by Durjoy Datta
‘I like how he is,’ Ritika argued.
As she walked away cradling her books, the girls shouted, ‘WE WILL COPY YOURS.’
‘Of course you will,’ muttered Aranya.
I Love u Rachu
25
It took Aranya six hours, four missed classes, and six reference books to complete Raghuvir’s assignment. Solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded using only toes would have been easier.
On and off, she had been unwittingly thinking about Ritika and Dhruv, imagining the details of their date, putting the pieces together. Ritika wasn’t as dumb as she thought. She clearly lied about Dhruv being old school and wanting to take it slow. Of course, they did it. That bitch. It was too hot for that muffler that she wore to hide a possible love bite.
That night her assignment was passed from one group to another in the girl’s hostel, and everyone stayed up copying every word. Some sparkling examples of the Indian education system ended up copying her name.
She was the first one in class that day, fresh and well rested. Some girls had missed breakfast and were still copying her assignment. She sat on the first bench with her carefully organized registers and books.
‘Hey, I need a favour,’ said Dhruv striding in. His knuckles were bandaged.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Ritika hasn’t done the assignment yet. We were out all night and she didn’t get the time. You need to ask for an extension of a couple of hours from Raghuvir sir,’ demanded Dhruv.
‘And why exactly would I do that?’
‘Because I’m requesting you.’
‘You’re bending over my table and you’re breathing into my face. This hardly looks like requesting,’ snapped Aranya.
Dhruv stood straight and folded his hands. ‘I request you. Give her time.’
‘There’s sarcasm in your voice.’
‘Just like there was in yours,’ said Dhruv and put his hands into his pocket.
‘I’m not the one being a girlfriend’s mouthpiece,’ retorted Aranya.
‘But you’re being a scheming bitch, aren’t you?’
‘Excuse me?’
Dhruv whipped out a Xerox copy of Aranya’s assignment from his back pocket and flipped it to its end. ‘Here.’ He pointed to the last step of the question. It was encircled with a blue pen and it was labelled as ‘HAHAHAHAHA’.
‘So?’ asked Aranya.
‘So you want me to believe that someone who managed to crack this question faltered on the last step? A simple calculation error? Do you think I’m that naive?’ asked Dhruv.
Aranya acted shocked. ‘Shit. How did I get this wrong?’ exclaimed Aranya.
‘You’re a shitty actress. You knew if you wrote it the class would copy it.’
‘I would never do that! Why would I!’
‘Raghuvir would know the entire class copied and you would be riding an easy wave into his projects or whatever he does.’
‘Stop being an overthinking vamp.’
‘Look who’s talking.’
‘So, even if I did. Who’s going to believe you over me?’ asked Aranya and smiled at him. She watched the smile drain away from Dhruv’s face.
‘You know what, FUCK YOU.’
Dhruv walked off. ‘Go, run to your pretty girlfriend!’ she called out.
Dhruv waved a middle finger while leaving the class.
Aranya won.
Yes, she was keeping score.
I Love u Rachu
26
‘I don’t want to get a zero in the first assignment itself. We shouldn’t have gone out. I could have copied the assignment in time,’ complained a scared Ritika on the phone.
‘Raghuvir is not a fool. He would have seen through it, that you had copied. Trust me. You will not get a zero.’
Dhruv had made Ritika submit pages with only her name neatly scribbled on the top. He had told her he would handle it. Ritika, Instagram-obsessed and a raging bulimic, had not really struck Dhruv as someone who would care about missed assignments.
‘I love you,’ said the girl.
‘. . .’
‘Why don’t you say it back?’ asked Ritika.
‘You wouldn’t want me to.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because when I do, I tend to stick to it and it doesn’t end well. For me as well as the girl I am in love with. I will be an asshole at the end of it all and you would be a crying mess,’ answered Dhruv.
‘You don’t scare me,’ said Ritika.
Dhruv imagined her rolling over her nice and clean bed, maybe in a tiny pair of shorts and stringy spaghetti.
