by Durjoy Datta
I Love u Rachu
36
The tables had turned since the Temple Run incident.
Aranya walked the corridors of DTU like she was the reigning queen, and the rest lowly courtiers. Dhruv could have learned to live with that. But he always felt everything Aranya did was to spite him, to tell him that she would always be the puppeteer, manipulating his life. Sometimes he felt like she laughed at how stupid he was to be in love and continue to be in love with her.
The little smirks she threw in Dhruv’s direction were far too many to be coincidental. If only she was a boy, he would have him called out, lodged a right hook into his ribcage and then smashed his face with a quick elbow move.
But now Dhruv was prepared.
The countless nights spent with Sanchit were about to pay off when he would crush the mid-semester examinations and he would show Aranya that her presence meant shit to him. That he would happily crush her over and over again.
He was sitting on the last desk, smiling in Aranya’s direction who, with her back towards him, was revising. Ritika shot him a look but he ignored it. Lately, she had started throwing a fit at the littlest of pretexts. Dhruv would try to explain to her what was really going on but Ritika wouldn’t get it. He wasn’t sure if even he got it.
The bell rang and the exam started. It was going to be a cakewalk. He marked out all the questions that were easy pickings and solved them within the first two hours of the exam. Then he sat back and sighed, flipping proudly through his answer sheet. He had managed a constant neat handwriting throughout the answer sheet.
‘Sir! Extra sheet!’ shouted Aranya.
Dhruv was still to use the last three pages of his answer booklet. He frowned.
‘Me, too!’ shouted Dhruv. Ritika who had finished whatever she knew within the first hour and now was dozing off looked in his direction, shocked. This happened three more times. Dhruv’s answer booklet was glaringly empty now.
But Dhruv didn’t know what to do with the answer sheet. The two questions he hadn’t answered till now were from chapters he had chosen to leave out. He fished his cellphone out from his pocket and fired it up, taking care no one noticed. Over texts, Sanchit and he decided to meet in the boys’ washroom.
Just before he could ask permission to go, Aranya asked if she could go and Dhruv slunk back into his seat. He waited fifteen minutes for the invigilator to busy himself and forget about the missing girl and then asked if he could go.
‘Sure.’
Dhruv ran to the washroom to find Sanchit smoking, with none of the books he had asked him to bring.
‘Dude! Where are the fucking books?’
‘I am Miagi and you’re my Karate Kid. You can’t cheat! That’s insulting my genius.’
‘I will tell you what will insult your genius,’ Dhruv grabbed his throat and pushed him till Sanchit’s head hung over the ledge.
‘I was just kidding,’ said Sanchit. ‘The books are in my pants. You think any guard would have allowed me inside with books in hand.’
‘. . .’
Sanchit rolled his eyes. ‘Such an amateur!’ He plunged his hands into his underwear and grabbed around. Dhruv grimaced. He brought out a little booklet of the book photocopied at a size one-fourth of the original. He tossed it in Dhruv’s direction who handled it like pissed-on banknotes.
‘Chill. I wore two pairs of underwear.’
‘I would have shat on your bed if you hadn’t.’
‘In fact I wore none,’ said Sanchit, flashed his ass and ran.
Dhruv shook his head, hardly amused. He would get back at him later. For now Dhruv had to look for a safe, empty washroom. In the distance he saw Aranya looking over her shoulder before skulking inside a women’s washroom. Dhruv followed.
A smile broke out on his face. Wouldn’t he just love it to be busted together for cheating? Who cared if he did well or not? No one would give a shit if his paper got cancelled because he was found in a washroom with a bunch of notes down his boxers. In fact it would have been expected.
But what would happen if they found both Dhruv and Aranya in the washroom, cheating the system, a degenerate and a nice girl?
History repeats itself?
People love to revel in other people’s misery and they would have loved to see Aranya go down.
It would destroy her if the image she had painstakingly created of being holier than thou exploded in a single moment of weakness. What would the professors say? Would they still want her in their projects? This was great! And what if he was the reason for all her misery? AWESOME. He would have his revenge.
