Character sketch of a person I know.

The Lord of the rings

There are many kinds of people living around us. I do not know the classifications that expert psychologists might make. But I do have my own clear understanding of nature of different people. I classify them as normal people and weirdoes. Shiva Kumar Jha is one such weirdo.

Shiva is from Bihar and currently my classmate. The reason why I term him as weird is his obsession with rings. Right now, you will find him with not less than ten rings on his body. Five on both his hands, two on his ears, one on his eyebrow and two more on his toes.

On being asked to recount his story of how his passion originated, he attributes it to his superstitious grandmother who believed that wearing of rings would ward of evil spirits and make her grandson stronger. She even got one of his ears pierced when he suffered from a severe attack of jaundice.

As young Shiva grew up and learned about the trendier aspects of life, he realized that wearing rings is a fashion statement. This resulted in his reinventing himself. And hence Shiva Kumar Jha was reborn as a new weirdo.

Bizarre that he is, he still believes in wearing the same old rings that his granny made him wear. He dares not take them off; lest his granny sees him sans those rings. But he swears in front of us that he is a true punk with the rings, long hair, et al. He listens to rock music in the night and wakes up at five in the morning so that he can do his pujas. His knowledge on western music is as extensive as his ‘understanding’ of ghosts and spirits which lurk around in the night. In fact, even when listening to music in the night, he never sings along, as his grandmother used to tell him that singing in the night attracts evil spirits.

I have been with him for the past four years or so and have seen him transform from a frightened kid from a rural area to a self proclaimed punk in a metropolitan city. He has his absurd ways, but he is never-the-less, very loyal and academically brilliant. Therefore sworn to be friends forever by his unaccountable number of rings, we stick together. And I sincerely intend to keep my promise.

Impersonation of a person of some profession

                                                                   The cobbler

I am a part of a dying breed. I am a roadside cobbler. I have been one since the time I learnt how to polish and stitch leather. Those were our glory days when leather shoes were worn by everyone. The times have changed. We are no longer in much demand. Leather has been replaced by other synthetic materials which need no mending and are durable long enough to be thrown away when torn. But I am sixty years of age. And it seems too late for me to be switching my profession.

My day begins with an early walk to the nearby school with the hopes of getting some work from the school goers. Children play a lot. School children wear uniforms with leather shoes. And shoes get spoiled while playing. This seems to be my only stable source of constant income. After a trip to the school, I treat myself to a frugal meal in the nearby tea stall.

The bus stop is my next destination. The frequency of customers is poor. But nevertheless, I do manage to earn enough from such patient sojourns lasting the whole day under the shade of the huge banyan tree at the bus stop. I meet a motley array of people the whole day_ ranging from salesmen who need to get their shoes polished to rickshaw pullers who come to get their sandals mended for the umpteenth time.

I expect no gratitude for my work. And I am given none. The years that have gone by have shown me the way to live amongst disappointments and hardships. And the numbered days that I have left with me will also pass by. The only thing that bothers me is the future of my grandson. There is no future for a cobbler. I pray for him. May the almighty help him seek his fortune.

Problems in class:

                                                      The professor and Manu

It was just the other day that Manu was caught in an argument with the prof. It was a very minute reason but the affair blew up to unnecessarily large proportions. It all started with the submission of assignments. It has been commonly seen that most assignments are exact copies of one original manuscript done by a diligent, generous fellow. It so happened that Manu was one of those. Therefore people copied everything from him. The professor, being no fool, at once noticed this when he started checking the assignments. But he is not a person of magical powers to have differentiated between the real work and the copied ones. So, he grabbed the first copy in front of him and took down the name which incidentally was Manu’s. He called him to his office and started scolding him for blatantly copying everything. Manu was very offended, since his own original piece of work was branded as a fraud. His ego saw no reason to not get angry and he replied_

“Do you think you know everything that goes on around? How can you jump to conclusions?”

The professor was not used to being answered back at. So, naturally even he flared up_

“I don’t care if you did it or not. This copy here makes it clear that you are a part of it whether you copied or let others copy from you.”

“Sir, what is this? I am supposed to do the assignment, which I did. You are unnecessarily bothering me with this.”

“You brought it upon yourself. I don’t know anything else and I don’t care. I am calling up your faculty advisor and actions will be taken. Now please leave.”

Manu was dumbstruck. But he was back to his more logical senses. He knew arguing was no longer of use. So he quietly walked out.

Although the professor sounded very strict then, he was a reasonable man and later on when the issue calmed down a bit, he also cooled off and no serious action was taken. But it definitely left Manu a little wiser. Therefore, from the next time onwards, he made sure that whenever he let people copy from him, they at least changed the language or the format they wrote in.