‘I need to go,’ said Dhruv.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Leave that to me.’ Dhruv disconnected the call, put on a T-shirt and knocked on Sanchit’s door which was shut but not locked. He found Sanchit supine on his tattered bean bag. The room reeked of alcohol and weed and unwashed boxers, and there were two women touching each other on his laptop screen. He was watching it with such piercing intensity one would think it was The Shawshank Redemption playing on his laptop.
‘Hey.’
‘Shut up, this is my best scene.’
Sanchit never took the pain of turning the volume down during his private porn screenings. The dirtiness is in their moans, he used to say.
‘Are you high?’ asked Dhruv.
‘Will you try to charm my pants off if I am?’
‘Maybe later, but for now, we have to break into Raghuvir’s room.’
‘The second-year guy? Sorry, can’t do. It’s beneath my dignity.’ Sanchit frowned.
‘The professor, Raghuvir.’
‘When do we strike?’ asked Sanchit.
‘Now.’
He hit the pause button, put out the cigarette. ‘We have to be discreet with this sort of a thing.’ His tone suddenly changed to resemble someone from the Secret Services. ‘One mistake and it’s all done.’
‘Stop being melodramatic.’
‘I’m not in if we are not giving names to each other. I’m Black Hawk, you’re Charlie.’
‘I’m doing it alone. I promised Ritika and I wouldn’t let her down,’ said Dhruv and left the room. Sanchit followed closely.
‘Why are we doing this for her? And what exactly are we doing?’ whispered Sanchit as they scaled the locked gate of the faculty building.
‘She’s my responsibility. And I will tell you.’
‘I didn’t know Ritika was a toddler.’
‘I don’t want to be the guy who falters,’ Dhruv argued.
‘Dude, you have severe control issues.’
‘You would have issues too if you found out about your father’s weekly trysts with prostitutes far uglier than your mother while you wait for him to sober up and get your mother from another man,’ said Dhruv.
‘That’s too much information to be shared amongst men. I think we should be married now.’
‘. . .’
‘But I’m sorry.’
Both of them walked across the lawn gingerly as if they were inmates running to hide from the prison light.
‘You didn’t strike me as rich,’ said Sanchit.
‘I’m not. What’s that to do with anything?’
Sanchit spoke as they jumped over the last fence. ‘It’s just not a very middle-class story. If your father was a rich businessman with a few gold teeth, it’s digestible. Or a kid of a wayward celebrity,’ remarked Sanchit.
‘But what if it is a very middle-class thing, and we only don’t look out for it? What if? Think about it, Sanchit. The belief that the middle class can’t put a foot wrong morally is so deep that you wouldn’t even begin to think about those overtimes in the office, those short office tours to Jaipur or Agra or Bombay were not office trips but moments of weakness spent in the arms of the women they bought, little fragments of happiness in the lives of husbands and fathers battling with car and house loans. It sounds ridiculous if you imagine your father doing the same, but ask yourself, how difficult is
it? Check his browser history. Check his phone. Check what he watches late at night on television. Is it always news? Why wouldn’t you check? Because you believe in him. Just like I used to.’
‘Frankly, I’m disappointed,’ said Sanchit.
‘Did you just hear what I said?’
‘Stop being such an attention whore. Yes, you said something about happiness. But look, we are already here,’ said Sanchit pointing to Raghuvir’s nameplate on the door. ‘This was too easy. There was no challenge.’ The guards were sleeping, drunk, or busy masturbating to Grihashobha. An army tank could have rolled past them unnoticed.
‘Here’s the challenge.’ Dhruv pointed to the lock.
‘What are we trying to achieve here?’
Dhruv showed him a corrected copy of Aranya’s assignment, and explained that they had to break in cleanly, copy it on Ritika’s assignment and leave.
‘I have seen that girl look at Raghuvir like he was red velvet cake.’
‘How do we break in?’
‘Why are you asking me?’ asked Sanchit. The lock on Raghuvir’s room was one of those six-lever ones.
