I quietly move a bit on the couch. I know I should be glad that I no longer look like a loser sitting alone on the velvet sofa under the harsh glare of the disco lights. But I am feeling kind of embarrassed. The only thing worse than sitting alone in a party is sitting with a tragic reject case like Aisha.
I am horrible. Terrible and despicable.
Meanwhile, Aisha, who understood what I was going to say, gives a tiny smile and explains, ‘My parents know Shalini aunty very well.’
Obviously.
I nod, embarrassed. Ma really likes Aisha. She thinks that of all the crazy south Bombay girls I hang out with, Aisha is the most decent.
‘I, umm, heard,’ says Aisha sotto voce, ‘about what you’re going to do.’
‘What?’ I ask, startled. The way she says it! It is as if I am planning to revive the tradition of spraying gaalis on the school walls.
‘Umm … everyone’s saying that you are going to …’ she trails off, visibly embarrassed.
I nod encouragingly. ‘Uh-huh …?’
‘That you’re going to make papers for us,’ she says in a hurry. She looks around after she says that, as if to ensure that no one has heard her. She is acting as if she has just told me what will come in the exam paper.
I take a sip of my Fanta, mentally praying to the artificially-coloured and flavoured, saccharine-sweet drink to give me strength.
‘Who told you that?’ I ask her in a cool voice.
‘Amnimisha,’ she says nervously.
‘Nim?’ I repeat in surprise.
And what is wrong with Aisha? She is two bloody years older than me and she is letting me bully her! How is she ever going to become a lawyer? Some stupid convict is going to scream his head off at her for not warning him not to murder the paanwalla because he refused to give him a special paan and Aisha is just going to whimper and flee the courtroom in tears!
‘Umm … yes,’ she whispers.
‘Well, I’m not,’ I say, intensely annoyed. ‘Just because you people don’t have enough brains to study on your own doesn’t mean I’m going to cheat.’
There is a barely concealed bitter note in my voice that I immediately regret. Aisha looks hurt. She is the last person in the world to even think of cheating in an exam.
I am about to apologize when Rika, Lavisha, Shantanu, Yash and this dude in twelfth (who always turns up at school with a hangover) come up to us.
I don’t know about Aisha but I feel as if the two of us are being ganged up on by this tall and lithe foursome. They are towering over us threateningly and I feel this sudden urge to throw my Fanta at someone.
And I do. It’s just one of those things, like when you think so much about not tripping while climbing down the stairs that you end up tripping. Self-fulfilling prophecy or maybe just revenge.
Tee hee.
It was an accident, I swear. One moment the glass is in my hand half full and the next moment it is lying on the floor next to the couch with a few drops of Fanta still in it.
Lavisha takes a second or two to realize that her white dress has a jarring fluorescent orange stain on the front. Her face contorts with anger and in a flash, her hand cuts through the air in front of me, her nails leaving deep scratches on my arms.
I shriek with pain while the twelfth dude howls, ‘Whoaaaa, catfight!’ Obviously, his wildest fantasies have come true.
Lavisha reaches out to hit me again while I dive into the sofa. She looks down at her dress to see that the orange liquid has now spread all over it and howls with rage. (Not a difficult feat for a half-full glass of Fanta, trust me. Her dress begins five inches below her neck and ends ten inches above her knees.) ‘Bitch!’ she screeches.
Rika, in her usual disregard for normal reactions, starts giggling uncontrollably. I can see hints of annoyance and anger at me, immediately eclipsed by fits of disbelieving laughter.
With difficulty, she finally manages to compose herself and school her features into normalcy. She grabs Lavisha from behind and throws her at Shantanu, begging him to take her off somewhere.
Lavisha is hysterical now. I can see her mind tearfully watching the tragic end of her designer dress. I, on the other hand, stare at the fierce red marks her French manicured nails have made on my arms. And I’ve had my arms way longer than Lavisha has had that piece of white cloth.
‘You must’ve enjoyed that, huh, Ira?’ Rika says to me in a dry voice after Shantanu somehow manages to drag Lavisha away.
‘I didn’t do that on purpose,’ I cry indignantly.
