I’ve already told them most of what happened last night, including the phone call from the principal. Rika had sat through my entire monologue biting her lip while Lavisha fidgeted fretfully.
‘Deepika Padukone caught hold of me. In the morning, before you all came, she took me aside and asked me if I am that Ira. I tried to dodge her question, saying things like “blown out of proportion” and “mountain out of a mole-hill”. Anyway, I don’t think she could have handled the truth,’ I answer, eyeing my tiffin with disdain.
‘He is really smart, you know, Amroliwallah,’ Rika says thoughtfully. ‘He kept everything so quiet till most of the papers ended. In fact, aren’t we the only ones left?’
‘No,’ Lavisha quips, ‘aren’t the IB exams still going on?’
‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘They’re ending tomorrow.’
The last time I met Amroliwallah, I had handed over the IB papers.
‘Listen, Ira,’ Lavisha begins tentatively, ‘you’ll still prepare papers for us, right?’ Seeing my startled face, she hastily adds, ‘I mean, just for our group. Not for everyone in Amroli’s, obviously!’
Taking in what she has just said, I look out of the windows. I can see large Amroli’s banners hanging opposite the school. Passport-size faces of many of our twelfth standards are facing us. They have all achieved a rank in the IIT-JEE or the AIPMT.
It isn’t hard to miss these guys. You will find them grinning from BEST buses and plastic hoardings every few metres on the road.
‘I can’t,’ I state simply. It takes me huge effort to say these two words. From the first CBSE exams to the last ones, I have suffered heart attacks at the very thought of not getting my papers correct.
It is so hard to be casual and joke about Ass-hok’s reaction if he realizes that my paper is wrong. What will happen to the students if my paper is wrong?
They don’t deserve the BEST buses and hoardings. I did everything for them. And how do they show their gratitude? They go and rat on me.
‘Can’t or won’t?’ Lavisha asks sharply.
‘Can’t and won’t,’ I reply. It is so humiliating, admitting that I can’t do this any more.
‘Ira, come on,’ Lavisha persists, ‘I know your parents will get angry with you but I’m not asking you to do it for him. Just for a handful of us. Your parents won’t mind that.’
‘Yeah, but I mind,’ I retort. ‘Tell me, do you want to do well in an exam because you studied for it or because I practically gift-wrapped the paper and handed it to you?’
Rika and Lavisha look at each other, bewildered, and Lavisha cries, ‘Iraaaa, not that again!’
She starts laughing at me in a very patronizing manner and looks at Rika, expecting her to join in. Rika is quiet. After Lavisha’s silly laughter has died down Rika asks me pointedly, ‘Is there any other reason?’
I don’t need any other reason. It has been sickening seeing them lolling around and whiling away their time, confident that Ira will make papers for them. I am the one who is studying late into the night because I am scared.
They don’t need any other reason.
‘Because I can’t do it,’ I say, enunciating each word carefully for their benefit. This is the time if I want to say it. My insides are squelching and with great discomfort I say, ‘I can’t make papers any more. I’ve tried making some for you but I can’t.’
I feel a weight lift off my shoulders when I say that. Rika’s and Lavisha’s faces are blank. After what seems an eternity, Lavisha says in a hard voice, ‘Ira, what do you mean you can’t do it? If you don’t want to help us, tell us. Don’t lie.’
‘I’m not lying,’ I cry, outraged. I haven’t felt this good in days. Why do they always try to spoil my mood?
‘Ira, it can’t just not happen,’ Lavisha yells. ‘It’s not like some college professor. Now he comes, now he doesn’t!’
‘You know what, if you want I’ll make a paper for tuition,’ I suggest, knowing that trying to argue my case is not going to help. I can cry myself hoarse but seeing the determined look on Lavisha’s face I know it won’t help the teeniest bit. ‘Then we’ll see!’ I proclaim triumphantly.
Lavisha snorts. Her behaviour is very similiar to Aathya’s when she had heard that Constructions would come.
‘Ira, how do we know that you’ve made the paper correctly and not written any shit just to throw us off your back?’ she asks me.