‘What? You look like the kind of person who could pick a lock,’ said Dhruv, exasperated.
‘And you deduced that because you’re the last product of the Sherlock Holmes sperm strain? Talking of which, did you also know that my father works in the Public Works Department and my mother is a housewife? That my cumulative percentage from seven semesters is 83 and my department rank is 4 and that I’m placed with Microsoft which essentially makes me the King Nerd?’
‘What?’
‘What what? I can’t pick locks.’
‘This should be right up your alley, dude! Then what is the weed and the porn and the metaphors and the alcohol about if you can’t pick a small lock?’ Dhruv clenched his fists and punched in the air angrily.
‘I don’t see the connection!’
‘You’re such a fucking disappointment.’
‘Now who’s being melodramatic?’ asked Sanchit. Dhruv threw a murderous look his way. ‘Fine. I do know someone who can make a key for you. I have used the guy earlier. In first year I used to lose my key all the time, but now I have just chained my desktop to the window railing. Third-year bastards still steal my soap though.’
‘I’m sure it hurts your government servant dad’s FDs.’
‘No need to get personal here.’
An hour later, they were driving back in Dhruv’s spluttering motorcycle, a dummy key in his pocket.
‘So do you like to pretend the motorcycle has broken down and be all rustic, grubby and manly while you repair it? This thing is a chick magnet, isn’t it?’ Sanchit teased.
Dhruv ignored him and revved the bike harder almost knocking Sanchit over who clung to him afterwards. ‘If you wanted to feel my boobs you should have just told me.’
Dhruv drove on. ‘The key better work.’
‘I never liked Raghu. He’s too brilliant, way too brilliant,’ said Sanchit. ‘I have known girls who want him to write equations on their cleavages.’
‘Raghu? Is he a friend that you call him that?’
‘I wish he was. He’s GOD, dude. Women slit their wrists if he misses class.’
‘Okay.’
‘No, serious. Some write him letters in blood.’
‘Gross.’
‘I’m not joking.’
‘You need to shut up.’
‘But you got to admit, that guy brings everything to the table. Even your girl, Aranya, is like a deer caught in the headlights with him. I have been told she’s smitten.’
Dhruv parked the motorcycle outside the college building. ‘Ritika. That’s my girl’s name, the one I’m dating. And she doesn’t give a shit about Raghuvir. And Aranya’s the bitch.’
‘But you seem to think an awful lot about her.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘But she’s good. I read the assignment on the way. Nice touch to get it wrong on the last step. That’s a mark of genius and a girl desperate to be in the good books of Raghuvir,’ remarked Sanchit.
‘You need to stop talking about her.’
‘But weren’t you in love with her in school? I have been told.’
‘Who tells you all this crap? And no! I wasn’t. Have you seen her? She looks like shit. I hated her then and I hate her now.’
‘Hmm. But I should tell you that it’s a lost cause.’
‘. . .’
‘Raghuvir isn’t foolish to think your girl, Ritika, would solve the question correctly while Aranya couldn’t. You can’t fuck with Raghuvir. He’s smarter than you.’
Dhruv jemmied the key into the lock and it didn’t work.
‘He’s known to ask the students to solve it on the board and he grills them. It’s not going to be easy.’
Dhruv dropped the key and kicked the door. The screws that held the latch came loose and it hung limply from the door frame; the door was now wide open. Dhruv walked in and started to look for the bundle of assignments.
‘DUDE! What are you trying to do?’ asked Sanchit.
‘Accidents happen. Things get lost sometimes. If we can’t get her marked in the assignment, we can at least make the assignment go away.’ Dhruv stuffed the assignments of the entire class in a polythene bag.
‘What now?’
‘I have an idea,’ said Dhruv and hurried out, Sanchit trailing him, jumped the fences, ran across the field, ran up the stairwell of his hostel and pointed at the girls’ hostel roof where Aranya was working on her laptop.
‘ARANYA. ARANYA,’ he shouted.
Aranya put the laptop down and looked in their direction. She walked closer to the ledge and squinted her eyes.
