The Dummy Boy – Part 2

To read ‘The dummy boy’-part1 Click here
3

‘Hi, Kanhaiyyaji, I am your room mate. My name is Hemant Vishwanath Kothekar and I am from Gadab, a small village near Pen.Shall we move to our room, its in the second floor, room no 204.’
‘Don’t call me ji, I am not of your fathers age’ Kanhaiyya replied sarcastically.
‘Sorry Kanhaiyyaji, I mean Mr.Kanhaiyya!’
Hemant was a lean fair boy with a childish face and curly hair.
There was an aura of innocence surrounding him and he had that ability to connect with any stranger without a moment of hesitation.
They entered the room with his trunk suitcase.
It was an old room with yellowish broken walls and unplastered floors. Two cots were arranged at the left and right of the entrance and a table was placed oppossite to the door. There was an old Khaitan fan, an incandescent lamp and a broken tube holder with abundance of cob webs in designs beyond the imagination of human brains.
‘Welcome to our room Mr.Kanhaiyya, this will be our home for the next three years.’ Hemant looked at Kanhaiyya with a big smile flashing his extra white teeth right into the eyes of Kanhaiyya.
It was already 7 in the evening. After his showdown in room no 101 Kanhaiyya had went to the town to buy some essential stationary. By that time words about his heroics in room number 101 reached every nook and corner of the hostel.
Kanhaiyya took his suitcase and kept it on his cot. He opened the suitcase and took his most valuable items, an old copy of Don Quixote and a Sony Walkman player(audio cassette type). He placed the book in his hands and started carrassing its pages one by one. He loved Don Quixote, he loved adventure and he had always lived dangerously.
The yellow light from that sixty watts bulb augmented the yellowishness of the pages of that old book. He stopped turning the pages when his hands felt her face. She was beautiful, the most beautiful girl in the world, she was an angel.The enthralling radiance of that black and white photo glowed that yellow room with the exuberant whiteness that no fluroscent lamp can ever provide. He loved her more than his life. She was his light, the light which always radiates in the darkness of his life. She was Tejaswini, his Teju, his light.
‘Kanhaiyyaji, Sorry, Mr.Kanhaiyya are you coming to the mess to have your dinner’.
Hemant’s voice pulled him back to the darkness of the real world.
‘No, I had a heavy naashta in the evening, please have your dinner’

Kanhaiyya was already in the flashback mode as Hemant went out of the room to have his dinner.
The song ‘Jalte hai jiske liye…..’filled the voids in the dusty air of room no 204 romantiscising it.

to be continued…………