by Durjoy Datta
‘Hold me.’
‘Fuck you,’ said Dhruv and walked away before Sanchit could hold him. Dhruv walked towards the crowd, leaving behind Sanchit, who walked unsteadily, still trying to light his cigarette.
The girls, a few of them drunk, were dancing without caution now, their facial hair and unchecked sideburns glistening with sweat. The boys looked around themselves to copy steps from each other, big, wet patches on their shirt underarms making them extremely desirable.
Dhruv closed his eyes, forced himself to think that the music played by DJ Raju—a twenty-year-old boy with brown streaked hair and betel stains on his teeth—was still relevant and there was no harm in dancing to Katie Perry.
He started to dance alone with his eyes closed and his arms in the air; he was never a good dancer but who gave a damn.
I Love u Rachu
21
‘I understand. Now if you don’t mind I have some work to do,’ said Prof. Mitra who assured her he knew that she wasn’t at fault.
‘Goodnight, Sir.’
Despite the undiluted praise heaped on Aranya for conducting a perfect Freshers’ Day with all but one unruly incident, Aranya sat there, on the stairs of the training and placement department, staring blankly at the boys and girls dancing, for whom the incident was just a blip, something they would forget, maybe joke about later, but she was crying.
‘Care for a drink?’ a voice said from behind.
‘Go away,’ she said without looking.
The man sat next to her. What he carried in his right hand was a curiously shaped bottle, Vodka she guessed, and two plastic glasses and orange juice in a tetrapack in the left. He looked straight ahead at the students dancing, the strobe lights, the eager young men and the shy young women, the madness.
He poured what looked like a lot of vodka in one and kept it aside. He filled the next with orange juice and offered it to Aranya who readily accepted it. Having now recognized the man, she was finding it tough to not fling herself in his direction.
‘I got your mails and the notes you slipped into my room,’ he said.
Aranya hyperventilated. ‘I’m sorry, Professor Raghuvir.’ Aranya wiped her face into her sleeve leaving her snot on it. She smiled like a silly schoolgirl. He was handsomer than the pictures in the newspapers. At once she was jealous of all the female reporters who got him to pose.
‘There’s no need to be sorry. It’s always good to hear from serious students.’ The professor smiled. There was something very Christian Grey about him. Like a young, toned-down, sane, cute, not a psychopath, Christian Grey.
‘It must be tough to be perfect all the time, isn’t it?’ Prof. Raghuvir asked and whipped out a cigarette. Not like a boy, but a man, experience and habit reflecting in his jagged, swift moves. He could kill a puppy right now and still look gorgeous.
‘. . .’
‘You did a good job though,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t cry about it. Accidents happen. He was an asshole. Forget about it.’
‘. . .’
Aranya didn’t know what to say because saying anything would mean telling him about eight years of body image problems, the constant urge to cry, to shake every person who had ever seen her differently and ask them what her fault was: to tell them all the depressing details of how it was all brought on by Dhruv, the spite in her heart, the vengefulness, which resulted in her overtly competitive spirit, and the crushing inferiority complex carefully hidden by the veneer of superiority she had steadfastly maintained.
‘Dr Raghuvir, professor of advanced physics.’ He thrust out her hand. ‘But you know that already.’
She grinned and shook it. Snippets of information about Dr Raghuvir bounced about in her frenzied brain.
13 years, made a high-powered telescope and found three asteroids. All named after him. 14 years, completed Bachelor’s of Engineering from MIT. Filed eighteen patents. 17 years, completed Master’s of Engineering in nuclear physics from MIT. Filed thirty-three patents. 19 years, was part of the team in France that successfully executed the first controlled fusion reaction. 20 years, he went missing.
And it had been nine years since then. His reputation in the scientific community had been of a self-aware prick. He knew he would change the world. If he thought he was right about something, he would obsessively bulldoze others with his theories, deride them, question them and make them believe in him. He was a temperamental, obsessive, control freak, manic genius—like all geniuses should be, the stuff legends are made of.
