Ode to the Bulky Wallet

Rajesh was late for school again. His mother forcing him to guzzle down his milk was not helping matters. Still, he managed to shake her off and set off at a dead sprint for the bus stop. He managed to make the bus by the skin of his teeth.

Rajesh was in class ten, at the HN National School. He hated the uniform there. It was lemon yellow with a green tie. Ties were mandatory. If someone arrived without his tie, that person was doomed to spend fifteen minutes being lectured to by Mr. Chakravarti, whose only bad habit was the fact that he had no good ones. He spat at you, he was fat and rude. Suffice to say no one liked the dude. The students had a nickname for him- Bedwetter. As luck would have it, Rajesh had forgotten his tie.

Rajesh spent the next few minutes trying to figure out what he could do to avoid his “Bedwetting session”, when his friend Arjan boarded the bus. Arjan had this air of nonchalance about him. He was sort of a show off, because he got fifty rupees from his father as a week’s pocket money. Rajesh was a bit jealous of him for this reason. His parents didn’t believe in pocket money.  To be fair, whenever he asked for cash, he was given it. Still, it felt odd to him.

School was a complete drag. The day went really badly. First there was the “Bedwetting session” with old Chakravarti. Then, the maths class. To top all that off, Rajesh got his Bio test scores back. He’d flunked.  Again. He was very happy when the bell went at the end of the day.

A short bus ride later, Rajesh was outside his gate. He opened it and went in. His mother greeted him with hot samosas and a cup of steaming milky coffee.  “Things are starting to look up”, thought Rajesh. But the biggest event of the day was when his father came home and called Rajesh over.

“Son, you are now in class X. About 16 years of age. It’s fitting therefore that you have something  that every man has”, said his father and handed him a package. Inside the package was a black wallet.  “I want you to carry this wallet with you at all times, and keep your money in it”, his father said.

The next day, Rajesh proudly dressed up for school. He didn’t forget the tie and he stuffed his wallet in his trouser pocket, intending to show it to Arjan the first chance he got. But then, something about Arjan’s wallet hit him. It was fatter than his, seeing as Arjan had a lot of spare change in it. That’s when an idea formed in Rajesh’s head. He would cut up pieces of newspaper and put them in his wallet, in between the notes or pennies. His wallet would be as bulky as Arjan’s. Or once, he wouldn’t feel small.

The plan worked. Arjan seemed a bit more accessible to Rajesh now. That feeling of not having pocket money left him. School was fun too. For once he understood the trigonometry and the different factors that caused the Russian revolution. He was having a great time.

*************

School had ended and Rajesh was on the bus back home. He wanted to walk a little so he got down a stop earlier than his and started to walk down the road towards his house. He saw the beggar on the pavement and gave him a rupee out of his new wallet. A few minutes later, he wanted to buy some ice cream so he reached in to his pocket for the wallet. His fingers clutched air. He was shocked. He noticed the beggar had vanished and realized that he had been robbed. There was a huge lump in Rajesh’s throat. He went home, went up to his room and began to cry.

*************

The beggar had reached the riverbank. He squatted down and took out the wallet. When he opened it, some pieces of newspaper fluttered out. That was all there was in the wallet. Just pieces of newspaper and two flimsy five rupee notes.The paper pieces fluttered off, some settling in the water. The beggar sat there watching them float away and he began to cry.

The Bilge Master