Balram and a mystery

He was the most stylishly dressed man on the campus. Let me call him Balram. He wore modish trousers and shirt during the day and immaculately white kurta-pyjama in the evenings. His kurta differed from everyone else’s; it was half-sleeve and much smaller than the traditional ones. Later, I used to wonder whether Mr Narendra Modi adopted the style of his kurta from Balram.

In my first days on the campus of Sawan residential school in Delhi, Balram was always seen swirling a car key on the index finger of his right hand which was held high.

“Do you know why he’s doing that?” Anand asked me one day.

“Showing off, I guess,” I said.

“As if he is the uncrowned king here,” Anand said with unconcealed contempt. In a year’s time, Anand bought a Maruti 800 car which was what Balram had too. Most teachers in Sawan had two-wheelers at that time. Eventually almost everyone had a car. Towards the end, when Sawan was being killed by a religious cult (more on that later), Balram bought a costly car. Curiously, he started talking to people like me too in those days.

Balram would never talk to me. He usually didn’t even care to look at me. Probably he thought being a Christian by name I belonged to a low caste as most Christians in North India do. Anand once commented to me (I forget the context), “I don’t mind mingling with the low caste.” A few months later, when the school required all staff to write certain personal information on a document, Anand’s caste was entered as OBC [Other Backward Caste] and mine was General Category (which was on a par with the upper castes).

Balram used to refer to me as Angrez. Angrez was Hindi for English. I was an English teacher and I hardly knew Hindi. I used to converse with everybody on the campus in English except the peons at school, the waiters in the dining hall and the numerous gardeners who maintained the campus spick and span. “What did Angrez say?” I heard Balram ask others many times. He would never ask me personally what he wanted to know from me.

A whole paradigm shift took place later when a religious cult known as Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] took over the school with the intention of shutting it down and converting the campus into an enormous parking space for the godman’s devotees who thronged in thousands to listen to his quarterly sermons in the nearby ashram. When it became certain that Sawan would be shut down, Balram started talking to me personally. He offered himself as my counsellor and well-wisher and what not.

I was passing into melancholy in those days merely because I didn’t like what was happening on the campus. Many staff members were dismissed by RSSB without any reason. Anand was also among those who lost their jobs first. Anyone could be thrown out on any day. One teacher was beaten up on the road. A hostel warden was attacked in his official residence on the campus by some women belonging to RSSB and charges of molestation were fabricated against him.

Balram came to my residence [we all stayed in adjacent apartments offered by the school] frequently pretending to be discussing the problems on the campus. I never understood his motives or intentions. I never trusted him either. But he didn’t leave me. His behaviour was a problem added to those I was grappling with because of the new hostile management.

Balram even went to the extent of offering me a teaching post in the prestigious Lawrence School, Sanawar. The school was in his home state of Himachal Pradesh and he claimed to know someone there who could help us. “I will join the school too if you’re ready to come,” Balram said to my utter bafflement. What was he up to? I confess that I have never managed to find that out. Up to this day.

One day Balram told me, “My daughter thinks you’re the best teacher. She speaks so highly about you at home.” I taught his daughter during the two years of her senior secondary but she had never at any time given the impression of having any liking towards me. She was one of the most indifferent students I ever had. I didn’t know how to respond to her father’s new moves at all.

Towards the end of Sawan, just before it collapsed inward like a dying black hole, I went into absolute depression. Balram visited me more frequently. He even brought bananas once with him saying they were happy fruits.

Eventually I left Sawan and Delhi unable bear the weight of my psychological depression. A year later, I revisited the place. The school building, hostels, dining hall, library, staff quarters, every single building had been razed to the ground. A vast arid wasteland stood where my beloved school had been.

I came to know that Balram was staying in a place quite near to the demolished school. I decided to visit him on a sudden whimsy. He wasn’t particularly pleased with my visit though he personally went to the kitchen and prepared tea. His daughter who was in her room didn’t even care to come out. “She’s busy with her assignment,” Balram said. And I was her favourite teacher at school!

What game was Balram trying to play with me? The mystery remains even today. I have enabled anonymous comments on these posts so that some Balram can help me clear such mysteries.

Sawan's last days

PS. I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 

Previous Post: Anand