If this had been any other time Rika would have bowed down to me in mock-respect and dismissed Lavisha by asking her to ‘slither away to a corner and find a sense of humour’.
We would have giggled about it for hours. And Rika would’ve posted it on FB. But now …
‘Ira, what is your problem? You are so attention-seeking,’ Rika says. ‘Is that why you’re acting so pricey with us? You want all of us to fawn over the oh-so-gifted Ira and only then you will deign to help us lesser mortals?’
‘That is so not true!’ I cry, aghast. Why am I being made the selfish, evil witch? I am good and honest. I have a sense of integrity. And look at all of them. Acting as if they are being deprived of what is rightfully theirs!
‘Ira, that was so juvenile,’ Shantanu, who has just escaped Lavisha’s clutches, says seriously. There are faint orange blotches on his hands and shirt. Even he doesn’t look like he is joking.
God, what is happening to all of them? They used to have a sense of humour.
‘What do you want, Ira?’ Yash asks me suddenly. His eyes have been amazed ping-pong balls all this while, following the heated discussion between me and Rika. ‘Why aren’t you doing this for us?’ he asks, his voice throbbing with emotion. ‘We need you.’
Whoa, what’s with the melodrama?
‘Give us a reason,’ Shantanu says calmly.
‘It’s cheating, that’s why!’ I exclaim.
‘Ira, strictly speaking, it’s not,’ Rika says.
‘Yeah,’ Yash affirms, nodding his head vigorously. ‘It’s not. It’s helping.’
‘Ira’s right. It’s cheating,’ Aisha speaks up. We all turn to her in surprise. I had completely forgotten that she was sitting next to me on the couch. Under normal circumstances, Aisha isn’t capable of speaking in front of more than two people.
Finally, the twelfth-standard dude says (or slurs, rather), ‘Dude, do I know you?’
Of course he does, I want to tell him. Aisha was in his class when she was at Thoburn and Hurst.
‘Oh, yeah, I know. You’re the fat girl who left after tenth!’
‘Lakshya!’ Rika exclaims, appalled. I am equally shocked. Is that what they called her? Fat girl?
‘What?’ he says, before taking a gulp from the suspicious-looking can he has been hiding behind his back. His tee says, ‘I recycle drunk girls’. I actually feel sorry I wasted my Fanta on Lavisha.
Tears well up in Aisha’s eyes and with a strangled sob, she gets up from the couch and runs off.
‘Whatever,’ Shantanu mutters, rolling his eyes. ‘Ira, please?’
I look at him. How can he just say ‘whatever’? I want to run behind Aisha but have completely lost her in the swarm of teenagers gyrating to insanely loud music.
‘No,’ I answer, my eyes still searching for Aisha. ‘I said no.’
‘Listen, what do you want?’ Lakshya says suddenly. ‘I’m applying to Ivy Leagues. I’ve already got an offer from Yale. Now I just need solid marks.’
He swoops down to my level, thrusting his face in front of mine. The sudden inhalation of copious amounts of carbon dioxide mixed with alcohol is so strong that I almost collapse. His hand goes to the breast pocket of his shirt and starts to stroke a mysterious lump inside it.
Rika gasps again when she sees what he’s doing. ‘Lakshya, you asshole! How dare you bring that stuff to my party! Get lost. And leave Ira alone. This is between us.’
She kicks him on his shin
. He promptly shows her his precious middle finger which she holds and bends, leaving him on the couch next to me, howling like Lavisha.
Rika turns to me again and glares. I am surprised that she hasn’t thrown me out yet. If the party had not been in such a swinging mode and had the people not been too busy to pay any attention to our group, her party would have been ruined. (Or maybe not. Last year at the head boy’s party, these two guys started fighting over this girl, who had been cheating on both of them with the head boy, and one guy’s butt bone broke. Everyone’s still talking about it.)
Squaring her shoulders, Rika turns around and stalks off to the other end of the room with Shantanu and Yash following. I don’t know where to look or what to do. This is getting horribly awkward.
