Anyone Else But You...

by Mallik, Ritwik; Verma, Ananya

  “Hmm…. does anyone even bother to monitor these funds? Seriously I heard that brands like the Royal Hag were willing to pay for sponsorship. What’s left of an educational institution these days?”

  “Nothing really,” Siddhant said as he knocked on the door of Ms. Veenu Sharma. “Come in,” the call came from inside.

  Siddhant entered with Rishav closely following him.

  “Good morning ma’am,” Rishav and Siddhant said in unison.

  “Morning, morning,” Ms. Sharma smiled.

  “Ma’am, the sponsorship amounts,” Siddhant handed over a cheque.

  “How much is it?” she asked.

  “Ten thousand,” he replied.

  “Ah hmmmmm….so what are your plans?” she asked out of nowhere.

  “Erm ma’am, are you asking me?” Siddhant asked.

  “To both of you, heheheheee…” she laughed unnecessarily.

  “Oh, ma’am, well…um, plans regarding?” Rishav asked.

  “Plans regarding what you want to do for the school. Council interviews next week,” she said.

  “Council interviews? Really ma’am?” Siddhant asked.

  “Yes,” Veenu nodded. “We will be giving out the forms shortly. It’s going to be a couple of days before Socialact Wave.”

  “I see,” Rishav said. “Ma’am is there any criteria to apply? New students too can, can’t they? For the top posts?”

  “Yes, yes they can. You have a lot of backing from teachers and what’s your name again?” She answered Rishav first and then looked at Siddhant trying hard to recollect his name.

  “Siddhant, ma’am. Siddhant Dalvi,” he seemed slightly offended.

  “Yes yes, Siddhant. What do you want to do? I haven’t really seen you much. How long have you been here?”

  “3 years ma’am,” he said proudly.

  “I see, but your contribution has been useless,” there was bluntness everywhere.

  “Okay ma’am,” Siddhant replied. “…but I do intend to apply for the Council as I feel that I have had considerable contributions to talk about,” he added.

  “You feel? Huh!” she scoffed.

  “I know ma’am,” he replied.

  “Accha accha, I am busy now, wait outside – I need to have a word with Rishav,” Ms. Sharma seemed to have got reminded of her busy schedule all of a sudden.

  Siddhant nodded politely, wished her, turned around and left the cabin.

  “What’s with this Sahana girl?” Veenu asked.

  “Ma’am, who?” Rishav was flustered.

  “This girl called Sahana Vajpai, I’ve noticed both of you hanging out a lot lately. Your girlfriend?”

  “No, not at all ma’am. Just a friend,” he maintained his calm.

  “I have got reports of seeing you guys at places, avoid okay? I see you as a potential Head Boy candidate this year.”

  “Right ma’am. I am glad you could share this with me,” he mumbled.

  “I have other news too, but ensure to keep it to you.” She lowered her voice.

  “What ma’am?”

  “Jai’s dad has got a deal done in order to make him the Head Boy, you have very stiff competition,” a concerned Veenu Sharma spoke.

  “And why do you tell me this?” he was inquisitive.

  “Because, I don’t like this Jai guy. He’s a person of double standards and I don’t like this two-faced Muskaan either. I am just warning you, motherly advice. Be careful of what you are getting yourself into.” She sounded stern till the point a lot of bitterness took over.

  “Muskaan ma’am seemed very sweet…” Rishav began and he was quickly interrupted.

  “She seems sweet to everyone. Just be careful okay?”

  “Okay,” he nodded unknowing of what to do.

  “Good,” she smiled again, opened her drawer and took out a Kitkat.

  “Take this,” she said. “….have it yourself and don’t share it with Sahana, hehehhehe…!” her trademark laugh followed.

  “Ha ha, thank you ma’am.” Rishav said as he accepted the small bar of chocolate without a complaint.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘Lunch today?’ Rishav scribbled on a piece of paper, stuffed it inside the cap of his blue Trimax gel pen and casually dropped it on Sahana’s desk as he walked past it.

