These days I am not feeling well but I don’t know what exactly makes me feel unusual. Maybe due to this reason, I don’t have the appetite to eat enough. This morning I was on my way to college, chanting some mantra at heart, as usual, skipping my breakfast and on my way, I saw Nordey and Tselha running behind with their grinning faces. We entered the metro together and had long chat, especially with Nordey on our usual private topics which made me forget the mantra on my lip.
I, at Pulbangash station, off the metro waving a farewell hand to her and took a rickshaw to move towards the college, covering my nose and glassing my eyes, through that usual city-village dusty street. My college was in an unusual quietness, those students who had loud-speaker-like lips were yet to reach college. I saw, peeping through the window, a few students in the class listening to the ongoing lecture of a professor. Some late-loving classmates, like me, were coming in the opposite direction toward the class, I entered, without the least hesitation, the class along with them and sat at the back and pretended to have a certain interest in a lesson by looking randomly on the text and at the teacher’s face with an attentive look but with a distracted mind.
In the mid of the first period, my stomach started burning up and the unbearable pain in my chest brought pearls to my eyes. But I had no choice but to wait for the class to end as attendance, at least, would be given if not attained any knowledge by warming up the wooden chair.
The bell rang finally after such a long wait, I rushed toward the college hostel canteen for something to eat imagining the hot samosas at the back of my brain although I had continuous classes after that. I saw on the way a young man, with black glasses, walking clumsily and slowly toward me near the hostel building. I did not pay much attention to him at first because my stomach was crying and making me cry too out of pain.
After running for a few seconds, I felt something impelling me to stop and look back. I saw, to my surprise, the young man walking and turned to the right confirming if he was going in the right direction. I noticed by that time he was blind and the high-enough wall built near our college lawn became an obstacle for him to cross and made him stop.
He walked a few steps again and turned to the right like before and touched the stone wall lightly in order to follow his way. I saw many students making the college lawn their carpet and chatting at their usual high volume as if they were at a party. But nobody bothered to help the man who was struggling to find his way. At that moment I could not help myself but rush back toward him like a marathon-runner in my usual black-colored team Tibet jacket, arranging some Hindi words which I had in my head by the way.
No sooner did I approach him, than I asked him in Hindi but in my unique Amdo accent “ apka khanng jayi ka? Class may jayi ka?”. He understood my horrible Hindi and answered “yes”. I held his arm and guided him toward the class with quick paces. I asked him the second question in Hindi “room number ki-t-na hay?” “108” he replied.
I held his hand in a friendly manner and led his way on the stair toward the first-floor classroom. I found that his class was going on; I opened the door and let him sit on the first bench. Without giving a look at his face, I shut the door behind me and rush back toward my classroom on the ground floor. Having opened the class door without hesitation, I sat on my chair and started listening to the teaching.
At that moment, Strangely, I felt much warmth in my right hand, which I held the blind man a few minutes ago and that warmth slowly seemed to touch my heart too.
Now, while writing this diary, I am quite repented of not mentioning the very person I am from Tibet, but I hope his classmates and teacher have seen the big TIBET letters painted on the back of my jacket when I came out of his classroom.
- Sincere thank goes to Tenzin Chemi for polishing my language.
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