Please Sir, I Want Some More!

I first got to know Nawang during his final year in school. Until then, I only knew him as a senior from the Nehru house. It was a distant acquaintance. He wasn't unapproachable, but I never had any reason to approach him.

That changed with Mrs. Saldanha, our school principal’s announcement during assembly one morning.

“... and finally, I am happy to announce that this year, our school’s annual play will be performed in new format. Instead of multiple plays in Hindi and English like in previous years, we will present a single play. This year, the students of the St. Xavier’s Boys’ Academy will perform a play based on the book Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.”

The announcement was a disappointment to most students. By eliminating the competition round, the rivalry to score points between our four great houses of Tagore, Tilak, Nehru and Kabir had been taken away. Conspiracy theories swirled almost immediately.

“She hates Mr. Singh / Mrs. Srivastava / Mr. Rai (our Hindi teachers) and doesn’t want them to win the award for the best play!”

“Saldi (the principal’s nickname) doesn’t want Kabir / Tagore / Nehru / Tilak house to win the championship.”

In hindsight, my guess is the real reason may simply have been that the teachers were struggling with the effort needed to present three different plays while simultaneously managing their classes and the curriculum.

Savio, a talented, hardworking and patient Director was hired to prepare the students for the grand event.

While many of us hadn’t read Oliver Twist, it was easy enough to see that the key parts were Oliver, Fagin, Nancy and Bill Sikes.

Oliver, was to be played by a talented junior, whom we’ll call Zubin (for the life of me, I can’t remember his name! Sorry Oliver). Nawang, Hrishikesh (Hrishi) and I were selected as the main supporting acts.

I was to play the villain Fagin, Nawang played Bill the thuggish bully and Hrishi drew the short straw (in our opinion) by being cast as Nancy. Naturally, he was ragged by most of us. Did I mention this was an all boys’ school?

Hrishi, though, was a good sport about it all and I don’t remember him ever losing his cool. Underneath however, I’m sure he was seething with the double frustration of being made fun of all the time and also for being selected to play the female lead!

The initial weeks of rehearsals were not promising. Lines and cues were constantly being missed or misspoken. Our singing was terribly off-key – especially by Oliver and me. There was no tone or tempo to any of the acts and scenes. Most importantly, there was zero chemistry among the main characters.

Much to the frustration of our director, Nawang and I acted like we were playing Bollywod villains from the 70s. Hrishi, meanwhile, was doing his best to prove that Nancy didn’t have a single feminine trait in her personality.

It was promising to be an absolute shambles. Secretly, I hoped that the teachers would recognize the disaster and go back to the original format. It was not to be. After the rocky start, things slowly started getting better.

It started with Nawang.

He took the lead by not teasing Hrishi anymore. I don’t know why he stopped – he certainly seemed to enjoy it as much as everyone else. Maybe one of the teachers had a word with him or maybe he himself thought that the joke wasn’t funny anymore. Whatever his reasons, being the most senior student in the play, his gesture didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of us and we fell in line quickly. No one teased Hrishi about playing a girl after that.

At another time, I was clowning around by singing Fagin’s lines to the tune of our Marathi morning prayer. Something really seemed to tick Nawang off as he berated me in front of everyone. While I can’t recall everything he said to me, the message was pretty clear, “If you aren’t serious, get out of here because you are ruining this for the rest of us who are trying!”

I don’t think I cried but I must have pretty close to it. It was the first time ever during my entire school life, that a student had scolded me! It was unlike anything I had experienced.

Having a senior student buying into the play had given a large fillip to the entire crew. Hrishi and Nawang got on well from then onwards and prepared earnestly for their roles. Nancy actually started displaying feminine traits!

Savio (the Director), who until then, seemed to have lost the will to live, sensed the change in mood and suddenly sprang to life. Forgotten lines and missed notes were no longer tolerated. We practiced harder than ever on getting it right.

As the play’s villainous trio, Hrishi, Nawang and I used to hang out together during rehearsal and after the initial awkwardness, the three of us got along well.

During one of the breaks in practice, he shared why he had gotten so agitated at me. “I’m sorry I shouted at you that day. But this is my final year in school. I don’t want my memories to be spoilt because of one lousy play. Even if this won’t be the best play in the school’s history, I absolutely don’t want it to be the worst. We’ll be mocked forever and never hear the end of it from everyone we know about how rotten we were!”

For the first time I imagined a disgruntled audience walking out midway through our performance. It wasn’t a happy feeling. Since I didn’t have a choice of backing out of the play, I decided to get serious and give it my best shot.

The regular practice sessions started to bear some results. So did the equal parts of encouragement and ear lashings, by Ms. Frank and Ms. Monteiro our resident music directors!

As things began to turnaround, Nawang’s potentially life-long embarrassment was turning into something good and noteworthy.

Towards the end of particularly good rehearsal, the three of us turned to each other and almost simultaneously said “Guys, that was pretty good!”

The day of the grand show arrived. While I was excited about performing before the entire school in a grand auditorium, I was also very nervous about flopping in my role as the lead villain.

I sheepishly confessed to Nawang and Savio that try as I might, I couldn’t remember the opening words to any of my dialogues. Nawang just laughed and said something along the lines of “Don’t worry. Say whatever you can remember. We’ve rehearsed so many times that we all remember each other’s lines. You won’t forget anything. Once it begins, you’ll be fine. Tension mat le!”

He was right. We received standing ovations for our performances. 

They loved us. We loved us!

Zubin (Tilak house), Hrishikesh (Tagore house), Nawang (Nehru house) and I (Kabir house) had excelled at our roles and forged a life-long friendship.

Or so we thought...

Almost twenty-five years since we performed Oliver Twist, we couldn’t be more distant from each other.

I can barely remember Zubin (if that was his name!). Hrishi and I drifted into different circles and careers. We didn’t keep in touch and haven’t met or spoken for over twenty years.

Then there’s Nawang.

We kept in touch briefly during college and even went hiking once with a few friends and his dad. Only then did I find out that his dad is a super cool dude and (along with his mom) is a famous mountaineer!

Unfortunately, our paths didn’t cross again.

The next time I heard about him was six years later. Nawang's elder brother, Sonam, taught a course in Bond Financing at my business school. It was through him that I found out, that Nawang was training to join the Indian Army.

Nawang soon became Lieutenant Nawang Harish Kapadia.

On September 2 2000, he was commissioned in the Fourth Battalion the Third Gorkha Rifles.

On November 11 2000, less than 3 months later, Nawang died while gallantly fighting Pakistan based terrorists in the jungles of Rajwar in Kupwara district of Srinagar.  

Just like that, he was gone.

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I did not get to know him as well as I could, but I am thankful that I got to know Nawang at all.

During our 8-week stint as co-villians in Oliver Twist, he had been my friend and guide.

When I found out that he had followed his dreams and taken the less beaten path of joining the army, he was my inspiration.

For living life on his terms, for showing true courage and bravery as he made the ultimate sacrifice for his battalion and country, Lieutenant Nawang Harish Kapadia will always be my hero.