  Sahana who was deeply engrossed in her talks failed to respond to Rishav’s futile attempt. To make it look less obvious, Rishav went straight down to the far end of the classroom and sat besides Tarun Saini who was in one of his hormone drives.

  “Pee-shove Hen,” Tarun exclaimed on seeing him.

  “Hey!” Rishav said as he positioned himself to get an unhindered view of Sahana. She was yet to turn around and spot the lonely pen cap lying on her desk. Urgh, Rishav scowled in his head.

  In the meanwhile, Tarun Saini had started muttering stuff like how pressurized the modern youth was. To top that, he composed an impromptu song and started humming it under his breath, Pressure, pressure everywhere – no pressure when we shit! We shall bust pressure with our busty chests and this idea is a HIT!

  Saini’s insanity added to an anxious Rishav’s woes. It had been a good fifteen minutes or so, since he had left that well-disguised note and Sahana seemed least interested.

  Rishav looked at the heavens, kill me O’ Lord! Tarun took cue and started, Kill me, thrill me, kiss me but don’t forget to fuck me, ah huh ah huh…

  Irritated, annoyed and anxious – Rishav got up. He walked upto Sahana and stood beside her for a few seconds. She failed to acknowledge his presence. He lifted the pen cap and shook it violently in front of Sahana’s eyes and in the process disturbed her and broke her flow of conversation in which she was vaguely explaining the nuances of mountain climbing.

  “Uff! What the hell are you doing?! Get away!” she screamed.

  “I am bringing to your notice that this pen cap has been lying on your desk for the past fifteen minutes!” Rishav exclaimed.

  “So?” she replied.

  “So, see what it’s about!”

  “Get lost, I am busy. I will see it later,” she was sharp and merciless in her tone of reply.

  “Just see it atleast?” Rishav’s tone on the contrary, reflected desperation.

  “Can’t you get it once?” Sahana sounded cross. “I don’t want to, now go…!”

  “Why you getting pissed yaar?” Rishav asked. “I just wanted you to see what was inside,” he mumbled.

  Her brows burrowed in a frown, she made an expression reflecting distaste and disgust and turned to face her friend again.

  Rishav stood there for a moment or two, before dragging himself back to where Tarun Saini sat.

  “Crack some of your jokes man!” He said, quite frustrated.

  It was one of those moments when anyone would be dying to say, oh dear earth dig a hole and bury me inside it.

  Saini’s funny jokes didn’t sound funny anymore and with no other alternatives left, Rishav placed his head on the desk and tried to fall asleep when something terribly hard struck him on the head with force.

  He got up startled; he saw a pen-cap lying next to him on the floor.

  He lifted it and took out the crumbled piece of paper. There was a sense of excitement, anticipating what could be Sahana’s reply. And much to his dismay, the note read: NO.

  What the hell! He kicked himself. Now that was the second time, he was being refused directly or indirectly. Enough is enough, he thought.

  The queerness of humans is that there’s a lot of disparity between what one thinks and how his actions follow up his thoughts. And so was the same, in case of Rishav.

  *

  “You wanted dirt, I have dirt!” Hardik exclaimed proudly.

  Jai sat in his zone at the far end of the school ground. He was surrounded by two-three of his other ass lickers. Stubbles and disheveled hair, the royalty wasn’t really at his best that day. He looked at Hardik for a few seconds. His icy cold stare read the twitching of every facial muscle of Hardik whi
lst he spoke. Jai had his arms folded and legs crossed, “What’s the dirt bitch?” he asked.

  “A girl,” Hardik replied.

  People around Jai started laughing.

  “A girl?” Jai mocked Hardik’s incoherent tone.

  “Yes, Sahana. Sahana Vajpai.”

  “Sahana?” there was a drastic change in Jai’s expressions. “That Sahana?” he reconfirmed.

  “Yes dude. That Sahana.”

  “Fuck!” Jai got up, unnerving his pals in the process. “This is fucking insane man, now I get to get back at both of them!” he laughed.

  “Don’t you have history with her?” Hardik asked.

