A conversation that didn't need a name

 

Charred 🌽 on the way

I think the problem with me is that I fall in love easily – not in a romantic sense, but with brief, unguarded versions of people. I can’t really remember when or how this part of my personality changed. I used to generally dislike people. I think I still do, in certain situations. But something has shifted. I find myself admiring small things about people now; little habits, passing thoughts, brief stories they share.

Yesterday, I had one such experience.

I was on a work trip, about 200 kilometers away from home, travelling there and back on the same day. The driver who took me was a young fellow, and the vehicle was from a rental service. This wasn’t someone who had driven me before, and I was travelling alone.

We started the journey long before sunrise, and I fell asleep within the first twenty kilometers. The only thing he knew about me was my destination. He didn’t know if I was a man or a woman, or even whether I was travelling alone, before he picked me up. Later, I learned that he wasn’t the same person I had spoken to on the phone the previous day to confirm.

For the entire journey to the destination, I didn’t see his face. All I noticed was that he was extremely young, probably in his early twenties. He wore a plastic earring in his left ear and had a beard, the kind young gym boys usually have.

We exchanged only a few words on the way there, mostly because I was drifting in and out of sleep. Somehow, we reached the destination earlier than usual, which made me realize he must have driven much faster than my usual driver. Still, I arrived safely, so there was nothing to complain about.

On the return trip, we talked. Or rather, he talked, and I listened, offering very little in return. I think it holds the record for the longest conversation I’ve ever had with a random stranger.  

This boy spoke mostly about his life journey; how he ended up being a driver, how many jobs he had changed because of his short temper. He told me he once beat up a manager who unfairly cut his salary. He was still angry about it, and I could see why. I felt angry too.

He went on to say that no matter how many jobs he tried, his true passion was being on the road. While I was on duty that day, he had visited Ruwanweli Seya. He spoke about how he had just been thinking of going there the previous week, and how his dream came true within five days. He said this often happens to him; if he feels he should go somewhere, somehow the opportunity appears.

He told me about his friends and the trouble they got into. About lighting firecrackers at school and getting suspended. About being tricked by a pyramid scheme and losing six lakhs. About riding a bike from Puttalam to Embilipitiya without a driver’s license. About kicking a young, beautiful lady doctor while regaining consciousness after anaesthesia.

He told me he was married. The families had forced it, he said. He didn’t speak much about love; only about how his wife and his friends’ girlfriends were against them meeting up. He sounded more attached to his friends than to his wife.

He briefly asked about my job and then said he didn’t understand it at all. He had never heard of counsellors working in schools.
“Mata oya scene eka therenne na, miss,” was his response.
He didn’t show any interest in learning more about me, and that was okay. To him, I was simply someone he could talk to, without filters or expectations.

He said the problem with him was that if he stayed at home too long, he would go crazy, so he’d go out looking for work. But after seven or eight days, he couldn’t live without his mother’s tea and dhal curry with rice, so somehow he always had to go back home.

He has three younger brothers, all good at studies, unlike him. He has read many books, he said, but never had the patience for textbooks, which is why he couldn’t get through exams.

There were so many stories. I laughed out loud at most of them.
“I could write a book, miss,” he said.
I agreed.

I asked him why he didn’t write these things down, maybe he really would end up with a book one day.

He told me that once, he had tried writing down his thoughts and asked his then-girlfriend to read them. She told him he was crazy to think that way. Since then, he’s been afraid to write anything.

That’s where I related to him.

I had done something similar once. When I was in my late teens, I wrote out my feelings to a boy I was interested in. He replied, simply, that he didn’t understand what I was trying to say. That was my cue to stop chasing that interest. But the fear stayed with me. For a long time, whenever I wrote or spoke, I worried whether the reader or listener would understand me.

Now, that has changed. What matters more is whether I understand myself.

That was the last thing we spoke about. It was time for me to get off. He had a few hours to rest before starting his next journey, picking up a foreigner from the airport.

I thanked him for sharing his stories and told him I hadn’t been bored for even a moment during the ride back home.

Then I realized something.

I hadn’t asked his name. And he hadn’t offered it.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” I said.

He smiled and told me.

It was a beautiful name.

He never asked for mine.