Classmate ( Satyajit Ray )

Classmate
A short story by Satyajit Ray

Nine  o'clock. Mohit had just fastened the knot in his tie when his wife Aruna entered the room and said "Your phone."

" Now? Who is it?"

Mohit always reached the office at the stroke of nine-thirty; the phone-call at the point of leaving brought the familiar frown to his face.

Aruna said, "Says he's been with you in school."

"School!! What's his name?"

"He said you would know him as Joy."

It was thirty years since Mohit had been in school. There had been about forty guys in class. If he really concentrated, he might be able to remember twenty names and attach faces to ten of them. Fortunately, Joy was one of the ten; Joy was among the best. A tall lad, good at his studies, specialised in the high-jump, dabbled in card tricks, had won a medal once with his oration of "Casablanca". Mohit had lost touch with him after school; he realised he felt no tug of friendship after the years of separation.

Reluctantly, he picked up the phone.

"Hello? "

"Mohit? Recognise me, my friend? I am Joy, Joydeb Bose. Ballygunge School."

"I can't tell from your voice, but I remember you. What's up?"

"Ah! You are such a big man now; I'm glad you remember my name, my friend."

"Don't be silly. What's the matter?"

"Er, there's something ... Can I meet you somewhere?"

"When?"

"Whenever you are free. But if it could be soon then ... "

"Then lets meet today. I'll be back at six. Can you drop in at seven?"

"Sure. Thanks a lot, my friend. We'll talk when we meet."

On his way to office in the new blue Standard, Mohit tried to remember some of the events at school. In spite of the grim headmaster Mr. Sur, the years at school had been very happy. Mohit had been a good student. Shankar, Mohit and Joy - they were always the top three, but the order was never the same. Mohit and Joy had been together since Class Six. Often, they were on the same bench - right in the front row. Even in football, they were alongside usually, up front on the right wing. Mohit had thought then that their friendship would last forever. But they had drifted apart right after school. Mohit's father was a well-known barrister. After school, Mohit had gone to a good college, and followed it up with a good job in a trading company. Joy had gone away to a different city, a different college; his father had a transferable job. In Mohit's life, Joy's place had been filled with other friends he met in college. When Mohit started working, his colleagues replaced his college friends. Now, he was among the top four - the management team - of the company; his closest friend was a colleague of his. Among his school chums, the only one he met sometimes was Pradeep Sengupta at the Club; he was the financial director of a large textile company. Strange, he could barely remember Pradeep from school. But Joy - whom he had not met in thirty years - his memories of Joy were vivid, Mohit realised with surprise.

Mohit's office was at Central Avenue. At the junction of Chowringhee and Suren Bannerjee Road, the traffic, the chorus of horns and the smoke from the buses brought Mohit back from the world of memories to the real world. Mohit Sarkar looked at his watch and shook his head; he was going to be a few minutes late.

By the time he finished his day at the office and was on his way home, he had forgotten his morning nostalgia, even the phone call. He remembered that when, as he relaxed in the drawing room, the butler gave him a folded scrap of paper. It said, " Joydeb Bose as per appointment."

Switching the BBC News off, Mohit asked the butler to call him in - and immediately realised that he should have picked up some snacks on the way back. It would have been so easy on the way back, but he had not even considered it. Would Aruna have thought of it on her own?

"Recognise me?"

Hearing the voice, and looking up to see the man, Mohit felt as if he had stumbled and fallen. The man who had walked in was wearing ill-fitting grey cotton trousers and a cheap half-sleeved shirt, both of which had not been ironed in a long long while. Mohit tried to match the face to his memory of Joy's face but failed to find any resemblance. The stranger had sunken eyes, sun-burnt dark skin, hollowed cheeks, a week-long beard and a largely bald head with a crop of white hair. As he smiled, Mohit could see the two rows of teeth; he thought that if one had to smile with such carious teeth, one should cover up one's mouth before smiling.

" I have changed a lot, haven't I?"

"Sit down." After the stranger had sat in the opposite sofa, Mohit returned to his own. Mohit had a few snaps of himself in his school days in his albums; it was not difficult to identify him. How could it be so tough to recognise this man? Can thirty years change a man so much?

"You are easily recognisable. I would have spotted you even if we had met on the road." The stranger was chatting away. "Actually, I have been through a lot. While I was in college, my father passed away, I had to hunt for a job. You can guess what happened. Without luck, without any support, without any qualifications, for someone these days ...."

"Would you like some tea?"

"Tea? Yes, that would be fine. "

Mohit called the butler for some tea, re-assured that it did not matter if there were no fancy snacks; tea and biscuits were enough for him.

"Oh! You know, Mohit, all day long, I have been thinking of all those old stories."

Mohit did not add that he had done the same too for some time.

"Remember LCM, GCM?"

Mohit had not remembered, but the names brought back the memory. LCM was Lal Chand Mukherjee, the PT master. GCM was Gopi Mitter.

"Remember who took the snap of the two of them standing in front of the water tank?"

Mohit smiled lightly as if to say he remembered. Strange, this was true. If he were not Joy, then how could this man know all this?

"You know, Mohit, the best years of my life were the years in school. Those days will never come back."

Mohit could not help saying, "You were roughly the same age as me, I think."

"Just three months younger."

"How come you look so old? Your hair?"

"It's been a long struggle", declared the stranger with a sigh. "The baldness runs in my family. Both my father and my grandfather were bald by the time they reached thirty-five! My body has caved in to hard manual labour, and the lack of a decent doctor. Unlike you, I never had a desk job. I worked in a factory for seven years, then as a medical salesman, an insurance salesman, several odd jobs. Haven't been able to stick to one job. Just this and that. They say the body will take what you give it, but they don't tell you the result. Look at me and you can know."

