Ajay is a devious little joker. His name is pronounced “Ah-zay,”
but he will forever be “A.J.” to me. Some of his favorite things to do are play
football, chess, and to rapidly move his eyebrows up and down while looking at
me with a smile that either says “hey
friend, what's up?” or, “I wouldn’t eat the lentils tonight if I were you...” I don't know which.
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| Ajay, waiting to play the winner (likely Dipesh--sorry, Rachel) |
Ajay probably makes me laugh more than anyone else here in
Nepal. He is a very funny guy. You could call him a class clown, but he is
exceedingly clever as well. He is strategic in everything he does, and is one
of the best chess players at the school. However, nine times out of ten he will use his sneaky skills to avoid doing a question set, rather than to use his
powers of logic to actually solve the problems I have set before him.
Unlike my other interview victims, I barely had to ask Ajay
any questions to get him talking. He wanted to talk. He wanted to talk a lot. I
will do my best transcribing our conversation, but he said a lot of words and
concentrated more on what to say than how to say it in correct English. Here’s
the cheeky chatterbox named Ajay Sharma.
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Me: Introduce yourself. Tell me about your family, where you
live, how old you are, things like that.
Ajay: My name is Ajay Sharma, I live in Teku, near Kalimati
in Kathmandu. From Teku I went to school everyday. At first, I don’t want to go
to school, so I used to hide my things everywhere. My mother came and said,
“Lets go to school,” and I said I don’t want to go to school and she said, “OK,
lets go to factory” (where my father works) and I say, “OK! Lets go!” And we go
and in middle, she change my place and take me to the school.
My brother, he teach me a lot of games. At first he teach
me basketball, but I don’t play too much. My brother’s name is Raj Kishor Sharma,
and my middle brother’s name is Jay Kishor Sharma. He is now reading about that
engineering, like with computers, computer software, Photoshop, things like
that. And my big brother, Raj Kishor Sharma, he is learning to be doctor. After
two years he will be completely doctor.
At my house, my house has three floors, and to make money,
my dad is giving to that, what do we say…
Me: Rent?
Ajay: Yes. He will rent the rooms to many people and one
room we have... My father is telling to my brother, that, “If you finish your
course in computers, you can go in our home and you can learn more about
computers also, and you can open there a small shop.
Me: That would be cool.
Ajay: And my father’s name is Dinesh Prashad Sharma. His
industry is a recycle company. Like if things is wasted, make it like, uh,
small chips and send to another place and other companies will make it like
into something else like that.
Me: Cool.
Ajay: And my mother is a housewife. Her name is Kishna Sharma. She is also help to my
father in work. Sometime at the holiday, our three brothers we also go and
help them with what we can.
 |
| "You lookin' at me?" |
Me: So, umm… Holidays, what’s your favorite holiday?
Ajay: My favorite holiday is three years ago, that Dashain,
on that time I don’t know how to fly a kite, and that time I take a kite and
run away in the road and I tear my kite. And my brother was on vacation at that
time because he was not [taking] the SLC at that time. Now he’s got to pass the
SLC, he’s not interested too much, so nowadays I only fly the kite when I get
the chance to, in Dashain. But when he gives me money to buy a kite and
sometimes he also flies with me kite.
Me: Cool—
Ajay: --But nowadays he is, in Dashain time, in Delhi where
he is learning, so he cannot fly the kite.
Me: Are you Hindu?
Ajay: Yes.
Me: Is your religion important to you?
Ajay: As everybody has their religion, it is important, same
as I need to follow my religion. My father, he believes in god so I also need
to believe. It doesn’t mean that if he believe then I also believe…they worship
to god, so I also worship to god with them by sitting together.
Me: …Who is your best friend?
Ajay: My best friend is Yagya. When I was living in
Kumudini, at Kumudini High School, he was also living with me at that time.
When he came there the first year, I don’t know him too much nicely, but when
we changed our level of class, we became nice friends and our relationship was
being very nice; sharing food with each other, having fun, and when he have a
holiday like Dashain time, we went to each other’s home. And we go to someplace
like Swayambunath, and one day we have gone to Swayambunath top and there was a
tree with that food, uhh, like, red color, once? [puts fingers together showing
size]
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| Ajay and Yagya (and Bibek in the back) |
Me: Like a lychee?
Ajay: Yes... like a lychee. And we find it and we eat also. And
with me, was my uncle’s son also. When I go anywhere I take him with me also
because I don’t like to go alone anywhere. When I went to my uncle's home, I
stop and I buy cheese, I always buy cheese when I come because my [cousin]
likes cheese and I also like cheese.
Me: Can you tell me about a time you got in trouble? Tell me
about the time you got in the most trouble. Either at home, or at school--
Ajay: --At school? At the school in Kumudini, I am very weak
in Nepali subject, and one day she said, “Whoever doesn’t complete this
homework I will make come here, and open their t-shirt (in front of girls), and
do their homework.
Me: Oh no, like tear your shirt open in front of the class?
Ajay: Yeah. That was my worst punishment. And one more thing
about Kumudini, Sita Ma’am was there and she was strict and there was kids with
big hair like [brushes imaginary luscious hair]. And if a bigger student, like
8 or 9 class, if they make their pants too long, like down to here, she cut their
pants also. And if their hairstyle gets too long also, she [mimes scissors over
his hair].
Me: I’ve asked everyone this question, I really want to hear what
you have to say. If you could say something, one thing, and the whole world
could listen, what would you say?
Ajay: [spreads his arms wide and quietly yells,] “I love
her!!!”
 |
| Bizen teaching Ajay how to ballroom dance and maybe get someone to fall in love with him someday so he can scream a name to the world |
Me: [laughing] You love who?
Ajay: Somebody...
Me: Oh, oh, you haven’t found this person yet, but that’s
what you’ll yell? You need to find her, man! You have to fall in love with
somebody before you can yell their name to the world. Ok, never mind, that’s sweet... Can you teach my friends two things about
Nepal?
Ajay: About roads?
Me: About anything, anything you want. You know what, just share
two things about Nepal for my friends.
Ajay: People should know about how much the population
increase and they are making everywhere house. If this school area was
everywhere, with our trees, and more trees everywhere, then it would be nice.
And some roads are very small, and they are not nice. Some roads are very big,
but they are very dangerous. If they want to make the road complete, it needs traffic
signals, zebra crossings…
Me: I want to know about your village in the Terai, before
you moved to Kathmandu, what was that like?
Ajay: That was like, everywhere the road was up, down, up,
down and there was no development like here. There was a nice environment, like
from here to about there [points way beyond, out the window], there was farming
land. But there is no facility like a shop… If you wanted to buy something like
meat, like that, you need to travel for ten, twenty kilometer non-stop with cycle.
And the road is very trouble.
Me: Ask my friends one question.
Ajay: My advice? To don’t come to Nepal.
Me: Don’t? Everyone else has said to come here.
Ajay: My advice to don’t come. If you come also, don’t leave
too much from our place, because our environment here [at the school] is nice,
but outside is very dirty.
Me: Is there anything else you want to say?
Ajay: One more thing about that school… [a 5 minute story
including a fight at his old school, Asoke’s son Richard playing guitar
nicely and whistling nicely, and the change in management of his old school, and an
old teacher who employed a particularly cruel punishment to get kids to do
their homework]
Me: Whoa! Well now I know why you guys never listen to me, I’m
not nearly that scary. Ok Ajay, want to say goodbye?
Ajay: For today this much also: have a nice day, bye-bye,
see you another... time.