He tried opening the door to the washroom but it was locked. He kicked in the door and found the faces of two terror-stricken girls looking at him.
‘What are you doing here?’ growled Aranya.
‘I’m expected to be here. What are you doing here?’
‘. . .’
‘I think I should start drawing attention. Wouldn’t it be heartbreaking for Raghuvir to see his pet student cheating?
‘PLEASE DON’T DO THAT!’ cried out the girl who was standing next to Aranya. The girl’s face looked like she was constipated. Her body was convulsing and tears had started to flow abundantly which made Dhruv roll his eyes.
‘And why shouldn’t I?’
Aranya put her hand around the girl. ‘Dhruv, stop fucking around with people. You’re better than that, I hope.’
‘I’m kind of not. And I’m deeply inclined to take down both of you with me right now.’
‘You will not do that,’ said Aranya with an authority that belied her position. ‘This is between you and me.’
‘I don’t care. And I’m pretty sure I will.’
‘Please DON’T!’ the girl howled. ‘I will fail the exam. Please don’t.’ And the girl rushed to Dhruv and stood a hair’s breadth away from his face.
‘Dhruv, the girl just recovered from jaundice. Give her a break! She deserves to pass!’ yelled Aranya.
Dhruv felt like an asshole and suddenly couldn’t bear to look at the girl. ‘Fine. Fuck off,’ said Dhruv.
‘THANK YOU!’ howled the girl, still crying. She was about to leave when Aranya called her back and gave her two answer sheets filled with numbers. ‘Here,’ whispered Aranya in her ear. ‘I have solved the questions. Just append them to your sheets.’ The girl nodded. ‘It will be okay.’ The girl literally ran past Dhruv and out of the washroom. Dhruv, from the corner of his eye, saw the papers in the girl’s hand, the same supplementary sheets Aranya had asked for in the classroom.
Aranya jumped on to the ledge of the washbasin. ‘So? Now you’re going to call the security?’
‘Wouldn’t I just love to see you repeat the first year?’ said Dhruv.
‘I’m still the hero here, Dhruv. I was merely helping a girl out who couldn’t study because she had jaundice. The girl will make sure the entire college knows that. You will still be the villain in all of this. What happened last time won’t happen again. I will always be wanted here. And you will still look like you have always looked—a pathetic, spineless boy lost in love. You destroyed my life once but not again. You have already given me more pain than I hoped to endure in one lifetime. You made me feel hated for all my growing-up years but it stops now. You can’t do anything worse to me now, Dhruv. So fuck off.’
Dhruv laughed. ‘Let me try at least?’
‘It’s all for a cause, Dhruv,’ said Aranya. ‘I don’t mind going down for it.’
‘Of course you do, Aranya. The first blot on your perfect curriculum vitae. I wonder how your father would react!’
‘Can you spell vitae?’ Aranya chuckled.
And just for that brief moment, Dhruv thought he saw a stray tear in Aranya’s eyes, who was being totally nonchalant about repeating a year and was being a total badass about it. Maybe it was the thing about her father . . .
‘I’m still waiting for you to call the guards. Or are you scared?’ said Aranya, her voice quivering a little. Dhruv didn
’t say anything, his eyes stuck on Aranya trying to gauge if she was just putting on a brave front, winning a psychological battle against him.
And just then, Dhruv heard footsteps approaching the washroom door. Multiple footsteps. The guards were talking to each other, wondering if they had heard students talking. Dhruv looked at Aranya whose face had drained of colour, her jaw was wide open, scared. She had frozen in her place.
‘Fuck,’ muttered Dhruv and strode in her direction. He pulled her off the ledge, picked her up and literally threw her in the bathroom stall. ‘Stay. Don’t fucking make a noise. And put your damn legs up.’
Aranya was in tears now, her brave front now in tatters in front of Dhruv. ‘STOP FUCKING CRYING,’ growled Dhruv and she did. Dhruv closed the door and jumped on the ledge. He started muttering the equations on the notes loudly as if he was mugging them up. The door flew open and two guards marched in.
