m not an engineer yet,” I chuckled.

“But you’ll be one. What would it be?” he repeated the question. For an engineering student and an unemployed engineer, there are few questions that send them into despair right away. 

“Computer science,” I answered bluntly.

“But I saw a book with some Mechanical Engineering title,” he said.

“Yeah, actually I’m in first year. So we’ve to learn some basic stuff too,” I explained.

“It doesn’t make sense, though,” he said, gazing at his own book, which was untitled since the hard cover had no title visible on it.

“Why?” I asked.

“You learn their subjects. But will they hire you for even that basic kind of work? They will hire a worker for it, but not you,” he said. “They want you to study. But they aren’t actually teaching you, are they? I bet they’d be telling you that it’s not important for your branch. So just focus on to clear it in exam.”

I couldn’t deny that. Most professors had told that thing.

“Then why waste time in something that you’ll never going to learn?” he said.

“For a degree, I guess,” I muttered.

“Boy, do you think that your degree would matter eventually?” he sneered.

Well, I was aware of Engineers’ situation in real world. Therefore, I couldn't deny that. He was right that even my degree wouldn’t matter some day.

“I bet you won’t learn a single thing during your college,” he continued. “Those industry-men want different things and you learn different things. What’s the meaning of learning then?”

“Education!” I mumbled stupidly.

“Perhaps… Because these days BA, MA are not educationally worthy degrees, right?”

“They are, but-”

“But aren’t helpful with money, I suppose,” he flickered, while his dark eyes twinkled. "But neither are yours nowadays."

I didn’t nod, since I thought it might offend him. Therefore, I stayed quiet and unmoved. He kept staring at me for a moment and then said, “Yeah, actually they aren’t really helpful with money.”

I was a bit relieved as he said that. 

“I, myself, have the same experience,” he muttered.

“What do you do?” I inquired.

“I’m a writer,” he declared.

“A writer writer?” I asked in surprise. Perhaps I couldn’t believe that I was sitting beside a writer who might have published his books or a book.

“What do you mean by ‘a writer writer’?” he narrowed his eyes.

“I mean… You write books?” I gulped nervously.

“Not in this world!” he laughed. “Although, I did try once and it was rejected by so many publishers that I gave up eventually.”

“So what do you do then?” I asked again.

“I write articles in newspaper,” he replied.

“Okay,” I nodded nervously. “But why did you give up?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. He just kept gazing at his book. I thought he might be uncomfortable talking about his personal life. There are some people who won’t share their life experiences or moments with you. They intend to keep their privacy, which I respect heartily. But unlike what I had hoped, he replied after few quiet moments.

“Money!” he said softly. “Money makes you give up your dreams. I graduated in Hindi. I did masters too. I had started writing during my masters. And I completed two of my stories during that time. However by the time I had completed MA, I was 24. My family was a middle-class. My father was retired and I was the only child. We were living on his pension which was negligible to survive. I had only two options: I could have continued my writing. Or I could have joined as teacher in a nearby school.”

“You could have written while working?” I said. "So many writers do job and write simultaneously."

“That’s a myth,” he said. “If you want to create a quality work, you must give your quality time in it. If you’re not ready to spend time in literature, it’s better to focus on your job and earn that way. Because that’s how it works. You can’t get both at the same time. Perhaps it might work for some extraordinary minds who are too gifted at extreme multitasking. But unfortunately I'm not that blessed with that gift.”

“So, you quit writing?” I asked.

“As I said I had no choice,” he said. “I took that job as a Hindi teacher in a secondary school. I worked there for seven years until I had enough money to switch my job. However I hadn’t written a single word for my book. My days were spent filling those attendance sheets and results. I had read all those books I was teaching during my graduation. Syllabus in India doesn’t change so frequently. Yet I did spend some time in the library to study some more works. But school libraries have limited books. When I was not a school teacher... I mean apart from my work, I had family responsibilities. But when I decided to quit my job as a teacher, I tried to publish those two stories. Unfortunately I got rejected from 13 publishers. And my savings were grabbing my neck. So I joined this newspaper company through a reference of my friend who worked there. He got me a job as a writer. I write articles there. Some stories that I might have put into my books.”

“But you’re a writer now, aren’t you?” I asked softly.

He stayed quiet for a moment and then said, “Yes, I’m. But not a real writer. Not what I expected of myself. My stories never saw the destination they were supposed to see. We dream too high, but our destinies lock our feet to the ground eventually. I have a family now. I have a job. I earn enough to aid my family and I save enough for their prosperous future. I suppose, that's where my destiny meant to be. Yet I don’t feel complete, you see. We’re surrounded by our family, friends, relatives and society, but even they can’t help us with our aloneness. It's not loneliness, you see. Loneliness is when you've lack of company. Aloneness is when you don't have even your own company. Writers dream from a very young age. They always have stories to tell. Their creative minds are filled with all kinds of imagination. It’s just they don’t know how to tell them at that age. They utilize their time enhancing their skills of writing. And when they finally write it, they feel very proud about it. Because it’s the most satisfying feeling in the entire world… To complete your first story… To complete your first book. But the bitter side of that is, it’s your story. It came from your heart and it’s not necessary that your heart will be loved by others. Publishers are businessmen. They will reject you if your story won't sell, even though you have spent considerable amount in that book. We can’t blame them either. It’s their job. They work of money. We can’t blame anyone but ourselves. We let ourselves dream. We let ourselves fly high. And then we make ourselves alone.”