Delhiwale: Dreams of Ayush

The lunchtime rush is over

The lunchtime rush is over. A few customers are still lingering over chai. Others have drifted out into the afternoon heat.

For the past year, Ayush Kumar has worked as a waiter at this neighbourhood café in Central Delhi. (HT Photo)

Ayush Kumar finally has a few spare minutes. For the past year, he has worked as a waiter at this neighbourhood café in central Delhi. He is tall, lean and dressed in the café’s red polo shirt and a black cap pulled low over his forehead. At 19, Ayush’s face still carries traces of adolescence. He tends to be cordial with customers but never too friendly. He speaks gently, as though careful not to take up more aural space than necessary.

These days, as the country once again debates education, Ayush has his own reasons for thinking about it. Two years ago, he passed Class 12 with 79% in PCB, meaning Physics, Chemistry and Biology. (Mathematics, he says, was never his subject.) Yet, after finishing school, he did not join college. Looking back, he says he lacked guidance. He had no clear idea what he wanted from life and nobody seemed able to help him find one.

His younger sister, he says, is more focused. Saloni is in Class 12, studying the same subjects, PCB, and she wants to become a doctor. He hopes her journey after school will be clearer than his own.

Soon after finishing school, Ayush’s father suggested that he enrol in a basic computer course. He duly completed the six-month programme but says it left him with a certificate rather than a direction. Eventually, he joined his father’s workplace. His father is the café’s chef. He became a waiter.

Ayush says this is not where he wants to remain. His plan is to study nursing, but he isn’t certain. He is also concerned about AI devouring a multitude of jobs. Education, he nevertheless feels, is still the correct route to the life he imagines. He wants a comfortable house, a car, and a profession that offers stability. Responding to a specific query, he says Delhi’s pollution and politics do little to make him want to stay. If the opportunity came, he says, he would rather live abroad. He believes life in a foreign land may demand harder work but reward it more honestly.

A customer now asks for lemonade.

Ayush excuses himself and disappears into the kitchen. Later, another lull arrives. He stands beside the café’s glass door, looking at the traffic outside.