During the latter days of his illustrious career as a young path-breaking researcher it was speculated that he became a bit of a philanderer, stumbling from one relationship to another, ending up an emotional wreck. He had made a habit of dating and breaking up with beautiful women—young struggling models and actresses and students who found Raghuvir’s limitless intelligence extremely attractive. When these relationships ended Raghuvir was often found blaming a lack of common ground for the failure. A less talented man would have made a fool of himself but not Raghuvir; he had the choicest quips for anyone who still doubted his abilities. Slowly, he had snuck out of limelight.
Who didn’t know about him? He was a little celebrity in his time, a child prodigy, the nation’s hope pinned on him, the hero, like Kalpana Chawla, like Vinod Dham, great minds, more successful in a country that wasn’t theirs.
‘I am a fan and I have fantasized about you. My room is on the first floor and you can come over. Though we can’t switch on the lights because then you would know I’m ugly and you could have erectile issues. Shall we go?’
She could have said that but she chose, ‘I love your work, Sir. I thought you don’t come to college.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘You were on the visiting faculty list so I thought you would be busy carving your name in the annals of history, being glorious and unforgettable,’ said Aranya.
‘The glory you’re talking about is overrated,’ said Raghuvir, pointing carelessly at the crowd, cigarette dangling from his fingers.’
‘I see a bunch of drunken idiots.’
For twenty-nine, he was rather young. That day, he was in a plain black T-shirt which he didn’t quite fill up, and beige coloured trousers with a pair of black worn-out loafers. He still looked like a PhD student who lives in the next building, a bit nerdy yet unobtrusively good-looking. His slightly longish hair flopped around his head and he sported a three-day-old stubble. He had these big black pools for eyes which no contact lenses could dull. To Aranya they were huge, like portals to another world of love, puppies and rainbows and supercomputers.
They both continued sitting there, separated by silence, with translucent plastic glasses in their hands, the darkness punctured by the revolving lights of the disco ball hanging from the DJ’s console in the distance, and in that poignant moment she was slyly Googling Raghuvir to make intelligent conversation.
‘Why did you give everything up for teaching? I’m sure there are laboratories out there which would kill to have you on their payrolls.’
Raghuvir didn’t answer. From where she sat she saw his face bobbing, infinitesimally, to the beats in the distance, his eyes were closed and she envied the calm on his face, but more than that she admired the man’s sharp jawline, the deep scar hidden beneath the stubble.
‘Got lost for a while,’ said Raghuvir.
Aranya frowned.
‘But that’s a discussion for some other time,’ Raghuvir continued and turned towards her. He picked up the bottle of vodka from the floor. ‘Enjoy the night. It won’t come again.’
‘. . .’
‘Have a good night,’ he said patting her back, and walked away, leaving her to think about this lost genius, his boy-next-door-like gorgeousness, and his stupid decision to give it all up to be a stupid professor in a stupid college with stupid students who were having a good time while she was sipping the stupid orange juice from a plastic glass.
I Love u Rachu
2
2
‘This is the last song for the night! Hope you had a good night. As per directions from the dean, girls are supposed to go back to their hostels and sign the register!’ the DJ announced. Everyone swore and threw empty plastic cups at him.
The students had made the most of the time left—some danced, boys emboldened by alcohol asked for the numbers of the girls they’d liked and got turned down, still others looked for their lost cellphones and ID cards.
Dhruv’s buzz had faded by now. He found Sanchit bent over a hedge at a distance, throwing up his intestines, rubbing his mouth clean and repeating.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Tell my parents I love them. I won’t survive this,’ said Sanchit and barfed again.
‘You seem to be in control,’ Dhruv said and walked away wanting none of the responsibility.
The music stopped, the lights went out, the party dispersed and students walked back to their hostels, their shirts and dresses drenched in sweat, smelling like horse pee. Facebook posts went up immediately, grammatically incorrect sentences suffixed with emoticons were tweeted, pictures were Instagrammed with sepia tones and hashtags: #collegedays #partaayyyy #bestdayofmylife #bitches #fuckyeah #drunk.
