One late afternoon, I entered the second floor of an upmarket Café in Khan Market, Delhi. I was to be interviewed by a PhD candidate from a foreign university for his thesis about something that he deemed me knowledgeable. This meeting was to last for a couple of hours, so we found a less noisy table; next to a glass window overlooking the terrace full of potted plants.
We began talking. And, soon after, came a waiter, he bent forward to wipe the table of some breadcrumbs. On his neck was tattooed ‘p a t i e n c e.’ Each alphabet hanging after the other with an invisible thread, the last few alphabetsdrowned behind his collar. I was intrigued enough to ask him abruptly, ‘nice tattoo, and an unusual one.’ He looked at me with a straight face.
A momentarily silence seemed awkward. I asked him and immediately regretted: ‘do you know what patience means?’ He looked back at me, this time more intently, and with a straight face, in a low sombre voice that I thought resonated, he said, dhairya–the Hindi word for patience. And left. ‘Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience—or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope,” Jane Austin wrote in Sense and Sensibility. Patiently hopeful.
He has an attitude that was palpating and seemed eager for things to happen, life to change, hope, aspiration, ambition. I was intrigued enough to meet him again, a few days later, at a different café in Khan Market. His story was revealed to me in a couple of short meetings, a story of resilience tempered with patience.
Sanjay, 25 years of age, spent a good part of his life in an urban slum not far from Khan Market—perhaps the poshest locality in Delhi—patronised by Delhi’s burgeoning glitterati to hangout. It was not easy to grow on a lonely island of poverty surrounded by the sea of affluence. He saw kids his age spent on a meal more than he makes in a month toiling six days a week, working late into the unearthly hours.
Sanjay lives a life where he’s constantly reminded about his inadequacies in this demonstrative world and his desires remain gloriously unfulfilled, only makes them stronger. Psychologists point to an interesting paradox. Poor spend on both necessities and desires while the rich mostly on necessity. Rich thinks long term, while poor seek instant gratification.
Sanjay belongs to western UP, a Jaat. His father is a conductor in a private bus and his elder brother is a clerk with a lawyer and is married with a young child. Five of them live in a two-room shack.
He makes about twenty thousand a month. Half of it is contributed to the family (how many rich kids of his age-group do that with their income?) and what remains is spent in paying for gym, protein supplements, and healthy diet. His body is his temple, and he prays every day, patiently, for a change, a break from the past, a breakthrough in life.
Sanjay has the looks with rural appeal, raw at the edges, conical face, high cheekbones, eager and bulging eyes that I thought were very expressive. He is fit and strong. Athletic, walks straight despite the onerous burden of hope. He is patiently waiting for a miracle to happen,
Life has been such that it has made him wary of the kindness of strangers. The person in question is me. There has to be an ulterior motive behind an unsolicited generosity. ‘Why do you want to write about me? 'he said when we met in Lodhi Garden. He didn’t want to meet in Khan Market after he recently quit his job at the café; doesn’t seem to be an amicable separation.
I didn’t tell him that his predicament in life interests me, instead, tried explain, ‘I find you situation in life intriguing. I know so much is happening in your life when nothing seems to be happening. I’m curious to know about how hope works. People have done well in life who treated miseries as a motivation for change.’ Perhaps, I ended up saying it in a way, that conveyed to him that I’m moved by his plight. He was a shade embarrassed.
‘What do you want to do in life or what do you want out of this life?’ That’s an existential question many sages have been dabbling with for millennia, but none of them have been as categorical as Sanjay. ‘I want to be rich, very rich,’ he gets a shade impatient.
‘How do you intend to be rich? Do you have a plan?’
‘I want to be a model,’ he says without slightest hesitation.
He has the looks with rural appeal, raw at the edges, conical face, high cheekbones, eager and bulging eyes that I thought were very expressive. He is fit and strong. Athletic. Walk straight despite the onerous burden of hope.
‘Why do you want to help me?’ he asks again.
So much attention from me made him wary. People are transactional, that’s what life has taught him. There’s always a quid pro quo involved. It just can’t be about a write-up.
This was not the first time. People in the past did offer him their kindness on a platter. A white woman, with silky golden hair, was supportive to his cause, opened many doors for him, he recollects. But now she has gone back to her country.
Then, there were some men who approached him with a bleeding heart. I, perhaps, reminded him of them. They promised to change his destiny, assured a miracle, some transformative thing waiting to happen. 'They actually wanted to get intimate with me,' he said, and added with some hesitation, ‘I hope you don’t want physical (favours).’ He said ‘physical’ with a lot of emphasis and that their support was conditioned upon him ‘satisfying’ them. ‘They wanted to be satisfied and not my welfare,’ he makes the distinction.
'I’m glad your clarified,' I said. Now that it was said, this 'physical' business, he was eager to talk about it. ‘I’m good at satisfying people,’ he says, emphatically, A long silence hovered like low dark clouds as we walked towards my car.
He came to the Lodhi Garden on a friend’s bike. They are part of a small band of boys with similar backgrounds, watch each other’s back. There are many such bands of boys, is a practical necessity. On tenterhooks, they react, sometimes overreact, and land themselves in trouble, sometimes big enough that it gets reported at home. Not very cohesive, these gangs are marred by selfish individualism. When there's a money-making opportunity, they get selective and secretive.
Just as I was about to leave, he, more out of desperation, as he gets a bit edgy and impatient, says, ‘I need money. I’m happy to satisfy people.’ ‘I’m no pimp,’ I tell him.
I decided to introduce Sanjay to some of my designer friends, now only those, who, to the best of my knowledge, are not sexually interested in men. I sent Sanjay’s pictures to a designer of international fame, with the request, ‘give him one chance’. He seemed receptive to the idea. I hope things will work out.
The casting couch makes no gender distinction. Success has its own price. It tests one’s willingness to succeed. Young able-bodied urban men from poorer families use their assets to get even with the world. Some gym-instructors from working-class families, seem to be open to ideas of ‘satisfying’ people if it brings opportunities, Sanjay is not the odd one out. The fittest survive, and aspire to flourish. But was it Wayne W. Dyer who wrote, 'I am realistic – I expect miracles.’ Sanjay is patiently waiting for a miracle to happen.
(Name changed and care is taken to hide his identity. Pictures are indicative.)
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