My Friend Who Said Life Is A Circle

We all have a friend in our group who can crack jokes at will and keep everyone in good spirits. When I say jokes, the ones which irritate others in the name of a ‘joke’ don’t really make the cut! I have one such friend. He studied with me in college and was my roommate in my final year. The last benches in the class were our haunting spots. Listening to lectures in the class was mostly a hobby; Hardly done regularly! Our chosen field didn’t particularly interest us, mainly because we did not choose it in the first place. Somebody else did the choosing for us!

            Let me tell you about this friend of mine. He is mostly cool. It is not easy to ruffle him up easily. Most of the guys would try and feel it rebound on them. It was difficult to get on top of him. In one incident, we were having quite a laugh in of the lectures without doing the assigned work. The teacher walked up to our bench and asked my friend to do the work. He hesitated as he hadn’t listened to the class. The teacher asked whether he would clear the exams if he kept on being careless. My friend, without batting an eyelid, replied, “Nambikkai thaan vazhkai” (Hope is life). The whole class was in splits and I laughed clamping hands over my mouth. The teacher had no option other than to walk over to the podium and resume her lecture. In another class, a teacher who used to irritate the guys called my friend to the podium to give a talk on any topic. My friend wasn’t exactly jubilant and stood on the stage silently for quite a long time. The teacher cajoled him to talk something. The word ‘something’ triggered the mischievousness and he spoke just one line, “Vazhkaingirathu oru vattam, inga jeyikkaravan thoppan, thokkuravan jaippaan” (Life is a circle. Here, the one who wins can lose and the one who loses can win). It was no surprise that the whole class laughed at his cheekiness.

My friend had his shortcomings too. He wasn’t technically strong (Obviously!) and lacked in communication skills (Most of them in the class were!). He had a good ‘relationship’ going in his hometown. In fact, his relationship was the topic of humour in our hostel room with another one of my friends. It was very rare to see him in a dull mood. In one of the mock GD sessions, when he spoke during his turn, many were laughing at his strange accent and statements replete with mistakes. Even the teacher in charge of the GD was laughing. I was laughing too! After the GD, we were walking to the hostel and suddenly my friend’s face went gloomy and morose. He said, “I tried my best at speaking English, but everybody, including the teacher laughed. Why? Because I should not try speaking it? Because guys like me should not attempt things like those?” Tears started to roll down his cheeks. I was shocked! I have never seen him cry before. He soon dried his tears and requested me not to share the incident to other guys. I promised to him that I would. After my college got over, we went our separate ways. I joined an MBA program after 3 months of experimentation in the IT field. My friend did not go to work. He attended a course and wrote some exams. Nothing worked out. His parents started to show disturbing signs. All his friends were doing something worthwhile. He was under pressure to do something. His ‘relationship’ became sour and he broke up with the girl. He joined for his masters in a college. He worked hard, for a change. His academics took an upward curve. His friends there asked him whether he was a nerd. I laughed at it when he told me over the phone. Things were looking bright. He worked on his communication skills and came up trumps. He finished his masters with flying colours and recently got a job. He has finally achieved something. His life has indeed come a full circle, as he once said jokingly in the class!

I dedicate the post to my friend who made a good turnaround when life demanded it from him, against a number of odds.