‘I tried that once, remember? When I first went to meet Amroliwallah. I am not wrong. Those questions still come!’
‘Yeah, but that was different, Ira,’ Rika says complacently. ‘You didn’t even want to do anything at that time.’ Rika’s voice turns mystical and with a flash of amusement in her eyes, she explains, ‘That was because you were meant to carry out these sacred procedures and right now you are meant to help Lavisha!’
‘Ira?’ a strange voice calls me before I can hit Rika. We turn and see some guy standing behind us and peering at me through thick glasses. He looks as if he is in twelfth. However, unlike all the other twelfth-standard guys, his beard is not days old, he has certainly heard of bathing and his pants are sitting quite decisively on his waist.
‘Yeah,’ I answer hesitantly. Since morning I have been inundated with a million students desperate to know whether I was going to carry on with my good work.
Looks can be deceptive. What if behind that long and lanky proper school-boy frame lies another desperate soul who wants me to make a paper for him? Trust has gone from my world, I realize sadly.
‘Yeah,’ he says, eyeing me like I am a two-headed freak, ‘the principal wants to meet you.’
He is in the student council, I realize as I walk down to the principal’s office, escorted by him. He is one of those dutiful types who sincerely complete their work and then promptly hide in the background.
Unlike me, who for the past month has hopelessly depended on Rika and Sameer, my co-captain, for all my sports work, much to Harsh’s silent disapproval.
The twelfth-standard guy asks me to wait outside while he enters the office, I suppose, to announce my arrival. He comes back outside and informs me that the principal is busy and I will have to wait for a few minutes.
Uh dude, then why did you spoil my lunch break?
He sits down beside me and starts drumming his fingers in his lap.
‘Do you also have some work?’ I ask awkwardly. It is so strange sitting here. I rack my brains trying to remember his name.
‘Yeah,’ he answers without looking at me, ‘let’s see if I get time. He wanted to see you urgently. God knows why he asked you to wait. I think there is someone else inside.’
He glances at the giant clock hanging elegantly in front of us. There are hardly a couple of minutes left for the lunch break to end.
‘So, you’re Amroli’s Ira, right?’ he asks. Seeing my expression, he quickly amends, ‘I mean, you are the one who can … predict papers?’
He says the last part as if it is the biggest sin anyone could ever commit.
Not wanting to feel intimidated, I snap, ‘Yeah, so?’
‘Nothing, it wasn’t a very wise thing to do,’ he says, matter-of-fact. His face flinches under my murderous stare but he continues, ‘I mean, it hasn’t really helped everyone, has it?’
‘Of course it has!’ I say indignantly, momentarily forgetting the silent vow I have taken not to speak a word about this business with any stranger. ‘All those people have got into the college of their choice only because of me.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he responds. ‘I know many people who didn’t get into the college of their choice only because of you. You know, most of us have been studying really hard for the past two years. We would have still done well.’
The loud ringing of the bell follows his sincere speech and I cover my ears with my hands.
‘Whatever,’ I smirk at him. ‘You people just need an excuse to justify your failure.’
‘No, we don’t!’ he exclaims. ‘Tell me something, think o
f the kids preparing for their board exams. Kids who go to Amroli’s. They’ve been studying for two years. Maybe your practice paper helped them. But how much could it help? It certainly couldn’t have taken their percentage up five–ten per cent. Instead, you just ended up making them feel like shit.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘See, they would have been ecstatic on seeing their percentage. But now the ones who were sincere and really studied hard feel it was because of you. You spoilt their victory for them.’
I don’t know what to say. He does have a point.
‘And,’ he continues, ‘the kids who couldn’t get in think it’s all your fault. Neither side supports you. You’re the mutual enemy.’
Creeped out by him, I get up and push open the door to the principal’s office. Only to find my parents plonked in front of his desk, Papa sitting calmly and Ma clenching a newspaper in her hands.
They are equally surprised to see me and I would have happily run away from the room had I not caught sight of the article in the paper in Ma’s hands. ‘IB papers leaked: prediction a cover?’
