V was a third year medical student. V liked singing. He has trained in classical vocal music for several years during his school days. V is not an exceptional singer. His singing is passable and clean, but not nuanced or technically brilliant. So in college circles, he was appreciated for singing, but never won any awards, nor was popular as a singer. He was reticent when it comes to singing, but rarely he did participate in some competitions and stage singing programs. A college cultural program was organised and V gave his name for the light music singing competition.
V was overall a quiet and introverted student in college and did not have many friends. As his other classmates who were singers, and some who were not singers, but were popular people, were practicing for the competition, V stood by the side and watched. He had an Aiwa cassette player with a headphone, gifted to him by his uncle a few years ago. He bought the cassette of the movie Kaadhalan and started listening to the song "Malargale...malargale...ithu enna kanavaa...." originally sung by Hariharan and Chitra. He played it and when it finished he rewound it and played it again. He kept doing this again and again every day in the evenings at home. He was too scared to sing it out to anyone in college, because he did not have many friends. He was also scared to sing it at home to his brother or his parents. Theirs was a household that was always filled with devotional music and Carnatic classical songs, so he was unsure if cinema music would be approved. He quietly rehearsed in his mind and in the bathroom.
The day of the competition arrived and V was the first singer on stage. Usually in college cultural events, whenever a popular student goes on stage, even before they start performing there would be a lot of shouting, cheering and whistling. When V's name was announced and he went on stage there was pin drop silence. Pin drop silence is not bad. What is worse is boo-ing and catcalls. That did not happen and so all was well. V performed the song on the mike. There were no instruments, no accompaniments, no background karaoke. It was just him and his partially rehearsed voice. The singing was average. Nothing exceptional. When he finished and walked off the stage there were a few scattered claps here and there. Then the second name was announced. It was a very popular and beautiful girl in the class. The whole audience erupted in cheering her. It was like V's performance was a formality that needed to be completed respectfully and set aside, before the real fun could begin. Following that, the entire auditorium was reverberating with wild noise and happy cheering for all the other singers.
V noticed that there was one thin medium height girl in a brown chudidar who had come to the front of the auditorium when he was singing, clicked a photo of him with her point and shoot camera, and was cheering quietly in the corner as he sang. He did not gather courage to talk to her, thank her or even acknowledge her.
Yesterday, while traveling back from my rural clinic, I bumped into a classmate of mine from 25 years ago during MBBS. She was waiting for the same train that I usually take to get home. She recognised me and yelled my name. Unfortunately, I did not recognise her immediately, but slowly I remembered her face, but still could not recall her name. I was not a very friendly person in college and of the 170+ people in my MBBS class, I barely knew 10-15 of them well. She was very happy to see me after almost a quarter century. She introduced me to her friend who was traveling with her as the brainiac of the batch! She enquired about my life and shared that her daughter is in medical college now. It all felt like ages had rolled on.
There are a few MBBS classmates of mine with whom I stay in touch. I texted one of them about bumping into this classmate and not remembering her name. We had a nice small text conversation about those good old days. While randomly chatting with her, some old memories flooded across my mind. It was the times when I was V, and all of a sudden I remember that the person with whom I was texting was the girl in brown chudidar. I had not even realized this till this moment and when the memory and the warmth of that memory flooded my mind, I felt choked with emotion. I told this friend what I remembered. She probably did not even remember the event, she just acknowledged it and moved on.
Random acts of kindness and the way they make us feel get deeply embedded in our minds. They surface at strange moments and take us completely by surprise. A memory from 25 years ago surfaced in my mind yesterday and I felt happy about it. My mind is still basking in the warmth of that memory. I thought I should share it here.
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