The textbook (from the archives)

This was written c2019 and I just found it buried deep in my notes app.

It was an ordinary summer evening packed tightly into a series of other equally ordinary summer evenings. My days were a blur and my nights were a series of table lamp glows and extra large Americanos.

On my way home from my regular stint at the private classes my parents had set up for as a desperate attempt to ensure the best quality of education for me, I stopped by the stall of a small street food vendor. After I shouted my order over the din of the oncoming traffic, I waited impatiently for the father-daughter duo to pack it for me. They were a temporary, but regular addition to the popular metro station that I used everyday.

That evening too, there were about six people surrounding the large kadhai the man had perched on the small LPG stove to cook his products. His daughter was perhaps twelve at the time. Or maybe thirteen, I can’t be too sure. She was diligently picking up piping hot fritters and samosas, putting them on small paper plates, pouring spicy red and green chutneys and serving them to the impatient customers. One after the other after the other.

Then came my turn. She picked up an old book kept beside her. It was partially oil soaked and half of its pages had been ripped off to make the small paper bags they used to pack the “takeaway” food in. I managed to read the words and figured it was an elementary level English textbook. The kind kids read while in primary school.

She grabbed it with both hands and under the faint glow of distant neon lights and the sudden headlights of passing vehicles, she peered intently into the spotted pages, trying to read what was written, trying to gain the infinitesimal knowledge she could in that moment. And in that moment, she was in her own world. She didn’t care about the six people standing over her, she didn’t care about the fact that the food she was supposed to pack was getting cold. All that mattered to her was the book and the little words written on it.

She was dragged out of that world by her father. He snapped at her to hurry up. She started, looked up, and quietly tore off the page she was reading. She then fashioned it into a conical packet with her small hands, poured my order in it and handed them to me.

“How much for that?” I asked.

“30 rupay, didi.”

On my walk back home that evening, I clutched my books a little tighter.