‘If Suri Madam was a female Mahseer, would we find her so very attractive?’ Arun quipped under his breath. ‘If it was like that, I would become her male Mahseer and stay in the rivulets with her, never to return!’ Onni added.
But a scratching sound brought him back to the laboratory from the hill-streams and shallow rivulets.
Onni slowly looked in the direction of the noise. As the class listened to Suri Madam, Brownie, the hamster, kept scraping the walls of his wooden cage right next to the window.
Onni’s eyes met the hamster’s. He and everybody in the class saw Brownie daily, confined all alone. They played with him. They fed him. They spoke to him. They cleaned his cage. But nobody did what the hamster actually wanted them to do. Nobody gave him back his freedom.
As he stared, the little furry animal kept trying to get out desperately. It was as if that little dead finch that had been flying around in Onni’s head was wanting a way out, to fly away finally. ‘Brownie has waited for too long in this lonely cage... Just like that finch has been waiting for all these years, trapped in my memory,’ Onni thought.
He suddenly got an idea.
That day after the lectures and practicals ended, Onni and Arun came back to the classroom.
Arun went up to Prof. Bajaj who was seated there reading some reference books in solitude. He flooded the old gentleman with many questions — questions to which the learned professor had no accurate answers.
He made a note of the questions and promised Arun and Onni that they would know the answers soon.
‘Can I go and say bye to Brownie, Sir?’ Onni asked.
He tiptoed to the little creature’s cage. After staring at him lovingly one last time, he unbolted the cage door and left it ajar.
Onni knew what he was doing. And the hamster knew what he had to do.
Four
T here were lots of things to do in the sprawling house.
When you are a child, the home you are in feels huge. But as you grow up to become big and tall, the rooms seem to reduce in size. What happened to Alice when she was in Wonderland actually does happen to us all.
But for now, Onni was here, in a space that was large, and all his.
Perched right above the sea of offices, this was the quarter that his father was allotted. And as the only child, he was at the centre of everything.
This fortress was a lonely one on weekends. But he never felt it, thanks to the twins - Ankit and Arpit.
He had once heard the domestic help grumble to his mother ‘ Ek kawla pan nahi! ’ There’s not even a crow she complained. ‘See Ankit and Arpit’s bird cage!’ Onni smiled as he thought.
Inside, one comfortable room led to another, housing different episodes. The huge living room stretched out. Under the chairs were the darkish tunnels through which his toy trains chugged. The showcase was full of books. His mother had lovingly arranged Anna Karenina with her back against The Godfather. A little away were Maupassant and Dickens, lined up with many more.
All over the glass of the showcase, the little family of three had spent a day pasting stickers of colourful fish.
‘Neon tetras stay together...’ Onni was sure. He had seen them swim in groups at the aquarium.
The whale was the same size as the guppies and the goldfish. That was so wrong according to the little one.
‘Please put the shark and octopus away from the others ; they will eat everybody!’ he was so sure.
The stickers made the huge showcase look like a big fish tank, where the little finned denizens of the deep swam across an amazing collection of submerged books.
But among all the stickers, Onni was happy there were no crabs. He liked seeing them, but only from behind the thick glass at the aquarium.
‘Those strong sets of claws have teeth. They can tear off anything!’ Geeta teacher had taught in school.
‘Crabs live in the sea and we live on the land,’ the boy had consoled himself.
Onniruddh came out of the bathroom covered in his big, colourful towel. He was on his way to the kitchen to announce the completion of his bath to Maa.
‘Onni, watch out!’ Maa screamed.
The boy didn’t know what was happening. And suddenly he saw them – a complete army of them, crawling fast with their numerous pointed toes.
Their eyes were erect on stalks; their legs were carrying them sideways towards him; their claws were ready. He had seen them before, at the aquarium that Maa and Baba had taken him to. There they all sat quietly on the rocks. But here, they were riotous.
Onni looked around. The showcase was too high to jump up on and save himself. And there, in front of him he saw the dining table. It had turned into an island, an island that would save him from the pincers of the demonic crabs.
As he leaped up on the table, his towel slipped off. But he could not care less. Standing uncovered on the dining table would be much better than meeting a painful death at the claws of the wicked crab army.
Safe on top of the table, Onni stood motionless as he saw the evil crabs. They spread to every corner – under the chairs, behind the planters. The crabs were everywhere he could see.
Finally the rescue team arrived. His Maa and Baba emerged from the kitchen with tongs and a big packet in their hands in which they were stowing the crabs.
‘There, behind the table!’ he screamed pointing out, helping his parents locate any of the crabs he could see and they had missed.
Soon, they were all in the bag.
That day at lunch, the little boy could swear that the crab soup tasted evil.
Eighteen
O
nn i was in a soup, and a really bad one.
