I was in the second standard when on one overcast day I was playing hide and seek during the recess. I had hidden behind a frangipani bush. I was nervous lest those hunting me find me. Of a sudden, a boy my age parted the branches concealing me and grinned. “Found you,” he said and ran. It did not matter though, he was not playing with us.
A few days later, I found myself sitting on the same bench with this boy. He was never quite. He told me about his pet python. He told me that his name is Dibakar.
Dibakar kept his pet python beneath his bed and fed it on biscuit crumbs. It was a tame reptile and was fond of him. Did it have a name? No he had not bothered to give it one. I wanted to see it so dearly. But whenever I expressed the wish, his python will be unwell. Dibakar had also driven a jeep all the way to Deo and back. I came to admire him immensely for his daring. As time wore on my admiration remained untempered. But since both the existence of the python and the exploit with the jeep remained unverified, it was his tale telling that elicited and retained my admiration. Only Shiv was to match, and occasionally surpass, this skill of his many years later.
After a few days on the same bench with him, I took to sitting with Tope. I sat with Dibakar again in the sixth standard. After that it was constant carnival. We grew together, guffawing together, punished in unison in school. We spent most classes tittering. As the teacher taught, Dibakar paraphrased under his breath, adding his own bits to the knowledge dispensed. He will invent countries on strange latitudes, devise ingenious arithmetic. What do you get when you multiply a cow and a cat? A porcupine he will tell me, of course not bothering to explain how he arrived at the answer. Like me, he was not so good at the more traditional arithmetic. He was an earnest mimic who believed that teachers exist so that they may be mimicked and young fellows like us enjoy some unqualified mirth. He had a couple of favorites, Mr. Sharma who taught us English and Ms. Madhumita, the Math teacher. One might recall that the Math teacher lived on the same street as us. So, in her class I will ask Dibakar to desist from demonstrating his art. But he never saw any reason for caution. After all, he lived two streets away. Our faces often gave us away as they will be red with suppressed laughter. They gave us away twice in Ms. Madhumita’s class. But all she did was to make us sit on separate benches. Mr. Sharma however brooked no jesters in the class. Having caught him in the middle of a performance once, he made Dibakar recite Give a Man a Horse He Can Ride. We had this James Thomson (1834-1882) poem in our text-book. Nevertheless, if this was meant to be a punishment he refused to get the point. On the contrary, as though inspired by the poem, he became even more of an individual choosing to ride horses of his preference.
He could disarm even the class bullies with his sense of humour. Gimpe was actually a good natured fellow but he wanted to be a tough guy. So he decided to be a bully. Unfortunately, he chose to inaugurate his career as a bully by picking on Dibakar. He was a stuttering wreck in no time. The rascal had confused him utterly. Besides, it was not easy to maintain the demeanor of a bully when talking to Dibakar. One could not help breaking into a smirk and ceased to look tough the instant one did. Gimpe went back to being good natured.
Dibakar could confuse all pretty well, both teachers and pupils, even though we tried our best to beware knowing his felicity with words. He often managed to bowl four ball overs or bat twice in an innings when we played cricket. We hoped that he gets into the Indian team and revives its fortunes. He will, we belived, turn out to be more than a match for the vigilant umpires, even the likes of Bird and Venkatraghavan. The Indian team was doing rather badly in the mid and late nineties and often faced dire situations. We all unanimously agreed that what the team needs are the disputatious skills of Dibakar. Imagine India following on and Dibakar managing to return to the crease at number seven after opening the innings and getting out. I wanted him for our Prenex Cricket Club but unfortunately he played for a rival team. Our faith in him was enormous, we knew that he could confound not just the umpires but also fifty thousand spectators. We drew our faith from how splendidly he fuddled our teachers. There were occasions when as homework we will be asked to study a lesson. The next day we were expected to answer questions based on it, all of us. Dibakar, however, managed to escape sometimes. “Oh, I have answered a question already Sir, in fact, I was the first to answer one,” he will say when asked which part of India has alluvial soil. “How can you be the first when you are sitting in the fifth row?,” Mr. Thakur will express a very genuine reservation. “Actually Sir, when the class started I was occupying the very first bench, but you might recall that you went out for a couple of minutes when the peon came to deliver some mail, that is when I came and sat here,” he will glibly explain. In case he is asked if he had a telling reason to do so he invented one instantly. “This fellow,” he will say pointing to the boy he will be sitting with, “is not feeling very well. I thought I had rather sit beside him and see him through the class.” Mr. Thakur was a very simple man, he will give our friend a smile of admiration and approval and then ask the next boy which part of India produces the most cotton. On so many days Dibakar was the only thing exciting about the Geography class.