  “Yes I do, she was the one who beat me blue with her water bottle in the junior classes when I accidentally called her a stale tomato!” Jai scratched his head. “And then, a few years later, she tried to report me to Madhuri for misusing my powers as the class monitor. Although Madhuri ma’am didn’t do anything to me, but I still have some resentment towards that bitch!”

  “Well then…” Hardik said. “…she’s the bitch Rishav is after. Seen them loads together you know. Library, canteen, games periods, everywhere they’ll be seen together. It’s the Rishav-Sahana show.” He added.

  “Have they been seen doing any hanky panky?” Jai started moving up and down with people following him as he did that. “Stop following me bhenchods,” he shouted.

  “No hanky panky, Rishav has played it safe. He doesn’t want to screw up his reputation.”

  “Hmm… I see. So you imply that if I intimidate the chick, the cock will do something unsavoury?” he deliberately said cock, much to the delight of his mates.

  “I guess as much,” Hardik said.

  “Then we shall do that, we shall do something to unsettle Sahana and provoke that Bengali bitch.”

  “As you say, what do we have to do?”

  “I will call you in the evening and tell you what needs to be done, it’s of utmost important that we do this. And that too, successfully,” Jai thumped his fist on his shoulder.

  Too excited about provoking Rishav, Jai forgot that he was taking on the very girl who turned him into a state in which even his mom failed to recognize him, exactly 6 years back!

  FOURTEEN

  Rishav had given up trying to make things work and arrange for a lunch with Sahana on a sooner date. Everytime, she came in front him, he wanted to have a chance to talk to her about “stuff.” But despite his repeated tries, it didn’t work. Not much worked when it came to Sahana, really!

  He looked down at his watch and saw that it was almost two. He was already out of class. I am not going back, he said to himself. Even if it means not seeing her go and not seeing her for two days, he thought.

  He went to the canteen, hung out with some random people and headed towards the exit, after that. He walked slowly with the scorching sun on his back. He looked up and saw a lonely figure standing there. Black bag, blue stripes on it – a girl. Is that Sahana? He thought. Now, the last thing he wanted was to get his hopes up and running unnecessarily.

  He reached the gate, walking slowly because there was a little glimmer of hope inside him. He looked at the girl, carefully from the back. Yes it was Sahana!

  Act cool, act cool Rishav, he told himself.

  “Hey,” he said in a not so enthusiastic though not too mellow manner. She smiled. “How come you’re here? Don’t you go by bus?” he asked.

  “Yeah, missed my bus,” she replied.

  “So how do you plan to go then?”

  “I have no friggin’ clue!” she exclaimed.

  “Rickshaw?” Rishav asked.

  “Need money for that. And if I had it, wouldn’t I have been at home by now?” she did her little thing with the eyes.

  “Okay, then,” he replied to that. “You can take the money from me. Return it to me later,” he added laying emphasis on the last part.

  She hesitated, shifting from one foot to another. “I can’t, because if I go home now, they’d scold me for missing my bus.” “And if I go home and make an excuse of a stay-back, then they’ll scold me for not informing them before hand!”

  “Call them from the Reception area,” Rishav suggested.

  “Yeah,” she said still thinking. “Okay, let’s go to the Reception then,” she said.

  He was surprised that she actually let him come with her.

  “Cool,” he said in a state of subdued excitement.

  She walked with a haste he hadn’t seen before.

  “So your aunt and uncle are really strict, huh?” he asked trying to talk while they ran and walked at the same time.

  “Strict would be an understatement,” she replied.

  “Oh, okay!” he said. He wanted to ask a lot of questions but figured that it’d be just too rude to be all probing, so he kept silent.

  “You’ve been in this school all along?” he asked.

  “No, I was also in DAV Shimla,” she replied.

  “Ohh, I just love that place. I lived there for a year or a little more.”

  “You did? Then how come we never banged into each other then?” she asked for the sake of it. As though it in an afterthought, she added, “I was five years old then. I don’t think we’d even remember even if we did bang into each other.”

  “I would’ve,” he said innocently.