The roads of the college were deserted. The students were in their beds, sweating under creaky fans, checking the likes and hearts on their photos. Dhruv walked around, his hands deep in his pockets, kicking an empty Budweiser bottle.
He had just turned a corner when he heard someone vomiting behind a parked car.
‘You’re still here, Sanchit?’ asked Dhruv.
On the other side of an old Honda City he saw a girl, dressed in a little yellow floral dress held in place by thin straps, her knees scraped and muddy, her hair in tangles and her make-up all smudged.
‘Shouldn’t you be in the hostel? It’s late,’ asked Dhruv.
‘Huh?’
‘I don’t know why I just became the hostel warden.’
‘Can you hold my hair? I need to throw up a little,’ said the girl.
Dhruv did as asked and held her hair in a bunch while the girl grunted like a hyena while she tried to vomit. At one point Dhruv saw her thrusting a finger inside her food pipe and try again. Quite classy.
‘Did you—?’
‘Shut up and hold it well,’ the girl said and regurgitated her brains out. ‘I’m done.’ The girl got up and dusted her knees. She was barely 5'4" but she had a flat stomach and very taut quads.
The girl fetched a little sealed bottle of water from her pretty-looking handbag and rinsed her mouth. She sanitized her hand.
‘Are you alright?’
‘Why?’ asked the girl.
‘You looked drunk.’
‘I wasn’t drunk,’ said the girl.
‘Pregnant, then?’
‘Not yet. I just had a little too much to eat tonight. Had to flush that out of the system. Didn’t want those extra calories. You know what I mean, right? But thank you and see you around.’ She thrust out her hand to shake. Dhruv bowed and turned away from her.
‘Hey?’ the girl called out. Dhruv turned. ‘I liked your performance today.’
I Love u Rachu
23
Three hours later, he was on the ledge of the hostel roof, soaked in the emptiness of the hostel campus. Sanchit wasn’t around and the alcohol hadn’t completely worn off. Every time he closed his eyes, his world started to spin and it felt like he was falling.
At a distance, he could see the girl’s hostel, and a little blinking light on its roof. He ran and got a pair of binoculars from his room. It was one of the many gifts his mother had sent him over the last eight years, one he had kept but never used. How would she know what he wants? She didn’t. So she sent him a different gift every year. Once it was a paintbox, in case Dhruv had artistic pursuits, and the other time it was a mini tool box, if he was into boyish things.
He trained the binoculars in the direction of the girls’ hostel, adjusted the knob for maximum magnification, and it worked like a dream even though he ritualistically cursed the binoculars and his mother.
He saw Aranya slumped over the laptop, crying.
Was it because of him? he wondered.
Minutes passed and he kept looking at her.
‘DUDE!’ a voice startled him and the binoculars dropped out of his hands. Fuck. He watched them fall to the ground below and shatter.
‘Shit!’
Sanchit was standing behind him, leaning on a pillar for support.
‘You are into voyeurism? You earn my respect today.’ Sanchit saluted him. ‘We should invest in a high-powered telescope. I know a guy in customs who can get us that. Cheap. It even records.’
‘Get the fuck out of my face.’ He pushed Sanchit away and ran down the flight of stairs to the ground floor where the broken binoculars lay.
As he picked them up, he surprised himself at how clearly he remembered the day they had arrived at his doorstep, wrapped in a red gift paper and an orange ribbon.
He had cried himself to sleep that day, imagining his mother with her new daughter, cradling her, loving her, his half-sister who had a full family while he rotted with his alcoholic father. Fuck you, Mom.
The binoculars were beyond repair. While he walked back to his room his phone rang; it was from an unknown number.
‘Hey!’
‘Who’s this?’
‘Ritika,’ said the voice.
‘Ritika?’
