by Pratap Reddy
Daddy parked the car in the shadow of the magnificent Arts block, a jewel of Islamic architecture in India. They went into the cool exquisite building built of pinkish brown granite, climbing the two flights of stairs flanked by stone balustrades. The professor received them in his room which was shabby and smelled faintly of must. Books and papers were everywhere — strewn on the table, stuffed into and even on top of the cupboards. The Professor wore a dark-coloured suit and a pair of thick black-rimmed glasses. His bold yellow silk tie was askew at this throat.
He rang a bell, and an attendant appeared like a genie. The Professor ordered tea, sweeping aside Daddy’s protests. The Professor and Daddy indulged in small talk, while Ramya looked around. There were a couple of framed certificates on the wall, and a photograph of a thin worried-looking young man in a mortarboard and a black robe, clutching a rolled-up diploma, as if it was his dearest possession. Perhaps it was. You had to look hard to find any resemblance to the stout middle-aged man with a pleasant smiling face who was seated in front of them and talking affably.
“The college has nothing to do with it,” the professor said, dismissing all the negative comments they’d heard about the college with a wave of his hand. “It depends on the nature of the student. If he wants to wile away his time, it’s a perfect place. If they’re serious about learning, it is just as perfect a place. Just so you know, most of the toppers and successful professionals in the city have come from Nizam’s.”
Ramya had no doubt that the professor too had studied there. The attendant returned with a tray which bore three small china cups and saucers. The reddish Hyderabadi chai was a bit oversweet but piping hot and incredibly tasty.
“Are you interested in arts, paapa?” the professor asked, putting down his cup and turning to Ramya. “Nizam College has an excellent faculty. Their English and foreign languages departments are unmatched. They have very good lecturers in economics and political science, too. If you’re interested in sports, they have many facilities. Though Nizam’s is bang in the centre of the city, do you know how big their grounds are? They have both cricket and football fields.”
The professor stopped and looked expectantly at Ramya. She felt tongue-tied in the presence of elders, more so stranger-elders. This was considered a comely attribute, and so her Daddy went to bat for her.
“Besides sports, Ramya is interested in quiz and elocution. She has won many prizes in her school.”
“Is that so? Very good, they have all sorts of extracurricular activities like debating and dramatics. I’m sure they must have a quiz team too.”
When they took leave, the professor said: “Your father is a very good doctor. He keeps me and my family in good health. I’m surprised you didn’t want to become a doctor. But as a professor of sociology, I’m glad you chose humanities.”
Ramya left for her new college on the opening day with expectations tinged with nervousness. Instead of sending her on her own by the Road Transport Corporation bus, Daddy took the morning off to drop her off at the college.
The college had old imposing buildings in a confused yet charming mixture of colonial and Indo-Saracenic styles. The almost rundown structures showed their age and government’s apathetic maintenance. Nonetheless, as a college it had a casual and informal air, almost festive, and promised to be a fun place. The students old and new were wandering around free of any care or responsibility in the world.
As days passed, she learned that the students attended classes only if they felt like it. At any given time, the college canteen would boast of more students than any classroom. Apart from the canteen, there were many vantage points where groups of students congregated and talked shop. When the bells rang to mark the start of classes, bodies simply gravitated to the lecture halls with a kind of insouciance.
Ramya quite liked the democratic idea of attending a class only if it interested you. It was like voting with your butt. She admired the staff who taught her subjects, especially English literature. They had a ready wit to counter the rowdy elements. She wouldn’t want to miss their class for anything.
It was all very different from her idea of school; the unfettered freedom that was thrust on her was dizzying at first, without the guiderails of rigid rules and the supervisory, all-seeing, Big-Sisterly eye. All this seemingly convivial mixing of boys and girls was also a bit too much. When she spotted her long-lost friend Maunika during the lunch hour, she was delighted to discover someone she thought was a kindred spirit. Apart from showing an exaggerated amazement at reconnecting Ramya, Maunika, going by the name of Monica now, was cool and composed and looked very much at home in this large co-ed institution.
