SHORT STORY TUBE LIGHT

By Zahid G Muhammad

Tubelight’

She stood across the road, grey hair glinting in the sun, her silhouette sharp against Nehru Place’s chaos- perhaps waiting for a bus.   I intended to cross over to visit the computer. Messy traffic—it blurs your vision.

“She looks like a Kashmiri—she is definitely a Kashmiri.” Whether in the crowded and haphazard Nehru Place Market or among the teeming millions at Kaaba during Hajj, Kashmiris are distinctly recognizable. Many pilgrims from African countries and Arabia often mistake us for Palestinians, Turks, or Bosnians and usually ask, “Where are you from?”

When I told them I was Kashmiri, a few would nod knowingly—making me believe they had heard of us. The majority, however, would give me a weary look of ignorance, making me feel small. Perhaps they thought we were some forgotten people living in some remote village in the Sahara Desert.

Why was this old lady with rumpled grey hair looking at me with such askance in her eyes? She is perhaps the mother of my classmate, S— She is her carbon copy. But why should she look at me? She’s never seen me before. Once, when I visited S’s house, she wasn’t there—only her brother and sister were.

It’s been decades since I last saw her, dressed in black robes on convocation day. I remember I had made her blush with a funny remark: “Is this the belle with intoxicating, brimming eyes who launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Zandar Mohalla?”

In 1990, when I had shifted to Delhi, many of my intimate classmates had already left home. In the long list of those who had moved to Delhi, I often looked for familiar names—classmates and friends—but S was never among them.

The contours of the old lady’s face suggest she might once have been as pretty as S and invited some attractive verses like the one I had showered on S: who is wise in love, love most, say least.

As the traffic slowed, she crossed the road and came straight toward me.

She said, “Hello! Wake up. Aren’t you Roll Number One? We had nicknamed you ‘Tube Light’—you always went silent, and it took time for you to chisel out a sentence before you spoke your mind and heart.”

That nickname—Tube Light—lived in some dark corner of my mind.

“Didn’t you recognize me? I’m your classmate, S.”

Looking at her, I suddenly realized—I had forgotten that I, too, had greyed.

(ZGM)