Rajesh's Rise To Fame

The streets were calm and the din of the day was dead and the eerie silence that had descended upon the village was only betrayed by the occasional villager who trudged a weary path back home after a long day of working at the factory in the nearby town. Kangra had always been a sleepy village, the day ended by seven and by eight you could talk to the spirits of the village elders. After crossing a sparse forest there was a small town where there was a new factory where all the youth of the village now worked. A narrow decaying road ran between the village and the town and our story starts when Rajesh, a village youth of barely twenty drove his defunct Bajaj Chetak on that road and into the hamlet early that evening carrying the most unusual assortment of objects with him – A TV like box (a PC monitor), a smaller but taller box without a screen (the CPU), a tiny weird object (mouse) and another most unusual flat thing with buttons on it, a lot of buttons (the keyboard).

As soon as Rajesh turned the last turn to enter his village, Pheenu was the first one to catch a glimpse of what his elder brother Rajesh had brought along. Pheenu let the cycle tyre which he was pushing with the dry mulberry stick he had, tumble down into a roadside pit and started running behind the scooter. Soon enough as Pheenu’s best friends Shanky and Honey saw Pheenu running behind the scooter, they joined him on the adventure. In less than a minute Mantu, Sangu, Rudra, Veeru, Seenu, Rondu, Motu, Sandy, Cheenu and Rabru had joined them. The Chillar party had invaded Kangra. The whole point of childhood is not sense or senselessness, not practicality, not reason; but finding joy in small, ordinary things like the buzz of an old scooter, being happy and carefree, being little reflections of God on earth. I hope someday we could have the courage as grown-ups to join hands and just run aimlessly together. Till then, lets get back to our story.

The scooter finally stopped. The children mobbed poor Rajesh.

“What is it bhaiya?” Rajesh’s younger brother Pheenu was the first to interrogate.

“Is it a TV?” Rudra asked

“Can we watch a film?” Someone shouted from back.

Finally Rajesh found a leeway for his answer. “It’s a computer kids!”

“Ooooooooooooo!” went our coterie of little ones.

“What does it do Rajesh Bhaiya.” There was a hint of admiration and awe in squeaky voices now.

“Um..!” Rajesh thought what it did, he wasn’t quite sure. His friend Sudhanshu from the town had hurriedly stuffed it on to his scooter. He had to leave his room pronto or the landlord would have asked for another month’s rent. The computer was going to stay with Rajesh till Sudhanshu had found new stable accommodations. Rajesh had just started going in to town a year ago to work in the factory. He did not know much about the toys people in the towns had.

“It is like a TV.” Rajesh finally managed. “We can turn it on just like TV.” Rajesh mumbled.

“Now my bhaiya also has A TV.” Pheenu turned immediately and addressed his devotees. “Now we wont have to pay sadu cacha for watching Shaktiman on Sundays.” Pheenu declared loftily. The little crowd cheered in ecstasy.

“It, it’s getting dark..” Rajesh panicked a little bit. “Help me carry it in.” He wasn’t sure how to get a computer started or whether it could double up as a TV as well.

The kids obliged immediately. Rajesh took the monitor, a couple of kids took hold of the CPU and another grabbed the mouse while Pheenu looked at the keyboard in amazement while he carried it.

“Is this a typewriter Rajesh bhaiya? It has A,B,C written on it.” Pheenu questioned.

“Its dark, I am tired.” The irritated Rajesh snapped.

*

Morning came. It was Sunday; Rajesh liked to sleep till late on Sundays because he had no work on Sundays. So it was twelve and Rajesh was woken by incessant blabbering coming from near him. He woke and sat up on his Charpaayi. What he saw shook him wide awake into his senses. The children were back and there were more of them, the girls were also here. All were stuffed in to the tiny room Rajesh slept in. Pheenu was the only one standing, shouting at everyone - ‘sit there’, ‘sit here’, ‘don’t talk’, ’don’t shout’, ‘don’t do this’, ‘don’t do that’. His voice was the loudest, he was finally the class monitor. When he noticed that his Rajesh bhaiya was up, he gave him the broadest, the widest, the teethiest smile.

“Bhaiya, please turn the TV on, we want to watch Shaktiman!” Pheenu shouted. The class went silent; the man they idolized was awake.

Blood left Rajesh’s body. He mustered whatever courage and blood he had left and got up, tentatively walked up to the Computer. “Okay, I can do this.” He thought, he had seen it working once in Sudhanshu’s room. The TV went on the table, this keyboard was in front of it; the tall, narrow box went on the floor. “Hmmm…” he thought, “Where did this small thing go?”

Rajesh tried, but he failed and then he very quietly and tactically excused himself and left the room, muttering some indecipherable script.

He was going to have to run.

*

Rajesh returned a couple of hours later and stood at the door. The kids were still there. The ‘TV’ was on now and there were fishes floating on the screen.

“Bhaiya, Meena had seen this in her Bua Ji’s house. Its called a computer.” Pheenu said, seeing his Bhaiya return. “Had you gone to Master ji’s place to ask him how to use this?” He added.

“Y..Yeah.” said Rajesh.

“Meena turned it one for us. This black wire goes into this, the white one goes into the screen and the plug goes in to the socket Bhaiya; its like 1,2,3.” Pheenu explained. Meanwhile the rest of the group did not notice their exchange as their eyes were transfixed on the screen. Pheenu on seeing his Bhaiya noticing the kids beckoned him closer.

“See bhaiya, this is Sheetal”, he said pointing at a large orange fish on the screen. “That is Kamla.” He said before donning a curious look on his face. “Where is Rimjhim?” he asked to nobody in particular.

“She hid behind the boulder.” They said in unison.

*

In the late afternoon at the Panchayat meeting, Rajesh’s father sat with the Sarpanch that day which was a huge thing because he was just a chaprasi in the magistrate’s office in the town.

*

In the evening Sadu chacha (the owner of the only other TV in the whole village) came in anger and stomped into Rajesh’s room. He eventually offered to split their collective revenues 50-50 amongst themselves.

*

A week passed. A week of adoration and lime light for Rajesh. A week during which he was never able to muster courage to tell anyone that he had not actually bought the computer and he had to eventually give it back. Human beings are weak that way.

*

So Saturday evening came and Sudhanshu drove his Maruti into the village, tailing Rajesh’s scooter; stopped at Rajesh’s house, put his computer on the back seat of the car and quietly drove off as Pheenu watched on, in amazement.

Rajesh slept in late the next day.