‘OYE! Kya kar raha hai?’ shouted the guards. ‘Saala. Cheating kar raha hai! Pakad saale ko.’ They grabbed hold of Dhruv and seized the notes.
‘Sir, please, Sir, I will fail the exam, Sir,’ pleaded Dhruv. He fell on the guard’s feet who refused to listen.
‘Check the other stalls,’ one guard said to another.
‘Sir, please, Sir. Sir, please,’ said Dhruv and grabbed the guard. ‘I had jaundice, Sir. I couldn’t study. Sir, sorry, Sir. Sir, please.’ The guard who was about to kick the bathroom stalls open stopped and told Dhruv that he should prepare for repeating a year. Dhruv broke down in fake tears. Dhruv’s histrionics distracted the guard and he didn’t bother to check the washroom stalls.
‘Lekar chal ise.’
I Love u Rachu
37
Dhruv was suspended from the examinations and he was to repeat the first semester.
Despite this Aranya saw Dhruv take all the examinations, often matching her supplementary sheet to supplementary sheet, and looked past her like she was made of plexiglas. She wasn’t sure if she had to be apologetic or grateful so she chose to stay confused. In her head she tried to justify why Dhruv would take the blame on himself but always came up with naught.
Aranya had a hard time concentrating on the examinations; Dhruv had already won the examination, the Olympics and the Nobel Prize with his little gesture.
The exams ended without incident and Aranya calculated her expected score in each of the subjects. The cumulative total would beat the previous highest held by Sanchit when he was in his first year. She kept her fingers crossed.
‘Thank you, Aranya,’ the girl she had helped out said.
‘Are you better now?’
‘Yes, much better. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’
‘Anyone would have done the same.’
‘My friends and I are going to a club near the college tonight. It would be great if you can come. We have already talked to the warden. She’s okay if we come back by two.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t,’ said Aranya, reflexively. Years of turning down plans that hampered intellectual progress had altered her DNA. She didn’t even have to think before tanking plans. ‘But thanks for asking.’
‘Do let me know if you change your mind.’ The girl hugged her and she left smiling.
While other students would celebrate the culmination of mid-semester examinations which counted for a measly 20 per cent of the final score, she would start out on the roadmap to tackle the remaining 80 per cent. She had already made a glossary of topics with decreasing order of importance and she had to strike off two of them from the list by the next morning. There was no time to waste.
The first hour passes by in a jiffy and adrenaline courses through her veins as she thinks of her thumping victory two months from now. But somehow, from some damned place inside her vast brain, a flash of Dhruv saving her from losing everything hits her. That tiny sliver of a microsecond where he had picked her in his arms with an urgency of a paramedic, that look in his eyes and the strength of his last utterly romantic words ‘Stop fucking crying’ resonated through her entire body and she slumped on the desk. All her wins, the little trophies, the medals, the certificates, everything that she would win from that moment on would now be stained with the memory of him saving her in that weak moment. Her crying and his concerned face flashed in front of her eyes, and she wanted to metaphorically slit her wrists. ‘Why the fuck did it have to happen that day!’ Because no matter how big a jerk Dhruv was, he did save her when she thought all was going to end. She would owe all of her wins to him.
She walked to the library, lugging all the books she needed, and settled at the far corner of the empty library. She hadn’t realized but the mid-semester examinations and the extra classes had taken a toll on her. She had drifted off; head resting on a book she had drooled all over. She woke up with a start and felt someone’s eyes on her. On the table, Raghuvir was sitting smoking a cigarette, reading a book.
Aranya wiped the drool off her face with the T-shirt sleeve. ‘Ummm?’ said Aranya to catch his attention.
‘Oh, hi,’ said Raghuvir and closed the book.
‘That was very Edward Cullen of you.’