But, by and by Ramya got used to the place, and began to revel in its friendly, unstressful atmosphere. In her classes, she met many nice girls and young men with whom she wanted to be friends. She was surprised how informed and well read some of her college-mates were, despite playing hooky all the time. A few of them were so passionate about politics that Ramya wondered why any teenager would want to get so entangled in it, but when she came to know them better she had nothing but admiration for the purity of their zeal and commitment.
There were a few bad apples too, students who indulged in what was known as “eve-teasing”: making catcalls behind a girl’s back or passing lewd comments within her earshot. While she felt uncomfortable with this at first, it was Ramya’s opinion that such students, mostly boys, had personality issues, and she learned to ignore them. Her Daddy used to say: What cannot be cured has to be endured. Thus, spake the good doctor!
In the very first month of the academic year, the senior students hosted a party for the ‘freshers’, as the first-year students were known. At the party they served light snacks on flimsy paper plates, and tea and coffee in small glass tumblers. The real crowd-pleaser was a mock beauty contest which seemed to evoke a great deal of merriment. The awards, meant to poke fun at the freshers, went mostly to girls: A student with spots on her face got the Miss Clearasil award; a hirsute one the Missy Hairy Legs; and a well-built girl, the ultimate title of Mister India. Ramya had goose-bumps as the program progressed; when it was finally over, like many other first-year girls, she sighed with relief, glad that she hadn’t been selected for some belittling title or the other.
After that there was much music and dancing. Only a handful of the newcomers were bold enough to dance in full view of the college. Ramya sat with a group of her classmates, watching. But Monica was on the dance-floor having a whale of time as she flounced around with a roly-poly senior Ramya didn’t know. From time to time, Monica looked in Ramya’s direction, and bade her to come on to the floor. A horrified Ramya shook her head vigorously.
When the pair got tired they came over to Ramya’s group and sat down on the vacant chairs amidst them. Monica seemed happy as a lark and was very voluble. Sweat poured down the rotund face of her dance partner. Soon another young man, ostensibly a senior, joined them. “Hi Prahalad!” Monica’s friend said.
“Hi Amar!” he said, his eyes scanning the group. The gaze hovered briefly over Monica before moving on. It paused over another girl before coming back to rest on Ramya, as if for good. Ramya looked away quickly.
When the DJ — one of the seniors, enjoying the chance to show off — changed the track to a song with a fast tempo. Monica squealed: “My favourite number!”
“Let’s dance,” her friend said, rising from the metal folding-chair, which grunted back into shape.
“Would you care for a dance?” the man named Prahalad asked.
Ramya turned to say no curtly. But no words came out. She hadn’t realized how good-looking he was, with clean cut features and light brown eyes, and a day’s stubble giving him a rakish appeal. Yet she saw no reason to dance with a stranger just because he was handsome. Luckily for her, Monica tugged at her hand, saying: “Come along.” Just to escape Prahalad’s attention, Ramya got up and went along with Monica to the dance floor.
Once on the dance floor, Monica wh
irled away with her partner, cutting Ramya adrift. She stood alone in the middle of the floor like a gnomon of a sundial, not knowing what to do amid wildly gyrating bodies careening all around. Then out of nowhere Prahalad appeared, and taking her by hand, began to dance. Willy-nilly Ramya followed along, though she’d never danced to disco numbers in public before. Having been a student of one of India’s classical dance traditions, she was able to imitate the steps of her college-mates, keeping perfect time to the number.
“Wow! You dance so well,” Prahalad said. He had a gravelly voice, a little irritating to the ear, like a voice on the radio which is not tuned-in fully to the station.
“Thank you.”
“Do you attend a lot of parties?”
“No. Why do you ask that?”
“Because of your dancing. You must have had a lot of practice.”
“This is the first time I’ve stepped on to a dance floor.”
“Really? You must be a natural then.”
