The Final Countdown

Heat, Harrison, and Alankar thali

The election euphoria faded, as it always does. The academic calendar waited for no revolution.

The summer of 1977 in Nagpur was not a season. It was a punishment. The sun did not shine—it attacked. Roads softened. Air turned into a furnace. The loo blew through the city like a hot slap.

By May, most students fled the hostel. They escaped to homes, verandas, mothers, and shade. Hostel No. 2 emptied out. Footsteps echoed. A door slam travelled down the corridor like a lonely announcement.

I stayed back.

Final MBBS exams were looming, and I wanted the silence. No distractions. Only heat and books.

To survive, I bought a second-hand desert cooler—a rusted metal box that rattled like an old scooter and cooled nothing with conviction. It demanded water constantly, like a thirsty pet. Mostly, it produced humidity. My room felt less like a hostel room and more like a damp cave.

At night, I sprinkled water on my bedsheet and lay down, hoping to steal a few minutes of coolness before sleep surrendered. Days blurred into nights. My world shrank to four walls and thick books—Harrison and Love & Bailey—and the steady trickle of sweat down my back.

Just when the silence began to feel heavy, there was a knock on my door.

Omprakash Singhania stood there.

I stared. “You’re here?”

He nodded, smiling the way people smile when they are tired and stubborn. He too had returned, pulled back by the same anxiety and the same determination.

We were an unlikely pair. I came from a middle-class home in Wardha, counting rupees without shame. Singhania belonged to a wealthy family and moved with a different ease. He owned a Lambretta scooter—the envy of the hostel, a small symbol of freedom.

But Final MBBS is a great leveller. In that heat and pressure, money meant little. What mattered was company.

We fell into a routine. We studied separately during the day, but we took breaks together. We quizzed each other relentlessly.

“Signs of mitral stenosis?”
“Management of acute abdomen?”
“Causes of fever with rash?”

Somewhere between those questions, fear became manageable.

In the evenings, when the sun finally softened into a sultry dusk, we performed our daily ritual. We climbed onto his Lambretta. I sat pillion. He kicked it to life. The engine sputtered, then roared, and we rode out of the hostel gates into the only luxury we could afford—the wind on our faces.

We went to Sitabuldi, to a small restaurant called Alankar, near Anand Talkies. Nothing fancy—Formica tables, metal chairs, too much noise. But to us it was a sanctuary.

For ₹2.50, we ordered the “Special Thali.” Dal, rice, two chapatis, a vegetable, and a small cup of curd. Ordinary food. Extraordinary relief.

We ate slowly. We talked. About exams, yes. But also about our families, our worries, our futures. The thali did not just fill our stomachs. It steadied our minds.

I often insisted on paying my share. Singhania waved it away more often than not, or we settled it in some casual way that did not keep accounts.

That summer, between the heat, the textbooks, and those evening rides, I learnt a lesson that was not in any syllabus:

Success is rarely a solo journey.

Ambition is heavy. But it becomes bearable—sometimes even enjoyable—when a friend carries it with you, along with a thali.

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