Physics was something he could never fathom. ‘Hit a rubber block with a pair of vibrating tongs and hear their resonance on a wire. And then measure it! Too much? Try this... A train passes a station at a specific speed. How long can a person, who is standing on that station of a given length, see the train? If two magnets approach each other, how long will they feel each other’s pull? God, spare me!’
Onni loved books. But he could never see the use of these questions. However, the exams were here and he had to know how to calculate the answers. So what if real, everyday life had nothing to do with all this? The professor who set the paper wanted to know. Period.
So here poor Onni was, answering the Physics question paper.
The French paper in the morning had been great. ‘I’ve worded every conjugation, every translation, everything perfectly,’ he said as he devoured the lunch that his mom had lovingly got him during the break.
The ominous bell rang for the students to settle in. The invigilator put the cursed question paper in front of him. One quick glance and he did not even want to try answering.
‘All good!’ he signalled Arun, his best friend. He was reading through the questions, when through the big window, he saw his dear Maa making her way out of the compound, carrying his empty lunch box.
She had great hopes. She wanted him to eat well and then answer the Physics paper well. But he was going to dash her hopes. ‘I’m a sinner! Why does she deserve this?’ he cried invisible tears.
Finally, he took the decision. He would do what was best. Onni just copied the question paper into his answer sheets. Verbatim.
He knew a few of the easy answers, just a few. So, he put those down. The rest of his answer paper was the same as the question paper. Finally, he finished. And that was long before any of his friends did. In any case, he handed in his paper.
Waving goodbye to Arun and to Priti, the hot girl sitting next to him for the exams, he started walking home.
‘Farewell, my friends... We shall meet in a better world where we are not judged by how much we know about magnetism, electricity and convergence.’
Slowly Onni dragged hi
s feet. The path almost grew hands and tried to hold him back. But he had to go.
‘That truck is good – nice and heavy. Anything that comes before it will be crushed beyond recognition,’ Onni thought to himself and slowly stepped on to the road.
The truck came lurching ahead... With all its weight it snarled at Onni as he came in the way. The loud honking was persistent, but the boy did not hear it. His thoughts were spiralling, thinking about the people he was leaving behind.
Onni had read somewhere that when you see death coming, your whole life flashes in front of you. They were right.
Every little bit swished past his memory. His Maa and Baba, the girlfriends in college, the dead finch, his Didima and Dadu, his stories, the invigilator at the examination hall, Arun - his best friend, his room at home, the magazines he had hidden, the long forgotten school bag, his doting school teachers, his college professors, the unopened notes and textbooks - the money he wasted buying some and photocopying the others, the clothes he wanted, the life he thought he would live, the awesome picture he had cut out and treasured of that platinum blonde pop star from a forth coming music album...
‘Oh... I shall never hear her ever again, I shall never get a chance to meet her...’ he lamented.
That was just too much for the eighteen year-old.
Yes, it pulled him through. Onni hastened his steps and got out of the way of the rolling truck just in time.
People were screaming, but he didn’t care. The driver was honking, but he didn’t care. His friends were still solving their question papers, but he didn’t care. The Physics professor was waiting to give him the worst scores ever, but he didn’t care. That platinum blonde pop diva had just saved him.
‘The papers were okay... I shall do well.’ he said when he reached home. He started preparing for the Biology examination that was on the next day.
Slowly, he opened his drawer to see the textbooks he detested. Next to them were the novels he loved – all carefully arranged. On top of them all was a picture of that platinum blonde pop icon. Onni smiled at her.
When the results were declared, he scored 35 in Physics... It was just enough for him to pass and go to the next class.
Five
Long before he had to remember ridiculous Physics
formulae, Onni had better things to remember. Like the timings for Chhayageet, on television.
There was a black-and-white TV set at Didima’s house, and he was addicted to it.
The little boy loved watching Chhayageet every Friday. It had song sequences from the movies – a man was singing with a lady on the hills, a child was singing about his parents, a poor man was singing about better times, a lady was singing for her lost brother... There were songs for every situation in life. Onni really liked this.
‘Who do I sing for?’ Onni wondered. The answer was in his classroom. The answer was in front of him all day. Heena was the answer.
Heena had the most amazing pigtails. She cried when her mother dropped her to school every day. She smiled when she saw the gulab jamuns in her tiffin box. It all seemed like poetry to little Onni. And he decided to make his love public.
But, how would he do it? Here, he hatched a clever plan.
Just after English class, all the notebooks had to be carried from the staffroom to be distributed back to the students. He would use this opportunity. As the class monitor, he had to ensure that all the books were brought back. It is then that he would do the deed... Make his love for Heena known.
In the whole class, he did not like one boy – Hitendra. When the examination scores were declared, every time Hitendra stood first, and Onni was second. So justice had to be meted out. Carefully taking out Hitendra’s notebook, he scribbled in it...
Onni is King. Heena is Queen. Hitendra is Servant.