The butler brought the tea and snacks. So Aruna had planned it herself. Not bad; he must thank her. What would she think if she had seen him?

"Won't you have some?" The stranger asked. Mohit said he had just had tea.

"A pastry?"

"No, thanks. Please have it."

The man took a bite of a slice of cake, and said, "My son's old enough to go to college. But things are so bad, you know, that I don't know how to pay his entrance fees."

So that was it. Now he understood. He should have realised this earlier. A plea for help, financial help. How much will he ask for? If it was twenty or fifty, it would be sensible to pay and forget it, because a refusal could create a continual irritant.

"My son is very bright, Mohit. For want of money for his entrance fees, his education will stop; I can't bear the thought. "

The second slice of cake was over. Mohit was comparing his mental image of Joy with this stranger; he was becoming increasingly sure that there was no similarity in appearance.

"So, I was thinking, if you could give me about five hundred, then ... "

"Sorry!"

"Eh?"

Mohit had decided to say no to the question of money, but he now felt that he should not have been so rude. So he said, softly, "I'm sorry I'm a little short of cash right now."

"That's OK. I will come tomorrow. Any time. Whenever you say."

"Tomorrow I will be away. I will return in three days. Can you drop in on Sunday?"

"Sunday ... "

The stranger looked downcast. Mohit had made up his mind. There was no physical proof that this was Joy. There were men who knew a thousand ways to make their living through trickery. What if this man was a fraud? Maybe he knew the real Joy. It would hardly have been difficult to find out some events of the school life from Joy.

"When should I come on Sunday?", the man asked.

"Morning would be fine. Say nine, nine-thirty."

Friday was a holiday. The trip to Baruipur over the long weekend, the return on Sunday night was already planned; so this gentleman was not going to find him in the morning. He would not have needed this sham if he had said a clear no. But there are some people who can't say no; Mohit was one of them. If this man came again later, Mohit would find another excuse. Then, hopefully, the irritant would go way.

As the stranger set his empty cup down on the table, another man walked into the room. This was his friend Banikant Sen. Two others were to drop in for the daily bridge session. Mohit noticed Sen's suspicious look at the stranger. Mohit did not bother introducing the two to each other.

"OK, then. " The stranger had stood up. "I will be grateful if you could do this for me, my friend. Really."

After the man left, Sen looked at his friend, frowned and said "That man called you his friend - what's up?"

"He wasn't being so familiar before, but he said it for you."

"Who is he?"

Without a word, Mohit picked up an old album from the bookshelf, flipped the pages and showed an ageing snap to Sen.

"Is this your school crowd?"

"We had gone for a picnic to the Botanics."

"Who are these five?"

"You can't spot me?"

"Wait, let me look." Sen peered at the snap and spotted his friend easily.

"Notice the guy on my right."

"Ya. What about him?"

Mohit said, "This is the man who just left."

"Did he start his gambling in school? ", Sen asked, shutting the album noisily and throwing it on the nearby sofa. "Must have seen him a dozen times at the races."

"Quite likely", replied Mohit. And he described briefly the conversation he had just had with the stranger.

"Call the cops", advised Sen. "This city is full of crooks, and frauds. This chum and that man are the same - impossible!"

Mohit laughed lightly, "When he doesn't find me on Sunday, he will understand. I guess he will not trouble me after that."

After the relaxing weekend at Baruipur, full of fruits and fishes from his friend's farms, rested in body and spirit by the lazy afternoons in the shade of the leafy trees, when he returned late on Sunday night, Mohit heard from his butler that the same man had returned this morning. "Did he leave a message?"

"No, sir."

Great. What a relief. A simple trick, but it had worked. He won't return. Good riddance.

But no. The irritant was gone for the day, but early the next morning, as Mohit sat reading the day's newspaper, the butler again gave him a folded scrap of paper. Mohit opened it to find a three-line letter.

Dear Mohit,

I have twisted my right ankle; so I am sending my son. If you could give him even a little something, it will be a great help. I hope I shall not be disappointed.

Yours,

Joy.

Mohit realised that there was no escape now. But a little would really mean a little. Deciding this, he asked the butler to call the kid in.

A minute later, a fourteen-year-old boy walked in, bowed and touched Mohit's feet in the ancient gesture of reverence and obedience, took a few steps back and stood quietly.

Mohit looked at him for a minute and said, "Sit."

The youngster sat hesitantly on the edge of a sofa, his hands folded on his lap.

"I'll just be back."

Mohit opened the safe in his bedroom and picked up a thick bundle of fifties. He put it into an envelope and returned to the drawing room.

"What's your name?"

"Sanjay Kumar Bose. "

"There is cash in this. Will you be able to take this safely?"

The youngster nodded.

"How will you take it?"

"I'll carry it in my shirt pocket."

"Will you take a tram, or a bus?"

"I'll walk."

"Walk? Where do you stay?"

"Mirzapur Street."

"You'll walk that far?"

"Father said I should walk back."

"Rather, you do this. Wait here about an hour, have something to eat, there are lots of books here, look around - I'll leave for office at nine, after dropping me, my driver will drop you at home. Will you be able to give him directions?"

The young man nodded again.

Mohit told the butler to take care of him, and went upstairs. He was relieved, and very happy. Even though he had not recognised Joy, he had found in Sanjay, his fourteen-year-old classmate whom he was looking for.