Dhruv waved the bundle of the assignments in the air. ‘FUCK YOUR ASSIGNMENT! FUCK YOUR ASSIGNMENT!’ shouted Dhruv.
Dhruv kept the stack of assignments on the edge of the roof. He poured Vodka out of a bottle over it even as Sanchit kept saying, ‘Enough, enough, don’t waste it!’ and lit it up.
Aranya screamed in disbelief.
‘FUCK RAGHUVIR. GO FUCK HIM!’ shouted Dhruv and started to walk away from the fire.
‘That was a bit extreme even for me,’ said Sanchit. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘Because I hate her.’
‘Hate doesn’t push you that far, only love does.’
‘I’m sure you haven’t heard of ISIS.’
‘Oh. Political references. Respect! But your reference is incorrect because the ISIS guys love Islam.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘But tell me something, why didn’t you do the assignment?’
‘My mother’s a bitch and my father’s an alcoholic. Doing assignments is out of my domain,’ Dhruv said and walked back to his room.
I Love u Rachu
27
‘But Sir, I saw it! I saw him burning the assignments,’ complained Aranya, choking on her tears.
‘That’s the twenty-third time you’re repeating the same thing, Aranya. And what if he did? Let it go,’ said Raghuvir, leaning back in his chair.
He wore a spotless kurta today with the same pair of jeans she saw him in on Freshers’ Day, and leather chappals. Dhruv was leaning against the door, yawning for dramatic effect. Despite the heat he wore a leather jacket, a white shirt, a frayed pair of jeans and black loafers. Careless hair carefully done.
Eight years separated Dhruv and Raghuvir but they looked the same age. Dhruv looked the vain, brash movie star, and Raghuvir, the sincere, piercing, intelligent technocrat with a dress sense borrowed from the founder of Facebook. In a parallel world or in a cheesy novel, they would be brothers who fall in love with the same woman.
Aranya should have been angry, and maybe she was, somewhere deep inside, but she was also a little dizzy, a little disoriented sneaking glances at Raghuvir’s tired, painfully cute, beautiful face, which she was convinced was one of her horrcruxes. She had spent hours, wrong, days Googling about Raghuvir, downloading his images on her laptop, da
y-dreaming about being intelligent and funny and mysterious in his class and yes, also songs, they had danced on songs together.
Fuck you, Aranya. You’re a grown, intelligent woman. Stop staring at him as if he’s God.
But he is like chocolate. With cream and sprinkles.
Stop talking in Internet meme language. You’re not retarded.
I’m sorry, but look at him.
Exactly. And look at you, you’re ugly enough to be a different species.
Whatever.
I hate you.
I am you.
Raghuvir continued, his voice suddenly grave, ‘And Dhruv, you need to keep your attitude in check. The anger is cute. But I’m not one of your girls. I’m your professor and I have seen dozens of you strut their fake machismo over the years and all of them amount to nothing. You’re nothing special. So the next time you’re standing in front of me, you stand like a f . . . student. Do I make myself clear?’
Aranya felt like giggling but she restrained herself.
‘Sir, but what do we do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?’ asked Aranya.
‘Dhruv, you can go. And stay out of trouble,’ said Prof. Raghuvir, pointing his pencil at him. Dhruv walked out without a second look.
‘And Aranya,’ said Raghuvir. ‘This isn’t school so stop running around after silly assignments. You’re meant for greater things.’
‘But I don’t think anyone will hire me based on the ashes of my assignments, Sir.’
‘Answering back won’t help either.’
‘Sorry, Sir. I didn’t mean to—’
‘It’s okay. It’s better than being a sycophant.’
‘I didn’t get you, Sir.’
‘I heard Professor Tripathi say a thousand good things about you. In a conversation between Tripathi and a wall, the wall would win. And if you’re running around trying to impress that God-awful professor who can’t tell a quark from a proton, you’re wasting your time and mine.’
Despite being chastised, Aranya blushed, embarrassed as if she were naked and he were staring. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Aranya.