It was around 1 a.m. that night.
Post-badminton hunger had pulled me to the night canteen — the only place still awake, dimly lit and half-asleep like the rest of the campus.

I grabbed a cold drink from the fridge and walked toward the counter — juggling the bottle and some circuit boards in one hand, phone in the other, ready to scan the UPI code. A friend had handed the Arduino and L298N motor driver back to me after badminton earlier that night. I hadn’t put them away yet.

Behind the counter stood the night canteen employee — mid-twenties maybe, a couple of years older than me.
He looked exhausted. Sleep clung to his face, and every now and then, a long, loud yawn slipped out. He always looked like that — cranky, dull, detached; just trying to get through the shift.

I placed the drink down on the counter and pointed my phone at the QR code.

And then, unexpectedly, he asked —

“Oh! What do you have in your hand? It broke or what?”

His voice was curious, but cautious.
I blinked. Didn’t quite follow.

“Which one? This?” I said, holding up the board.

“Yes, that…” he nodded, eyes suddenly more awake.

I gently placed the Arduino and the motor driver on the counter between us.

I told him what it was.

That it was called an Arduino Board - it has these pins, and you can control when which pin will turn on and which will turn off and much more. And there are ways to put those instructions into it with the help of a computer.
You could build things with it. Interesting things. Even robots.

That’s all I said.

But in that moment, something in him lit up.

His eyes — which had always looked tired and grey, now shimmered with something else.

Awe.
Wonder.
And something heartbreakingly human.

He smiled.
I had never seen him smile before.

Not the small, forced curve of politeness — this was something else. The kind of smile that belongs to a child seeing magic for the first time. But behind that smile… was something deeper.

He didn’t say another word.
But his eyes spoke volumes.

They told me a whole story — a Mahabharata-length tale compressed into a single, quiet gaze.

”I would’ve loved to play with things like this."
"I wanted to study, to build, to learn."
"But life happened early. My dreams were traded for responsibilities."
"I never got the chance.”

There was pride in his eyes — for understanding, for being curious — but also a gentle grief. A soft envy.
Not the kind that resents — but the kind that simply aches.

The moment passed. I nodded. He nodded.
And then I left, drink in hand, circuits in pocket.

But I carried his gaze with me.

Sometimes the deepest conversations are the ones that don’t really happen out loud.
Sometimes a smile at 1 a.m. can carry a lifetime of longing.

I don’t know his name.
I don’t know his story.
But for those two minutes, our worlds touched — and left a little warmth behind.