I’m about to get up when I remember (just in time) that an extremely high Lakshya, the pain in his finger forgotten, is still lying next to me like a corpse. He is staring at me. He continues to stare unabashedly for at least five minutes before he finally opens his mouth and says in a flat voice, ‘You know why that fatso of yours, Aisha, left the school? Because she is like you. Miss Goody-two-shoes. No, I’m not going to do this. It’s not fair! She was the prefect. Our nice, studious and honest prefect.’
He is looking me straight in the eye and seems to be completely aware of himself and what is happening. Not in the least bit drunk or drugged. His last words before he gets up freak me out even more.
‘She didn’t leave school. We made her leave.’
I leave the party after that. I know the car will be waiting for me. When I am about to step out, I hear someone call out my name and turn around slowly, praying that it is Rika.
It is Aisha. I feel horrible when I see her. Why am I always so rude and inconsiderate of her? Especially when Ma likes her ever so much!
‘Amira,’ says Aisha softly, ‘my parents can’t pick me up. Can you drop me?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ I say immediately.
I feel bad for Aisha. How horrible it is for her. I didn’t even defend her when that moron called her a fatso. And she isn’t even fat. Just kind of big-boned.
Aisha must know what a fake I am. Acting all Little Miss Innocent in front of my parents when in reality I am involved in stuff they wouldn’t even dream of. If they knew I had sleepovers with girls who are willing to make out with random boys on a dare …
And Nihar … I know my parents think he is kind of weird. I just never told them why he is always so droopy and weird, or what he gets up to behind his building.
Because I know what they would say. Don’t talk to Rika ever again. If her brother is like this, what must she be like?
In a school where new students eat lunch alone for at least two years before finding another social reject to give them company, I have got really lucky. I can’t ruin that.
‘Aisha, would you please not tell my mom … you know … what happened?’ I ask sheepishly.
I can’t believe what I am doing. What has happened to me? I used to be such a good daughter. Not super in studies but still the ideal daughter.
‘Oh, of course,’ Aisha answers as we get into my car. Her cheeks have turned red. I wonder where she has been all this while.
‘You’re not going to do it, are you?’ she asks me anxiously when we are seated.
I don’t answer. No, I don’t want to do it. Why? I ask myself. Because of what I lost the last time this happened? And that was just one measly math paper.
I shudder, imagining the effect of a series of papers. It would be like dominoes and I’d be the one standing at the end, waiting to get knocked over.
And it is terrifying to walk into an exam hall knowing only ten answers. Besides, I hurt Aditi last time. I ruined the reputation her father had built over the years.
But no one will get hurt this time, a voice in my head whispers. After all, don’t my friends want me to agree?
Harsh pops into my mind. His father is a teacher. My wounds were still raw when I met him. The day Rika told me his father was a teacher, I’d decided it wasn’t worth it. What if I accidentally ‘overheard’ something again?
Harsh thinks it is because of Rika that I stopped talking to him. He is so wrong.
‘I’ve decided that if any of this funny business happens I will leave Amroli’s,’ Aisha informs me. ‘I am not going to be part of all this.’
I pity her. What good would come of that? Being too nice and honest just leaves you stuck in the middle. You’re definitely not the worst, but not the best either. While Aisha is smart, she’s not smart enough to get amazing marks.
Lakshya’s words are still ringing in my head.
Do I want to become like Aisha? Lonely, unpopular, unwelcome and forced to leave school?
It has happened to me once. And I had been beyond miserable. Do I really want to let go of all that I have here? Since I’ve joined this school, there hasn’t been a single day where I had to eat lunch alone. I have an amazing number of friends.
And if I agree to this whole scheme, what is the worst that can happen? That people will find out?
But there is no way anyone will. Amroli’s kids always do fabulously. Even if every single kid in Amroli’s IIT batch got into an IIT, no one would bat an eyelid. There is a reason parents agree to pay an insufferable amount of money to Amroli’s.
And if I refuse?
Lavisha is already furious with me. Not that I care much about her. However, like most people with foul hearts, she has the power to swing public opinion. One word from her and I will drown in hostile behaviour from the rest of the school.
Nihar wants me to agree. While he isn’t someone I am particularly fond of, what if he opens his mouth and tells Rika my dark secrets? Like how I never voted for her and always bitch about her.
Aisha is still looking at me with a question in her eyes. I think I already know the answer.
