Delhiwale: Dreams of a father

“It’s the first time somebody in our family scored such marks in high school,” says Beni Prasad Bansal. In his early 50s, the newspaper vendor is talking of his son. “Akshar got 97.6% in his 10th standard board exams.”

He will remember the year 2020 for the rest of his life, he says. Not because of the coronavirus pandemic, though.

The gentleman feels confident in his talented son enjoying a career that will be superior to his. He himself has been a newspaper seller for decades.

“It’s the first time somebody in our family scored such marks in high school,” says Beni Prasad Bansal. In his early 50s, the newspaper vendor is talking of his son. “Akshar got 97.6% in his 10th standard board exams.”

Since Mr Bansal is wearing a mask, it is impossible to make out his happiness, or perhaps his pride, from his face. And he is too soft-spoken, too restrained in his demeanour to betray such vain feelings through his voice. Nevertheless, he must be believed when he says that he has no reasons for any regrets at the moment.

The gentleman feels confident in his talented son enjoying a career that will be superior to his. He himself has been a newspaper seller for decades. Since 1992, this tall quiet man has been standing every morning (his back always straight and erect unlike the passing crowd about him) on the same spot in central Delhi, with his cycle decked with the morning’s newspapers. On this late morning, he has already delivered the papers to the houses of all his regular clients—he stuck one folded copy very deftly in a shop’s shuttered metal grills—and is now patiently waiting for chance customers, just like the vegetable seller standing next to him. He shall go home as soon as all the newspapers are sold. Relatively free for the time, Mr Bansal gives an account of the 10th standard results of the rest of his family to give perspective to his son’s performance.

His daughter, Aishwarya, completed her 10th some years back. “The students were given grades instead of marks the year she cleared 10th. She had gotten B.” The young woman is employed as an analyst in a Noida-based company, and is currently working from home due to the pandemic. Mr Bansal himself scored 73% in 10th. “I had to quit studies after clearing the 12th board exams because of problems at home.” Suddenly shifting his voice to a flat feeling-less tone, he talks of his “old ambitions of setting a private business, but the dreams could not become real.” His wife, Rekha, scored more than him: 80%. She is a home-maker.

His father, Sri Narayan Das, who retired as a bank clerk in 1996 scored... Mr Bansal doesn’t know. He calls up his father on mobile, who tells him that it all happened too long ago for him to remember. All he recalls is that he barely managed to pass. “Back then 10th pass people would get jobs as bank clerks, I think,” says Mr Bansal.And then there was Vimla Devi, his mother. “My mother studied till fifth standard. Women weren’t encouraged to study much in her times.”

Mr Bansal isn’t sure of what his son’s plans are, but for now the boy wants to pursue science as his principal subject. And he aims to score similarly illustrious marks in the 12th standard board exams, too. The vendor doesn’t want his son to pick up his profession. “I have no complaints with my newspaper selling career, but it demands high labour with not much money in return.” Gesturing towards the dailies arranged on his cycle’s handle bar, he says that nobody could predict the front-page tomorrow—will it be all good news or speak of calamities still to happen? “That’s the thing with future... you don’t know what it will be like.” But his son has surprised him by exceeding his expectations and “Akshar’s tomorrow should be definitely better than his father’s or grandfather’s... that’s all I pray.”