On Saturday, I was having a very late lunch at this place called Shri Krishna, a small eating joint in one of the bylanes of Mahim. It serves, mostly delivers, gharguti jevan (food that tastes like it’s been made at home). All the staff, mostly young guys and girls, had finished working for the first shift and were tidying up and having their lunch. While I was relishing my Chana Masala and Chapattis, I heard two of them, a girl and a boy, talking. She asked him about his admissions to which he replied something and then later started talking about his exam schedule. He talked further about his lectures he has in the coming week. She asked him whether he had opted for Science or the Arts stream to which he replied that he had opted for Commerce. That’s when it hit me. It was such a contrasting situation. On one hand, the work that they were doing at that very moment was cleaning the leftovers, washing the utensils, arranging the cleant ones, and the conversation that they were having—that too a passionate one—was about studies. They seemed to have no qualms about working and the kind of work that they were doing given the fact that at this age, they should be just studying. Maybe, they knew that they need to work in order to survive and study, in order to grow. In my mind, studies or not, they had already grown up. Kudos to them for doing what they are doing and here’s hoping that they reach where they aspire to reach.