By Upendra Mishra
BOSTON—I don’t exactly remember what triggered my decision to leave Allahabad University, where I had just enrolled for a Master’s in English Literature after completing my bachelors. Maybe it was a whisper of ambition, maybe restlessness, or maybe destiny nudging me quietly.
What I do remember is hearing about a new university—Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi—that was being hailed as the best in the country. That was enough for me.
It was a sweltering early summer in my village—dry winds blowing, the earth cracked under the sun, and my mind bubbling with possibilities. My grandfather, as always, never questioned my decisions. But even he looked puzzled when I mentioned JNU in New Delhi.
“Who do we know in Delhi?” he asked, mostly thinking out loud. Logistics was the real worry—not the admission, not university.
After asking around, we discovered that a man from our village, Ugrah—the dhobi—worked in the laundry room of a big hotel in New Delhi. That was all I needed. I went to visit his wife in the village, who gave me his Delhi address: Janpath Hotel, New Delhi.
“Now, all I need is a train ticket and 250 rupees,” I told my grandfather confidently. I bundled up my certificates, tied them with a thread, and boarded the overnight train to the capital—my first-ever journey to New Delhi.
It was like stepping into a new universe.
The moment the train halted at New Delhi Railway Station, I could feel the enormity of the city vibrating through the tracks. The air was different. The people, faster. The city smelled of ambition, of dreams, and perhaps danger. I was a village boy—clutching my bag, uncertain but eager, with wide eyes and a pounding heart.
My plan was simple: head to the Janpath Hotel in Connaught Place, find Ugrah, leave my bag with him, and then go to JNU to apply for the admission. I had nowhere else to stay, but I figured I could crash at his place for a few days. If JNU didn’t work out, Allahabad University would be my backup.
When I exited the railway station, I instinctively looked for a rickshaw. “No rickshaws in Connaught Place,” someone said. Taxis or auto-rickshaws were my only options. I chose an auto—the cheaper route.
“Janpath Hotel,” I told the driver. He gave me a long, surprised stare. A dusty village boy heading to one of the poshest hotels in Delhi? I could tell what he was thinking. He charged me double, maybe more, assuming I was loaded.
Walking into the Janpath Hotel was a cultural earthquake. I had never seen anything like it—clean, air-conditioned, marble floors, chandeliers, elegant sofas, and people speaking fluent English. It felt like I had walked into a different planet.
I had no idea how to find Ugrah, but I noticed people going to the front desk, so I hesitantly approached and asked, “I want to meet Ugrahm, who works here in the hotel.”
The receptionist scanned the staff registry. “No one by that name,” he said. My heart sank.
“He works in the laundry,” I explained. They sent someone to check, and a few minutes later, Ugrah appeared, equally shocked to see me. “What brings you here?” he asked, still rubbing his hands on a white towel.
I explained my plan and asked if I could stay with him.
“No, Babu,” he said, shaking his head. “Ten of us share a tiny room. There’s no space—not even for your bag. It’s not safe either.”
“Just keep my bag in the laundry room for the day. I’ll go to JNU, and we’ll figure it out by evening.”
He agreed.
Outside, I asked for directions to JNU. Destiny smiled on me. “Wait by the bus stop,” someone said. “There’s a university bus with a JNU sign that stops here.”
Within 45 minutes, I was standing in the heart of JNU’s campus—its famed “down campus”—with students sitting walking and sitting around, and a quiet energy that felt like it belonged to thinkers and dreamers.
I filled out my application for the master’s in international studies, but then learned I’d have to return for an entrance exam. I had no place to stay. No plan.
Hungry, I wandered into the JNU canteen. On my way out, I saw a familiar face—a boy I’d seen around Allahabad University. We introduced ourselves.
“Urmilesh,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Applying for the Master’s program.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Janpath Hotel,” I mumbled.
His eyes widened. “That’s a five-star hotel! Come stay with me at Poorvanchal Hostel. Don’t waste your money.”
Like a miracle, I had found a guardian angel in a strange city. That evening, I retrieved my bag from Janpath and shifted to Urmilesh’s room. We got along like long-lost friends. I stayed with him for almost a month, during which I not only cleared the entrance exam but was also awarded a full scholarship and allotted a room in Kaveri Hostel.
JNU was now home.
A few months into my stay, I was invited to a Free Thinkers meeting—a student group known for its independent spirit. The tiny room was buzzing with passionate talks when I saw her. She was sitting quietly in the corner, wearing a simple salwar kameez and no makeup. She was the same girl, the girl in Rajasthani pink top and in jean I had met on my first formal day at JNU. That girl. That gaze.
Our eyes met—and something cosmic happened in that room that night.
In that one, electrified moment, her eyes pierced through me like they had known me in some other lifetime. I looked at her, half-lost, and she looked back with a quiet storm in her eyes. Everything—noise, people, the meeting—faded. I was floating.
After the meeting, I wandered around the JNU campus aimlessly until sunrise. The image of her eyes lingered like a haunting melody I couldn’t shake. I didn’t sleep that night. Nor did I attend classes the next day. I was somewhere else. She had carved herself inside my heart.