‘The girl you helped a couple of hours back?’
‘Where did you get my number from?’
‘Is that important?’ asked the girl.
‘Only if you’re a psycho stalker.’
‘No, I’m not. Your voice sounds strange. Were you sleeping? Should I call later?’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Dhruv, wiping the tears off with his sleeve. ‘I was just trying to forget something.’
‘Can I help?’
‘Can you?’
‘I can sure try. I owe it to you,’ said the girl.
He walked to his room and found Sanchit slumped outside his door, passed out. He climbed over him and slammed the door. He spent the night talking to Ritika while he clicked through 489 pictures of her in twenty segregated albums on her Facebook account.
I Love u Rachu
24
Two weeks had passed since her breakdown on Freshers’ Day and that’s about the time she used to take to bounce back into the scheme of things.
The Freshers’ Day would still be treated as a success, a sign of things to come, and Dhruv would be branded an outcaste. She hadn’t seen much of him in the last two weeks though it had become common knowledge that he had been dating Ritika, a girl who shared a paper-thin wall with Aranya in the hostel. Needless to say, Ritika was a run-of-the-mill pretty girl—curly hair with a hint of brown in them, average height, always knew what to wear, fair and decent features, and thin, too.
What did you expect out of someone like Dhruv? That vain bastard?
Ritika had already found herself a group of girls in the hostel with similar interests. They were nice girls but a little too silly and a little too obsessed with their own faces. It used to be somewhat odd for Aranya to be in conversations where only Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Whatsapp were discussed.
Her Facebook picture was a bird.
She found herself on the same bench as Ritika whose carefully curated style could be called hastily put together and bohemian. She almost never had any make-up on and relied on the natural blush of her skin and the good fortune of her genes.
Ritika was quite the blabbermouth. ‘So yesterday, we went to Greater Kailash and this guy was staring at me like there’s no tomorrow. You have no idea what Dhruv did. He just went and smashed the guy’s head into a pole. Like literally. It was straight out of a movie.’
The girls gasped.
‘And?’
‘He held me and took me away from there. That guy had a few friends but they didn’t dare to cross Dhruv’s pa
th. You should have seen his eyes.’
Aranya shook her head and concentrated on the assignment they had to submit the day after.
‘Tell us more!’ a girl asked.
‘You’re getting nothing out of me.’ Ritika blushed, knowing fully well where this conversation was heading.
‘Tell us!’ prodded another girl.
‘No!’
Aranya sighed and stared at Ritika with puppy eyes. ‘We really want to know. I will not be able to concentrate on my assignment unless you tell me. Please, I beg of you. You will really make my day.’
‘Okay, fine, though I did catch the sarcasm there,’ said Ritika. She continued as if she was doing a favour, ‘Dhruv is a little old school. He wants to take it slow.’
The girls were disappointed and impressed at the same time.
‘You mean NOTHING happened?’ asked a girl.
‘Nothing. He held my hand though. He has strong arms,’ remarked Ritika, a little lost. ‘And he kept holding my hand all through after the little incident. He kept me from looking anywhere. He told me “You’re too pretty not to attract attention. So don’t look anywhere or it will get bloody again.” I’m here, look at me.’
‘Did you check for a beard, a turban and a suicide belt? Sounds an awful lot like Taliban.’ said Aranya.
The girls groaned.
Aranya gathered her books, not wanting to get into a conversation about not letting a guy walk all over you but she had to complete the assignment. It’s was Prof. Raghuvir’s pre-class assignment and the assignment was her one-way ticket into his good books, his research team, and probably even his heart and pants. Who knows?
‘It’s good to be loved,’ said Ritika.
Aranya pretended she didn’t hear that. ‘Hey, I need all of you to submit Prof. Raghuvir’s assignment by tomorrow morning.’
‘Have you completed yours?’ asked Ritika’s friend.
‘I’m going to the library. Will Dhruv allow you that in a few days? Or is it too radical?’ asked Aranya and winked at Ritika.