Ramya didn’t want to tell him that she was trained in Kuchipudi. It could be off-putting to a student of a hip college! But here she was, not even one month since the college opened and openly dancing with a young man she’d only met minutes ago. She recalled Daddy’s friend’s remark about the fleshpots of Egypt. Inwardly, she shook her head and sighed — she didn’t want her college life to be marred by an inane and abortive romance.
All through the dance, Prahalad kept plying her with questions: “Which high school did you go to? What’s your favourite band? Who’s your favourite author?” Even though Ramya was giving noncommittal, monosyllabic answers, he was persistent, like a policeman giving third degree treatment. When the song stopped, Ramya said, “Thank you,” and left the dance floor. She had danced to one number only, but how long it had seemed!
Mercifully, Ramya didn’t see Prahalad in the next few days. Later she ran into him a few times at different spots of the college. He tried to strike up a conversation, but Ramya discouraged him. They ended up merely acknowledging each other’s presence with a nod. Afterwards, not even that. They reverted to being strangers — thankfully.
With the consultant’s appointment looming, Ramya thinks that a modest makeover is in order. She drives to Short Cuts, her usual hairdresser located in a strip mall less than a kilometre from her home. It is run by a South Korean woman who calls herself Tressa. The name is a little too apt; Ramya doesn’t know if the hairdresser got the name by accident or design. Perhaps it started off as Theresa and got clipped to its present rendering by an association of ideas.
There are no customers waiting; the plastic chairs ranged along the walls are empty — no butts on seats, no bucks in the till. But it’s not all that bad; Tressa’s assistant Lolita is busy with another client seated on a swivel chair. No nymphet, Lolita is tall and heavy, more like a masseuse. Her scissors go clipitty-clip, her mouth yaketty-yak. The customer’s eyes are closed, in Zen-like tranquillity, as if she has switched herself off from the concerns of the world. She has switched off from Lolita, that’s for sure.
“Good Morning! How have you been?” Tressa asks. Lolita stops her juggernaut rush of chatter and gives Ramya a welcome smile. Ramya gets a warm reception wherever she goes — unlike many immigrants, she’s not miserly when it comes to tipping.
“I need major renovations,” Ramya says with a sigh, mussing her hair.
“It’s a long time since you came here, eh?” Tressa says. Without further ado, she leads Ramya to a chair and, forcing her into it, trusses her up. She runs a comb through Ramya’s knotty hair. Then she applies the dye — a natural black, no browns or blond highlights for Ramya — in generous swathes. Tressa, who could be as inveterate a talker as her colleague, speaks to Ramya guardedly, as if walking over a minefield. She knows Ramya has recently lost her job.
“Have you read any good books lately?” Hairdressers rarely talk about books. They like to enquire about family and vacations. But from past conversations, Tressa has learned that Ramya likes to read. Even a penniless person can borrow a book gratis from a public library.
“Nothing interesting, really,” Ramya says, remembering the stack of unread books she needs to return to the library. As for Tressa, once upon a time she used to read a tacky local newspaper in Korean which one could pick up for free outside Korean restaurants. As decades have passed since her arrival in Canada, she’s lost interest in the humdrum events happening in the Orient. Nowadays the only reading she does is of junk mail advertising liquidation sales.
“Did you take your usual vacation in December?” Ramya asks. Tressa has acquired a taste for the Caribbean in the winter, like many Canadians. Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic. She’s seen them all, courtesy cheap chartered flights.
“We didn’t go anywhere last year. We spent a quiet Christmas with family,” Tressa says. “You could call it a staycation.” Despite her name, Ramya would have expected Tressa to be a Buddhist, but many immigrants to Canada from the Far East have taken to Roman Catholicism. “We couldn’t afford to travel last year. Business has been bad. People now only want the cheapest haircuts. I guess it’s the economy.”
Tressa becomes suddenly quiet, as if she’s bitten her tongue. Put her foot in her mouth, more likely. Lolita too falls silent, maybe in sympathy.