Yet, by grace or fate, we became friends. How and when that turned into deep friendship, I still cannot say. It wasn’t a love that needed a name—it was a soul-to-soul connection. Even today, I still try to make sense of it. Sometimes it feels real. Sometimes it feels like a beautiful illusion.
My friends teased us endlessly. If I boarded a university bus, they’d leave the seat next to me empty—for her. Every time she sat beside me, I felt like the world was in its rightful place. We had endless tea sessions in the canteens, walks, library meet-ups, political debates, and shared dreams.
Eventually, I was chosen to run for Vice President of the JNU Student Union as the candidate from the Free Thinkers group. I lost the election by a mere 36 votes—derailed by a rumor that I was an Israeli agent, simply because I had written a paper on Palestine that was accepted for a conference in Israel.
It broke me. I shut myself in my room.
Then one day, a friend knocked on my door and said, “Congratulations!”
“For what?” I asked.
“You may have lost the election, but you won every girl’s heart on campus.”
We laughed. I felt lighter. Life resumed.
But nothing could prepare me for the day I saw her—my pink-top jeans girl—having tea with another boy. My ego shattered. I was consumed by jealousy and said to myself: Never again. I stopped talking to her. The devil within me had struck.
I briefly dated someone else—one of the widely admired girls on campus, but my heart wasn’t in it. She wasn’t her. It was all just noise to distract myself from the silence she had left behind.
Years later, while I was living in Boston, I got a call.
“Are you Upendra Mishra?”
“Yes.”
“Did you go to JNU?”
“Yes.”
“I’m XXX. Do you remember me?”
Of course I remembered her, whom I had dated briefly.
She said she had searched for me for years but didn’t remember my last name. Eventually, she found my name on The Mishra Group website. But before I could get her number, she said, “I told my husband about you. He’s jealous. I can’t stay in touch. I just wanted to know that you’re okay.”
We spoke for about 10 minutes, reminisced about JNU, and then she was gone again. Forever.
When I was selected for an Indo-Mexico exchange scholarship and was preparing to leave, the pink-top girl handed me a book on learning Spanish and a photo of us together. I still carry those with me. They’ve traveled across continents, across decades.
Recently, someone asked me a simple yet piercing question: “What is the most precious thing you own?”
I paused, looked around at my belongings—some collected through the years, some inherited, some earned with hard work and luck. Among them was a delicate gold necklace that once belonged to my mother—my beloved mother, who had left this world far too soon. The necklace shimmered faintly in the soft light, holding decades of love, sacrifice, and memories. It should’ve been the obvious answer.
But my heart—without hesitation—turned elsewhere.
It leapt over the gold. It leapt over every award, every souvenir, every item of status or sentiment. It flew directly to an old, worn book on learning Spanish, and a photograph of two young dreamers caught in a quiet moment under the monsoon sky of JNU.
That Spanish book… It was the first gift she ever gave me. I was preparing to leave for Mexico—an entire ocean away—and she handed it to me with a soft smile and eyes that held more than just friendship. “You’ll need this,” she said, trying to sound casual. With that book, she also gave me a photograph—just the two of us, frozen in time, standing close but not touching, the air between us charged with the unspoken.
I remember my fingers brushing hers as I took the book. I remember the way she looked at me—as if she wanted to stop me, but knew she couldn’t. It wasn’t just a book. But I took it as part of her heart wrapped in paper and ink.
That photograph still carries the scent of those days. Her presence. Her laughter. The warmth of her being. When I hold it, it speaks to me in the silent language that only deepest love understands. It has traveled with me across countries, continents, and years. Through heartbreak and healing. It has been my shelter in storms, my smile in solitude.
I’ve moved many times since JNU—crossed borders, built a life far from where it all began. But those two items have never left my side. When I packed for a journey, they were the first things I wrap with care. When I found a new place to live, they were the first things I placed beside me. They’ve become my anchor, my compass, my home.
And yet, it still surprises me.
That I would choose those over my mother’s gold necklace. That the love and freindship she and I never named, never fully defined, could carry more emotional weight than even the sacred memory of my mother’s jewelry. It doesn’t mean I loved my mother any less. On the contrary, it means that this love—this unnamed, infinite, soul-deep love—was perhaps a continuation of the love my mother had poured into me. As if, in giving me that book and that photo, she picked up the thread where my mother had left it.
It’s not the cost. It’s not the rarity.
It’s the echo of a gaze shared in a dimly lit room during a Free Thinkers meeting. It’s the rustle of leaves as we walked through JNU’s meandering campus. It’s the hope that someday, somehow, she’d see what she gave me—not just language lessons or memories, but a piece of my soul back to me.
And so, when asked about my most precious possession, I smiled softly and whispered to myself: “It’s a Spanish book with her handwriting on the inside pages… and a photograph that once held my entire world.”
And so, even now, decades later, when I see that photograph and the book, I pause. The world around me goes quiet. The edges of time blur. And I feel, once again, like the young man walking beside her through the JNU campus, heart full of hope and eyes full of stars.
That love—unlabeled, unfinished, unforgettable—is still with me.
Stay tuned for Part 10: Mexico: Where the World Opened and the Heart Remembered
(Mr. Mishra is the managing partner of The Mishra Group, a diversified media firm based in Waltham, MA. He writes about his three passions: marketing, scriptures, and gardening.)
