Mustard flowers, shimmering yellow, spread over acres of farmland in a remote corner of a state in the chilly, winter struck,sun basking northern India...A quiet road transversing the fields shines on a bright sunny day and the generous breeze makes its presence felt...gently blowing across the face of a cyclist..coming from afar...lost in oblivion...
He is popularly known as "Chamku"(which means Shining in English) in his village.Why was he given such a name even though the colour of his skin does not suggest anything like that...may be the profuse sweating that he is prone to, gives his face an unusual shine..therefore the name!
Chamku always keeps on smiling..his smile is infectious! It catches on to you and suddenly you feel you are part of some girlie party that goes on crazily giggling away to glory for no reason at all....He smiles when it rains, smiles when it is scorching hot, smiles..when it is bone chilling cold ..keeps on smiling always...
Foreigners frequent his scenic village quite a bit.They come here looking for eternal peace and calm and many of them have actually confessed that Chamku makes them believe that this village can actually give them what they have come looking for..peace..for isn't Chamku just that-embodiment of peace and calm..
Chamku doesn't understand english at all..however, he loves conversing with these foreign tourists...speaks his own language and still communicates! Wow!Looking at them, you realise that you don't really need a language to understand each other...just a genuine interest in understanding others and being understood can work wonders!ha..they don't teach that at B schools...
Why is Chamku so happy?one wonders, what keeps him so content and genuinely calm? is it his scenic village, that does the magic or the people association that he gets or may be even better, the villagers....what is it?
Nobody has ever been able to answer that..
Yes, but Chamku does one thing absolutely right....he takes a lot of effort to shine the shoes of every passerby,villager, foreigner that comes upto his small box shop...a one box shop rather...works very hard..just to give that perfect shine....to the shoes....just to make them CHAMKU!
One wonders what would have Chamku achieved had he been putting all that effort into his education?
