Wednesday, June 29, 2011

A Perfect Stranger


‘You look like a 26 year old woman’, he replied frankly in the midst of our conversation when I asked him how do I appear. Well, I was embarrassed. For a girl, age is another big thing after hair.  All my life, I have always been categorized into ‘the old’ category. May be it is because I hardly bother to look young. It obviously is a very common comment for me but a new injection injected by different doctors. So, every time it hurts like hell.
Told you, life is not a silence gas but TNT that can explode loudly anytime, anywhere. Here is another record breaker with a fascinating life comes straightway. A guy who was a perfect stranger for me shares his life and I got an opportunity to look into another shade that life beholds.
He did his schooling from TCV (Tibetan Children Village) Bylakuppe. He was a very active participant in his school days in both the academic and sports activities; the stranger opens up little by little when we were into our talking. ‘When I was young I was very interested in becoming an army’, he said. He reasoned that war is an interesting battlefield and he very much prefers the respect shown to armies. ‘It was a childhood dream. At those times when boys loved wars a lot’, he added.
Securing 89%, he was the topper of Masters in Commerce at St. Joseph College, Bangalore.
‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’, he repeated when I repeatedly told him he looked just the opposite half of his educational brilliance. My first impression was not good. You have read his big achievements but at our first meeting I hardly can read his achievements he carried along for that long time. The 24 year old guy looked like a hippie with colored hair and had dressed more like those hip-hop singers.
Pemba Tsering best known as Pemsi, is a guy whose first impression can wrong anyone. When I asked him why he choose to study Commerce instead of Science even after he was once a bright student. In a country like Nepal and India Science is always the first cake to taste if you are a bright student. Only then one tastes Commerce cake. ‘I asked a holy monk to predict what fits me and my life. He suggested me to study Commerce. So, I followed his guidelines.’
What went wrong? Wrong. I thought. Thought and thought.
I exampled him saying, ‘When you get into an accident and after hospitalization you have as if changed completely into another being. ’ He replied, ‘yeah, as if I don’t know that after an accident and hospitalization everyone changes. Everyone changes after an accident. That’s of no doubt. Don’t give me a blunt example.’  I didn’t refer to physical change but it was like as if a new avatar has come into action.
‘What is life to you, say it in a word?’ I asked him. He said, ‘depression.’ The Pemsi avatar was very different from his school days. Today as I was interviewing him, he does not own the smallest part of the old him. He was very carefree with no dreams like an ignorant child who care not whatever happens if he climbed up a tree. He said he enjoyed his life. ‘Money is nothing for me’, he said. Like many local adolescence he also has tried whatever he thought would be a whole new experience. Ask me what he hasn’t done. ‘It is all peer influence. I am not bad but I cannot tell you the same about my friends’, he continued. He knows how much he has changed but he didn’t give a damn. He cares not what people say. He is in his own world and moreover happy.
However, he told me that when he works, he can surprise anyone. He has worked in different positions after completing his college. He had worked as a teacher, waiter, cook, accountant, manager and in a call center as well. From all his past experiences he loved being a cook. ‘The best part in cooking is that you cook without anyone’s influence plus you are able to show off your talent. When I cook I lost into it completely.’
This was how the stranger reveals his life till now. Truly, my brain was in the brink of explosion throughout our conversations. It took me a while to believe in what he was narrating. A guy like him is another wonder of the world who had tried,lived and experienced life. It cannot be said what happens to this guy after some time. People changes as time goes by. But for the time being he finds no reason to change what he is at all.
Let’s hope whatever happens he stays happy lifelong, the perfect stranger.

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