Delhiwale: Portrait of a scholar

Glimpsing into a college student’s dream

This moment, the young man in white kurta-pajama is poring over a book. This moment, he is scrawling on a pad. Now, he is thoughtfully patting his fingers on the forehead. Muhammed Asif is sitting by a table cluttered with newspapers, in a hall shelved with thousands of books. All is silence. He is the only person in the public library this slow afternoon, other than the librarian sitting on her desk, and a bored intern scanning musty rare volumes in a distant corner.

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A student at Zakir Husain Delhi College, Asif is from Mewat, near Gurugram in Haryana.

Asif’s polite tone affirms his natural modesty, but doesn’t prevent him from admitting his own exclusivity. He is an English honours scholar belonging to a place where “hardly anybody understands English.” A student at Zakir Husain Delhi College, Asif is from Mewat, near Gurugram in Haryana. “Ultimately I want to to be an English teacher in my district,” he says, explaining it to be “very close” to the capital “but very different from Delhi, not much developed.” He pauses, perhaps searching for the right words to express his thoughts. “Things can turn around in Mewat only if more children start to attend school, especially if they familiarise themselves with English.” He draws a line on his pad, lips contracting in concentration, softly declaring, “English is an international language.”

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But first, will Asif really want to settle down in his village after completing his years in the big city? “Mewat is my home,” he replies matter-of-factly, adding, “If I don’t go back to help in its progress, then my education will be a waste.”