THE ABSTRACT

It was hot and I lay under the fan, wishing it were wafting cool air around me instead of hot air - the momentary respite that it gave me wasn't enough to cool me down properly and then the phone rang:  ' Please come and read my Abstract  - I need to know what you think.  It's important, it's for a scholarship'   How could I let him down? He didn't own a mobile, so this was a borrowed call.   But it was 7 p.m., I'd have to get a rickshaw and travel through a slum and it was getting dark, but how could I let him down?

Half an hour later I was sitting in the Contemporary Art Society Library under another fan, in the bright strip lighting of the reading room.  Suresh, his large brown eyes burning with intensity and triumph, handed me the precious 'Abstract'.  Rabindranath Tagore, W.B. Yeats and others - the names rolled off his tongue.  He'd read 150 books and spoke passionately about his topic.  There was nothing of him - so thin and so in need of financial assistance. The hair on his shaved head had begun to grow again.  'He never eats', the other students told me, 'he reads instead', spending long hours in the library.

He watched me with passionate conviction, as I read the piece of paper which he shoved at me.  Below the title was the name 'Suresh Blossom'.  I couldn't believe it...where had that unlikely name come from ?   I looked again at his burning eyes, the mangled fingers of his right hand - what had caused that?  And then with great diplomacy, I asked:  'Blossom - is that your name?'  Unabashed, he explained that it was his mother's name and she had converted to Christianity, like many lower caste Hindus.

He'd been noticed by the Director of the Library, simply because he spent most of his waking hours there, - and this enlightened man had invited him to apply for a scholarship offered by the Library, to pay for his University fees. The all important abstract was his mission statement.  He had a month to write his essay.   'How big is this scholarship?' I asked.  'It'll pay for a year's fees...!  So much talent, so much effort.   'Your Abstract is excellent - you deserve that scholarship' - a smile swept over his face.  'Do you think it's good, do you understand what I'm saying?'  'Of course it's good, it's excellent, Suresh Blossom' !