Raghuvir made himself comfortable on the chair next to Aranya’s. Aranya smiled weakly. Raghuvir, the hot, brainy professor she dreamt of nine nights out of ten, was right in front of her.‘There’s something I need to tell you. I have waited for really long to tell you this,’ said Raghuvir.
Shit. His voice quivered just a little bit. He chose the right place to pause. It reminded Aranya of the 10 Best Wedding Proposal videos on YouTube. ‘You know I have been noticing you since the day you first walked into my class. You have been better than the rest, impeccable and just perfect. You have stood out. No wonder after today, I will be the envy of everyone around me.’ Raghuvir’s eyes bore through Aranya, reducing her to a molten mess inside.
Aranya’s dream was coming true. Her face flushed and her body felt prickly and numb at the same time. Raghuvir continued with a smile to die for on his face. ‘I know we will make a great team and I can trust you. I need to ask you something.’ He paused. This was big. This was going to change everything. Her heart pounded like it would pop out of her mouth, or ear or whatever.
‘Will you be my research assistant, Aranya?’ asked Raghuvir and handed her a file of her latest research project to go through.
Aranya could die happily now. This was the happiest moment of her entire life! She, quite frankly, wanted to cry and lunge at Raghuvir. She was just asked what every girl dreams for. A research project for Professor Raghuvir! Someone should have captured the video of this happening, uploaded it and made it go viral.
‘Yes,’ said a trembling Aranya, wanting to burst out in a puddle of tears like a beauty queen.
‘Cool. We start work tomorrow,’ said Raghuvir, shook her hand, and left the room like he hadn’t changed her life forever.
Aranya sat there dazed for the first few minutes, and then jumped around and pumped her fists and did a little jig to celebrate it. She called her father to tell him about it.
‘So?’
‘He’s a big professor, Dad. His recommendation means a lot. I can apply to MIT after my graduation.’
‘And scholarship? Where will we get the money from? And how’s college? I hope you’re staying away from boys. Don’t embarrass us again,’ grumbled her father, like it was only yesterday they were called to school. He had never let Aranya forget it. And reminders often came in the form of slaps and punches thrown at her.
Her father just knew how to be a killjoy. She regretted calling him.
‘I can try for a full scholarship, Dad,’ said Aranya.
‘Try? There’s no trying. You have to get it, Aranya. You know how hard we have worked to get you where you are now. Your cousin, Madhuri? She’s getting married in June next year. The boy’s an engineer in Microsoft.’
‘Okay.’
‘Don’t disappoint us further,’ said her father as if it was her fault.
‘I won’t.’<
br />
‘And don’t make us come to your college again and make us feel like we made a mistake by trusting in you again.’
She cut the phone not wanting to hear anything further. Fuck it. What was she hoping for? A change of heart? Her family embracing her success?
She called up the Jaundice Girl and told her she would love to join them wherever they are going. And in a rare moment of courage she texted Raghuvir to ask if he wanted to join in as well. Go on, I will come if I get free on time, said the reply.
She took a long, hot shower, did her hair the best she could, and put on her little black dress, the only one she had. She twirled in it in front of the mirror.
Two hours later, thirty-three girls were packed in Liquid, a dump of a place, but what it lacked in ambience it covered up in the low prices. Didn’t help Aranya though because she didn’t drink and soon she was bored, sitting on a couch that stank, alone. Everyone else was drunk. This was such a mistake. How could she think loud music, drunken girls and boys falling over each other, shouting dumb jokes into each other’s ears could mean a celebration for her? Raghuvir had texted her that he would come, but a little late, and that was the only consolation.
She started to read newspapers on her phone. From the corner of her eye she could see Ritika and Dhruv having a good time on the dance floor.
She couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened had it not been for Dhruv. She would have had to call her parents again. They would have slapped her, berated her, called her names, and hated her existence.
Dhruv who had put her through it the first time had now repaid the debt.
It troubled her. She owed it to Dhruv and it was eating her up inside, infinitesimally, making her feel hollow.
And that bastard was dancing without a care in the world.
I Love u Rachu
38