In a deathly hush that reminds Ramya of Remembrance Day, Tressa plucks out excess facial hair from around Ramya’s eyebrows, while waiting for the hair dye to sink in. She then massages Ramya’s face, and says, breaking the silent spell: “It’ll bring out some colour in your cheeks.” After what seems like ages to Ramya, whose patience and fortitude have taken a serious beating of late, her tresses are trimmed, faithfully in a fashion stipulated by her years ago.
When at last it is done, Tressa says, marvelling at her own handiwork: “You look gorgeous!”
“You got to be kidding,” Ramya says, glancing first at herself in the mirror in the front and then her back in the mirror Tressa was holding, like a beaming lotterywinner holding an enlarged cheque to the press. Ramya makes a moue. Her hair looks stiff, as if it has been painted over. And while there’s a smidgeon of sheen on her face, it looks — yes — old. But she concedes, grudgingly: “I don’t look half as bad as I did when I walked in. Thank you, Tressa.”
She may not have won a lottery, at least she won’t look a loser to the consultant.
In the middle of September, the drama club in the college put up a poster announcing the production of a play. It was a call for auditions. They were staging A Streetcar Named Desire, with the director, a final year student of English Literature, bowdlerizing the script to suit the prudish expectations of an educational institution in India.
Ramya attended the audition, and to her utter surprise was selected for the role of Blanche. It was a coup of sorts as she was a rank newcomer, and it set a lot of tongues wagging. There were to be two months of rehearsals before the performance on the last day of college in advance of Christmas and New Year holidays.
Rajnish, the director, was a gangling, energetic man with a pronounced Adam’s apple, but his eyes shone with a fiery passion. The entire cast met for practice every evening after classes. They’d rehearse in the Salarjung Hall or the open-air stage behind the Languages building. Soon, much to Ramya’s discomfort, Prahalad also began to drop by. Though he hadn’t got a part (something to do with the gruffness of his voice perhaps), he was allowed to come to the rehearsal apparently as an understudy, but actually as a dogsbody to run errands for the cast. The latter role he did so effectively that it made him quite popular. Soon he was as much a permanent fixture as the rest of the props for the play. Ramya quite forgot that he’d been trying to hit on her. She even stopped noticing that Prahalad was never too far away from her.
During the rehearsals they’d order tea and coffee from the canteen. A boy came with a large aluminum kettle and a stack of glasses. But every now and then after the day’s practice, they headed to a nearby restaurant for a bite. They’d go on scooters or motorcycles, or
occasionally squeeze into a car. One day she found herself going with Prahalad, sitting on the pillion of his Vespa. Prahalad was on his best behaviour, to Ramya’s relief. She’d half-expected him to try his hanky-panky stuff on her. After that she relaxed and lowered her guard.
A week later, Prahalad approached her during a break in the rehearsal. She was seated on a wickerwork chair drinking the oversweet tea. She was alone, as her co-actors had gone to the loo or to have a quick puff outside.
“Would you like to come to a film with me tomorrow?”
It was most unexpected. Ramya didn’t want to seem primitive; after joining the college drama troupe, in her own estimation she’d gone up a notch or two on the scale of sophistication. What the hell, she was an actress now! It would be churlish to decline …
Ramya gets into her car to drive down to the consultant’s office downtown. How generous of the company to pay for such rehabilitative services. Personally, Ramya would’ve preferred if the company had shown its generosity by not throwing them under the bus.
The drive is bad, atrociously so. It snowed in the wee hours of the morning, and the traffic is exasperatingly slow. A snowplough has haphazardly cleared the road, leaving trails of snow on the surface and mounds of dirty snow either side. A salter has scattered granules of salt on the road, over which the car tires roll, sounding as if they’re gnashing their teeth.
The building where the consultants have their office looks as if it’s made entirely of bottle-green glass. The office is on the 14th floor. Actually, the 13th but re-designated to appease the superstitious. She’s been asked to bring two copies of her résumé.
She along with fourteen other laid-off co-workers, some of whom she didn’t know, are shepherded into a small conference room. A director of the company gives an introductory talk about the current economic situation, the job market and the need for upgrading one’s skills.