“Some of my batchmates have become real bigshots,” Swami sneered at me and Jigneshbhai from his cup of coffee the other day. He had just returned after attending a sort of mini reunion with his graduate class. Not that he met a lot of them regularly, but such reunions often rekindled the old habit of comparisons.
“One is a CEO of a big tech firm; another is a film producer. One leads a big bank. I never thought they would reach such heights when in college,” he remarked. Jigneshbhai looked up from his muffin bite.
“Congratulations. Good for them, isn’t it?” he remarked.
“Yes, good for them,” Swami agreed. Then he hurriedly added, “And I am here still following Raichand’s orders.”
That gave me and Jigneshbhai an indication of his fragile mindset. I hoped Jigneshbhai didn’t delve any further into it. But I knew he would. We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Do you remember people you see at an airport or a railway station?” he asked, out of the blue. Swami and I tweaked our brows and brought them closer together in a frown.
“Or even in your flight or train?” he persisted.
Swami took a big sip from his coffee and let the question pass. But Jigneshbhai had one more down his sleeve.
“What about those seated next to you on your seat in the flight or sleep in the adjacent berth on the train? Do you keep track of where they went after you got off?” he asked.
This irritated Swami no end.
“Why should I remember all these co-passengers? They go their way; I go mine after the trip. What’s the point?” He asked.
Jigneshbhai had a huge grin on his face.
“Then why do you keep track of your batchmates? Didn’t you just travel with them for a while?” he asked.
“Why shouldn’t I? Didn’t we study together? Come on. That’s quite different from just taking a train or flight together,” Swami argued.
“Yes, you did. But it is just another frame of reference,” Jigneshbhai counter-argued.
“Oh come on, it’s not the same,” Swami wasn’t convinced.
“Well, it’s just a play of the mind,” Jigneshbhai pushed on.
“Not at all, they are all good friends,” Swami persisted.
“You don’t keep track of friends,” Jigneshbhai insisted.
I kept turning my neck between my argumentative friends like watching two tennis players on opposite courts.
“Well, what’s wrong with keeping track anyway?” Swami continued, egged on by Jigneshbhai’s nonchalance, as usual.
“Well, because most of the times your attention goes to the batch mate who purportedly seems better placed in his career,” Jigneshbhai explained.
“But then, that’s because he is an outlier,” Swami argued.
“But your mind holds him as the benchmark,” Jigneshbhai said with his normal serenity as opposed to Swami’s fluster.
“Which he is, and should be,” Swami continued.
“But benchmarks lead to comparisons,” Jigneshbhai said. “They make you feel you are nowhere. Which is far from the truth.”
That stopped Swami in his tracks. Finally, our wise friend had got his mind thinking.
“Perhaps,” Swami said. We sat in silence for a few moments before I noticed that the wealthy old man had walked across to our table from the adjoining one. He put a hand on Swami’s shoulder and looked at us.
“You travel together but not everyone is on the same journey. Some found their destination, some just got started, while some are still searching,” he said, making Swami and me ponder on what to make of it, while Jigneshbhai smiled.
***