Fluctuating G.P.A.

Tag: I am at his funeral, but our story hasn’t ended yet.

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Rahim

A tear somehow managed to escape my eyes, and flow down the wrinkled cheeks where many more of these were about to follow. That is when a young man approached me.

Young man: How did you meet him?

Me: We were at the same university.

Young man: Yeah, but the two of you had nothing in common.

Me: Oh. You are right. We never had anything in common. All these decades later, we still don’t.

Young Man: Then how did you meet?

Me: We met because of an idiot.

Young Man: Huh. What? Tell me the whole story, please.

Me: I want to talk the way he used to talk, in telling that story.

Young Man: Oooh, perfect!

The streets of Karachi were always in motion. A breeding ground for stories, complexities, and developments. It rained once in a million years. We were from the same university batch, but never spoke in the ages that had already passed. Until that one day. The day it rained.

Our exceptionally talented assistant professor announced the wrong campus for a mandatory class on Saturday. It was not easy to find an Uber on a day that looks like a mini-flood in Karachi. He didn’t drive anything. I did.

Young Man: So the two of you shared a ride and felt an instant connection?

Me: Yes and No. I am saying no because not in the sense that it is normally taken, but, yes, actually.

I clearly remember that conversation as if it were last week. You seem like you need to hear this.

Young Man: YES!

I stated the conversation*

Me: So you perform extremely well or the total opposite. In your GPA, I mean. That’s actually very unusual.

*his eyes made contact with the car’s floor, as if seeking his own permission for something. Three seconds of silence felt significantly longer before he broke it*

Him: I don’t care for the things GPA is designed to measure. It’s perfectly alright to try and not make it big. That temporary status is gauging something that you should not care about. An outcome. Care about the process.

Me: What? You need this ‘number’ to get a good a job and you need the job to marry the right girl, have a house, and everything everyone wants. That’s the whole point. Right?

Him: Then that’s a shallow point. One that can’t satiate my appetites.

Me: Food comes from money.

Him: I meant the appetite that burns inside of you like a fire. One that can make you forget food and sleep or anything else that matters. It feels like floating mid air, timelessly, oblivious to the paraphernalia of routine, free from the shackles that you always wear gladly and obliviously.

Me: Who told you to take computer science?

Him: Answer the question. What brings that magic to your life?

Me: Okay, okay, I will. But you go first, what is that that thing for you?

Him: Two things, thoughts and computations. Books and machines are just manifestations of them. I come to campus to satiate my appetite for learning things that open new doors for me. I care about knowing, knowing how to think. Having the right tools to do the breathtaking things that I am capable of. The courses that align with my goals automatically yield a high grade point average. The average itself is not important enough for me to care about. Now, what do you care about?

Me: uh, it is.. uh.. cricket. Playing cricket, thinking cricket, watching cricket, planning cricket. it’s…

Him: Then pursue cricket. Not by burning all boats, but by calculated risks and constant effort. If things fail in the long run for your passion, and even fail miserably, you would have the satisfaction that you didn’t abandon something you cared about just to fit in with the role that you were expected to play in the society. It’s perfectly alright to try and not make it big. That temporary status too is gauging something that you should not care about. An outcome. Care about the process.

*A 45 minute silence followed that was extremely awkward for me. But it moved something inside of me*

Young Man: So that was how you started your career as a professional cricketer? And ended up becoming —

Me: Actually I, started small. Domestic circuits. Leagues. Then eventually the International Pakistan Cricket team and —

Young Man: Whoa! My dad helped one of the most successful captains in the history of Pakistan Cricket! That too in making the decision to play cricket! All his life, I thought he was a wannabe writer and philosopher whose constantly clakkering keyboard would never mean anything. But here you are sayi —

Me: What? His work? He kept writing all these years, and never published?

Young Man: Yeah.

Me: Show me. Show me EVERYTHING. RIGHT NOW!

Wasi A. Rizvi

Dedicated to the friend who keeps pushing me to write fiction. My prayers are with you in this tough time.

10 May 2020

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