Standing in some corner of SBI in Shivamogga’s Kuvempu University. Weirdly a memory from my locality in Bangalore struck me. It is this 75 year old ajja who takes boogers out of his nose and waits for someone to say hi, then pats them on their back while his fingers get cleaned. He smiles heartfully, which I believe is not because of fondness, but of the success of sticking his booger onto someone’s shirt.
A pat on the shoulder disturbed this thought flow. I looked back. It was the same – but clean – hand. My momentary horrification subsided as I was hundreds of kilometres away from Bangalore and ajja’s booger territory. (Was ajja a cat in his previous birth?)
It was just the hand of an old man, just another ajja, trying to borrow pen to fill a challan. I lent him the the Reynolds in a ‘go ahead, help yourself’ body language. He was bald, dressed in a pink-faded-formal shirt with office chappal and a pot belly. He smiled like the fimiliar ajja and went to enquire something.
Looking at his wrinkled face and the requesting tone in his voice, I couldn’t help but overhear him. He asked why certain amount was deducted from his account. “Because you did not maintain a minimum balance,” the cashier said.
I wasn’t so patient to know more. Finishing the bank chore and forgetting the pen, I left for the xerox shop just across the bank. During this copy chore, I get a call from an unknown number and hear a sudden squirmish voice saying something I couldn’t fathom that moment. Essentially he said, “Sir, I have your pen. You left before I could give it back to you.”
I realised who it was and turned towards the bank. I could see the figure of this person on the phone talking to me. He looked around as he spoke like he was searching. I lied to him, “Sir, I left the bank, I’m so far away.”
The voice on the phone said, “What to do, sir? I have your pen.” His effort shook my ignorant self and made me think.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I could ever reach him. Physical reach was merely thirty seconds away. I decided not to do it.
Asking him to leave it with the bank official, I said, “I’ll collect it later.” Thanking him, I asked how he got my number – which I had already guessed: the staff. I’d written my contact number on the challan.
I admired him. Didn’t feel angry about the official for giving my number, but only reverence for this ajja. The pen was not even mine. I had borrowed it from a clerk. Now I let it go to some bank personnel?
I played the pen. But, he took care. Why? It told me that he cared enough to get a sense of closure even on minute things.
The bank had just penalised him because he didn’t have money. He took care and enquired about it. He took the pains of finding my number because he cared. He cared enough for himself to allow that care to flow to someone outside him.
In the age of idc, caring like him is something that I aspire for. Reaching him was not to reach him by crossing the road, but so much more.
He had a naturally loud voice. Overthinking, I fathom that a countable number of people in the bank might have noticed him requesting my number, they must have realised that its all for a pen. They surely must remember his act of handing over the pen to the staff.
What he did was an act that created memory; in me, among the bank audience, and in those who knows this episode.
This laughable pen story becomes something worthy of holding close to heart. I aspire to become someone who can create such memories.
***
Thinking back as to why the booger ajja’s memory played in mind.. It might be because my peripheral vision should have picked up on this gentle old man who looked like the familiar booger ajja. It was imperceptible.
But now, every time I see him back in Bangalore, I might not get the same disgust. I might forgive him for his deed and smile at him every time he smiles. For me, his booger territory has transformed into a territory of pen memory.
Reason Demands 
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