  They reached the Reception and she put on her – I’m a little troubled girl, help me face.

  The receptionist, seeing her face, melted and let her make the phone call. After long, drawn out explanations and persuasive statements, Sahana hung up. With a long face, she walked towards Rishav.

  “So?” he asked. “What did she say?” he added.

  “Well, I told her that I had a stay-back and that I had forgotten to inform her,” she felt silent.

  “And…?”

  “And, she is kinda cross at me but I think I might manage it, if my uncle doesn’t get all aggressive and stuff. I told her I’d be back in an hour, just to be convincing.”

  “Hmmm…” Rishav nodded. “You must be hungry,” he said. “So am I…!” he followed it up, not giving Sahana, a moment to reply.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Well, there’s a McD outlet close by, want to go and grab a bite?” for the first time what he said wasn’t aimed at creating situations for a lunch. Things just happened and they had reached a situation where a lunch was the most apparent thing.

  “Umm…I don’t know really. I honestly don’t want be spotted; I’ll be in deep shit if I do. You go ahead,” she said.

  “Sahana, trust me. It’ll be fine, we can take an auto. You know? The ones with covered sides, it’ll conceal you.”

  She stood there for a while, thinking. Oh what the hell! I am going, she said to herself.

  *

  Fifteen minutes later, they were looking up at the menu at the back of the counter, in the restaurant of McDonald’s.

  “I’ll go with a McAloo,” she said with childlike enthusiasm.

  Rishav looked at her and smiled, “And I thought you weren’t interested in lunch.”

  “Well, it’s Mcd’s. Every child’s dream land, you know,” she said.

  Rishav smiled again, “And you are a child. I get it. McAloo for me too, then,” he said.

  “Vegetarian? Seriously? Aren’t you like a crazy non-vegetarian?” she asked.

  “Well, I feel like McAloo. So why can’t I? I have never tried it before. Today, my intuition tells me is the perfect day,” Rishav said.

  “As you wish, order a small fries and a regular Coke that we’ll share okay?” she said.

  “Why not separate?” he countered.

  “I can’t drink the whole thing. I’ll waste it. Do as I say. I am gonna wait outside.”

  “Here you go,” he said, five minutes later, as he handed Sahana her McAloo burger.

  “Coke?” she asked.

  “Here you go,” he handed her the Coke.

  She took a sip and handed it back t
o him.

  “So how are you gonna eat with both your hands occupied?” she laughed.

  “I guess you’ll have to hold the Coke while I eat my burger,” he thrust the Coke in her hand.

  “Don’t push it. I am clumsy. I might just drop it,” she said jokingly.

  Rishav finished his burger in three bites.

  “Talk about animalistic,” she commented as she stared at him crushing the burger’s wrapper into a ball and putting it back into the brown paper bag.

  “What?” Rishav asked after he had swallowed everything.

  “Three bites and it’s finished,” Sahana said while slowly eating her burger.

  “Hello! I was hungry okay? And that’s how guys eat. They have big appetites,” he said defensively.

  “Yeah. You’re right. That’s how they eat. Like primeval animals. True,” Sahana said as she started walking towards their auto.

  “Oh please,” Rishav said, afraid if he became too offensive she would get even more offensive.

  “Now finish the Coke. I will finish the fries,” Sahana ordered as they stood next to the auto.

  “I want the fries too. I am still hungry,” Rishav said.

  “No. I want the fries. You eat my burger,” Sahana said.

  “Oh God, fine. Give it to me,” Rishav snatched the burger out of Sahana’s hands before she could take another bite.

  “Bitch!” Sahana said as she snatched the fries out of his hand.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered ordered.

  “Okay. I have to get back anyway,” Sahana agreed.

  They sat in the auto. A silence crept up between them. Rishav was not restless to say something for the first time. He was content.

  Sahana stopped the auto before the main gate of 34.

  “Bye,” she said as she got off from the auto.

  Rishav smiled and waved as the auto sped off towards his home.

  FIFTEEN

  “Rishav Sen, right?” Kalsi asked with half smile lighting up her oblate spheroid face.