He slipped the book back onto the pile, and waited for the plan to work. All night he kept thinking about how Hitendra would complain and make the scribble public the next day. His love would be known to all! Onni fell asleep dreaming of the beautiful tomorrow to dawn.
As the bell rang and everyone walked into class the next day, Onni waited. But Hitendra did not come in.
Later, news came in that Hitendra’s schoolbag had been stolen from his own car the earlier evening.
Nineteen
The thing for Heena stayed in the stolen bag. But with Sheetal, it was different.
From the first day, Onni remembered, the whole college class was smitten by this lady with a sharp tongue and other amazing body parts.
‘Remove your clothes!’ was the order given by that senior with ugly, rotten teeth and a reeking breath. And the degree college freshers, who were in the class, stood there thinking why they were here. Onni was part of this — part of the ones being ragged, not the ones ragging.
‘We just want to know all of you juniors better,’ the senior teased. His batch-mates’ laughter followed. All seniors who had ever ragged their juniors said this.
‘And they want to peep inside our pants to bond with us?’ Onni’s silent question remained unasked. ‘Arun, the lucky dog! At least his vacation with his irritating aunts has saved him from this,’ he cogitated.
All the young men were made to stand in their underwear. Typical Y-front undies, discoloured undies, loose-elastic undies, overwashed undies, stained undies, brand new undies, peep-holed undies, badly fitting undies; here was a gathering of every kind ever seen.
Suddenly a puny man, who still had his trousers on, started sobbing uncontrollably. ‘I’m not wearing anything inside... Spare me, please!’ He was not. And everybody got to see invisible undies.
Luckily for the swimming that followed the early lectures, Onni had his swimwear on under his jeans.
‘Each of you has to tell us what you will do to get your clothes back. Chalo... Who’s going to be the first one?’ asked a senior.
‘I’ll polish both your shoes with my clothes!’
‘I’ll wipe the blackboard with mine...’
‘I’ll dust the benches, please.’
‘May I sing a song, sir?’
‘Then can I dance?’
Ridiculous answers filled the air. Everyone was ready to do the stupidest things in the desperation of getting back into their clothes. The seniors, of course, remained bored and unmoved.
‘Is this the Biology class?’ rang a female voice.
Everyone turned and was blown away by the young lady at the door of the classroom.
One look and the men’s testosterone started pumping. Onni could not help but think that the situation was right out of a chick flick... In his head, he was enjoying it.
Chic black tresses framed her chiselled features. Her locks cascaded down and spilled over her delicate collar bones that peeped through her crisp, white shirt. As a few errant locks tantalisingly led the way in, through the open button the men could faintly make out the talent that was hidden inside. The beginning of the deep cleavage was proof enough.
As all the semiclad young men fought to hide their disgraceful state, the seniors kept a straight face. ‘Yes! And practicals are going on...’
Her delicate perfume wafted across the room. She had taken over the men’s aural, visual, oral and olfactory senses.
Holding her serviette in style, she cast a glance at the undressed young men and then at the seniors. She figured out what was happening here. The new class was being welcomed in.
‘Sorry, I thought ragging has been made punishable by the Principal.’
One of the seniors answered ‘Just checking if these new boys are worth your great company.’
‘Why don’t you leave that to me, hmmm?’ she asked, standing there with a teasing stance.
From their interaction, it was obvious that the seniors knew Sheetal well.
Onni could not ke
ep his eyes from roving over her. He could feel the effect she was having on the bulge of his blue and red swimming trunks. The sin of lust is every man’s battle, after all.
‘Men should be hard, not soft,’ Sheetal had said when she was talking about guys once. And Onni was happy that working out and swimming were part of his everyday routine.
‘I think the Principal will want you all to finish fast...’ she said as she turned to leave.
Onni could swear that her sweeping glance met his and halted for a second, before she continued.
That was the first day of degree college. Not a single lecture was attended by Onni after he got out of that classroom. Nor did he go for his swimming practice. He concentrated all his energy on looking for Sheetal.
‘Your place or mine?’ he asked when Onni finally bumped into her.
‘Neither...’ she said as a faint hint of a smile appeared on her lips. Onni wanted to say something further, but she calmly started walking ahead. He walked beside her, wondering if he should say something or maintain his cool exterior. She could sense his throbbing chest and the tension in his muscles just by stealing glances at him. But she just kept walking. Not uttering a single word, he walked by her side.
It was only after a while that he realised where she had led him.
The college building had its busy spots; it had its lonely, deserted, forgotten corners too. The two were behind the Ladies’ Common Room, suddenly the quietest and most forgotten place on campus.
‘Now, may I see your blue swimwear up close?’ she asked him.
As a frantic tumble started, Sheetal and Onni made sure they used the desolate spot to the fullest.
Six
Onni was part of another crazy frenzy at another desolate spot long ago. Unlike the one with Sheetal, he wanted to forget everything about this one.
The staircase that went up to Pootoo-Mashi’s place was dank and dark, always.
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