So, I am a student of Hotel Management. It is a bit boring because most of my friends are either in engineering or pursuing other flashy careers. There's a factor though. I've always liked kitchen. I've always dreamed of starting my own restaurant in the end. Hence, boring it might be, I am a student of Hotel Management.
I stay away from my family. They are, let me take a wild guess, at least a thousand kilometers away, in a different state. Which state they are in is not important. My college is in Maharashtra, Mumbai to be precise. And Mumbai is a city with surprises. If you look close enough, there is something going on in every corner of its streets.
On one such corner is a café – Tisha's. Uncle Patil runs it and let me tell you, he is another one of those surprises I was talking about. His café is not those stylish sorts you can otherwise find in Mumbai. It is small and modest. Simple wooden chairs and tables and not enough customers. It is located exactly in front of my college but there are other cafés around the corner and they have much more to offer.
I come here because I find peace here. In fact this is the only place where I found peace. I discovered this place when I first came to this city a year back and I've been visiting daily since then. But nothing remains the same. I am having trouble as well. I don’t think I will be able to come to this café anymore. How did it happen? Let me tell you.
Ten months ago, I saw one of my batch-mates entering the café. I didn’t know his name then. I was always lousy with names. But we are not talking about me. We are talking about that batch-mate of mine. So he entered the café but he showed no signs of recognizing me. He simply walked up to the counter, ordered something and settled himself at the far end of the café. I had told you that café didn’t have many customers. That day was a regular day as well. Uncle Patil had two customers that day, me and the batch-mate.
His actions were measured. Everything he did was flawless. You understand what that means? People always fumble with everything, taking a book out of the bag, checking phone for messages, etc. He was doing everything flawlessly. It was as if he had rehearsed every single of his moves. He took out a small notebook and a pen, opened the notebook, uncapped the pen and started tapping it against his forehead. He sat there for one full hour, scribbling something from time to time and sipping whatever drink he had ordered. I couldn’t study that day. I watched him. After he left, I even asked Uncle Patil. He said he had no idea.
A week later, I found out who he was. A drama was staged for a cultural programme in my college and it was fantastic. At the end of the play, the actors forcibly brought the mystery man with notebook and pen on stage. Ashfak, they said, was the author of the play they had so beautifully enacted. Ashfak was appreciated by everyone but he scurried away from the stage on the first chance he got.
Meanwhile, he never stopped coming to the café. It became a routine for me to watch him scribble on his notebook for seven months. I finally approached him. We sat together after that. He never showed me what he wrote in that notebook but he told me once that his notebook defined him.
"All the stories and plays are in the other diary. I write about myself in this diary." Ashfak had said.
"What exactly? What can one write about oneself?" I had asked.
"While developing a character for a story or a play, I write their background. I give them a past to justify their actions of the present. In this diary, I write those details from my own life, the details I write for them." Ashfak had said.
"Autobiography sorts?"
"No, but this diary will serve as the character sketch for my autobiography, if ever I write one."
"You must. You are a wonderful writer."
"How can you say that? You hardly look like a literature guy."
"I have seen three of your plays in the past seven months. They are wonderful."
"Modest." Ashfak had said.
We would have such conversations often. He would make me talk about my life. He had said he could develop a powerful antagonist based on my personality traits. We hardly talked about him though. Only one thing I knew about him was that his family was based in Uttar Pradesh and they didn’t have enough money.
"Oh! I do everything myself. I edit a few e-magazines. I am associated with another few as an article writer. They pay me. That is how I manage to pay the fees and survive. I cannot burden my family with my education expenses." Ashfak had once said.
That went on for three months. The time we had after college was spent in the café. I would study while he would sit and scribble. (I never saw a word of it. He kept his notebook in such a way that only cover was visible.)
Then, one day, he didn’t turn up at the college. He didn’t come to the café as well. I was worried sick but I didn’t tell anyone. Nobody in the college seemed to wonder. Not even Uncle Patil.
"He must have gone to the other café. People always do that after they have seen how less I have here to offer. You are one exception though." Uncle Patil had said.
Three days, nothing happened. There was no news. Then Police entered the college compound. I found out from my source in the Police that they had visited the Principal regarding a suicide committed by one of his students. Even before asking him the name of the student, I somehow knew who it was. Ashfak had committed suicide in his room. Because of the neighbours' complaints about the smell, the Police had found out his body.
My source said Ashfak's body was with the government hospital for autopsy. He also said that he would be cremated by the hospital itself because he had no family. This detail took me by surprise. Ashfak had talked about his family. I told this to the source but he assured me that Ashfak had no family. All of them were dead two years earlier in a house fire.
I couldn’t sleep for many days. I had to confirm if the Police was correct about his family and I did. I dug up his files in the college. It was clearly written in it that all his family was deceased. I couldn’t help feeling that something was missing. There was something that I had missed. There had to be a reason for what had happened and then I remembered it: The notebook.
I contacted my source again. I asked him if they had found the notebook. He told me they had. With some troubles and a bundle of currency notes, my source was able to extract the notebook and hand it to me.
I am sitting at the same table, where he used to sit and scribble, in the café, watching the three words, he ever wrote in it:
"Who am I?"