11
His hair is open today. And somehow it looks more salt than pepper. With sunlight streaming in through the window behind him, Ass-hok Amroliwallah looks like an angel.
The white in his shoulder-length hair reflects the light so playfully that for the past half hour that I have been sitting in his chamber, the only thing I have really noticed is his hair, glittering like diamonds, like Edward Cullen’s chest in the sunlight.
Given my hatred for the Twilight series, this isn’t going to win him any brownie points.
But at least it gives me something to do. For the past half hour Ass-hok Amroliwallah has been boring me to death. The only time my attention barely diverted from his divine hair was when he took a swig of the Coca-Cola he had ordered for the two of us. He spat out the fizzy soft drink after one sip and expressed his outrage so loudly that his poor secretary, who was quietly changing the covers of his sofa cushions (for a meeting with a very senior minister in the state regarding Amroliwallah’s contribution to education in Maharashtra, a fact that he told me proudly, making me feel totally unimportant and insignificant. I mean, didn’t I deserve fancy cushion covers?), jumped with fright and almost toppled over the sofa. The reason behind the screaming was that it wasn’t Coca-Cola in the glass. It was Thums Up. The poor bloke who had brought the drinks got a huge thumbs-down from Ass-hok Amroliwallah, who called him ‘a gamadiya of the first order!’
Don’t ask me what gamadiya means.
‘Ira, is something troubling you? You seem restless,’ he asks me abruptly, a gleam in his eyes. He starts rubbing his hands together so vigorously that I doubt even Lady Macbeth could have surpassed him. His voice contains a barely concealed edge as he asks me, ‘Are you … are you having a premonition?’
See, that’s the thing about him. He seems convinced that I go through mad phases where my eyes are glazed over, my mouth hangs open and my face gets a blank look. It means I’m seeing the essay questions of the English literature paper.
‘Theenk, Ira, theenk,’ his voice urges me as he finishes off the Five Star he took out earlier to counter the foul taste of Thums Up. ‘What i
s it that the universe is trying to tell you? Have you been having any recurring dreams? Any intuitions?’
I shake my head, panicked. The man is a complete and utter idiot. He’ll be whipping out a crystal ball next. If the respect and awe I had for him earlier hadn’t vanished and been flushed down the toilet already, it would have happened now. Didn’t I make the chemistry paper in front of him without any fits?
‘So, Ira,’ he continues, visibly let down by the lack of head thrashing and eyeball rolling. ‘As you know, the CBSE class twelve board exams are going to begin in a few days.’
I raise an eyebrow. I don’t even know why I am here. It isn’t as if we’re going to sign a contract or anything. And there are still almost two months left for our exams. Why is he telling me about CBSE exams? Anyway, all CBSE kids want to become engineers.
He swoops under his table and takes out a Big Bazaar packet that looks like it weighs about as much as a baby elephant. Or at least as much as Sonakshi Sinha. I mean, in her pre-Dabanng days.
The packet is bursting from the weight of whatever is inside it. Even the table groans as he sets down the bag.
He pushes it towards me. ‘Here. This is the best collection of CBSE preparation books, all subjects.’
He flashes his trademark chocolate-in-teeth smile and continues, ‘First these exams will start and then the ICSE ones. You shall give me these papers by next week.’
I snap, ‘I am not doing any CBSE or ICSE rubbish. I am supposed to do only IBSE papers.’
He sighs, smiles in a patronizing manner, gets up from his chair and walks towards the soft boards on his wall. Waving a hand towards them, he says, ‘Ira, our Constitution preaches equality. Aeem I raaiit?’
‘Do you theenk,’ he asks, tying his hair in a ponytail, ‘I would have achieved all thees if I had marginalized people?’
I groan. What is wrong with him? Did someone hit him on the head with a cricket bat when he was an infant?
‘I am only going to predict papers for my class. No one else,’ I say decisively. ‘Deal or no deal.’
‘Ira, you are asking a mother to chose between her children,’ he replies dramatically. He has an air of injury and devastation that would make any soap opera star proud. His fingers clench his hair with agony—it reminds me of Tanu bai being forced to choose between Balika Vadhu and cooking dinner.
But Ira Said Page 10