Some conscientious IB kid’s equally conscientious journalist mother wrote the article. They are shocked and scandalized and convinced that this is no miracle.
Which, if I were them, would have actually made more sense to me since International Baccalaureate isn’t even an Indian board. Wouldn’t it be a bit difficult to leak international board papers?
The principal’s response to this was that the authorities suspect that the papers were leaked during transportation. And that I was the silliest person ever if I thought that papers all over the world would be the same.
Honestly, this has to be the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard. And if this dude really felt that the exposé was in ‘public interest’, why did he wait till the last exam?
The article even included an interview with a panicked Ass-hok who vehemently denied any paper leaking allegations and said, ‘There is nothing wrong if one of our students can predict papers.’ Of course, that didn’t mean that a student like this actually existed. It was just hypothetical, Ass-hok had glibly added.
Ma and Papa tell the principal everything. Unfortunately, he doesn’t believe us. I don’t blame him. However, he’s keeping his mouth shut and at least not immediately branding us as liars and cheats. There is a file on his table, with my name written on it in bold black. When Papa and Ma finish putting in their best efforts to explain the situation to him without sounding like lunatics, he snidely mentions the ‘circumstances’ due to which I had to leave my previous school. Those obviously count against me.
I want to hit him and ask him why he had accepted a cheat in his school. Was it because the cheat’s father could give a very generous donation?
Loser.
‘I hope you understand that I am the principal of a very reputed school in the country,’ he explains shiftily. ‘It is very hard for a person like me to believe you. As much as I would like to, I cannot. Furthermore, these incidents tarnish the image of the school.’
I am barely listening to him as I try to envision my future. What if they throw me out of the school? I will have to study privately and pass exams through ‘Tenth/eleventh failed? Don’t worry, be happy! Pass standard twelve (arts & commerce) with the help of Leela Rao tutorials!’
The jarring jingle of Leela Rao tutorials is stuck in my head. They have an extremely cheesy advertisement in which a depressed and wandering, i.e., exams-failed, student stumbles upon the doors of Leela Rao tutorials. A sympathetic teacher picks him up and says, ‘Don’t worry, be happy!’ Under the tutelage of a number of professors in descending order of their grasp of English, he passes his exams with flying colours. It ends with a class chock-a-block with students raising their hands and yelling the slogan ‘Don’t worry, be happy!’ like freedom fighters.
I shudder at the thought of being one of them. Tackily dressed and depressed.
‘Ira, I hope you don’t have any plans for the IBSE exams?’ the principal asks me in a sharp voice.
I blurt out, ‘Are you going to throw me out?’
A bit taken aback, he answers slowly, ‘Well, no. I mean, no one has any proof. But let me warn you, any further incidents like this, especially involving the IBSE exams, and I may not have the same opinion.’
Ma almost falls off her chair in relief and Papa slumps back into his.
I am such a terrible daughter. And the worst friend to Aditi and now Aisha. Even the students for whom I make my papers don’t appreciate me.
I feel like that poor robot from I, Robot must have felt. Misunderstood and confused.
16
Aisha had given them the papers. She gave every single paper I’d ever predicted, from the entrance exams to the board papers. She is waiting for us when we get home and confesses immediately.
The principal was shocked when, just as we were leaving, his secretary brought him another tabloid in which they had printed the ‘revision’ papers along with the date and time they had been sent.
He refused to believe us when we tried to say we had no idea how they got them. Which was very silly of him. I mean, obviously neither my parents nor I would send or encourage someone else to send the papers.
The poor guy went ballistic. He was almost pulling out his hair and screeching, ‘This is my schoooool! I will not let this tamasha happen here!’ He hopped around the office brandishing the paper at us and asked us to leave before he decided to throw me out of the school. We ran for our lives after that.
Ma screamed at me throughout the ride home. Papa and she still think I am completely at fault. Papa was busy on the phone, pulling all the strings he could to ensure that no other story about me got printed. Until he got a call from someone claiming to be from the National Committee for the Welfare of Women and Children who berated him for allowing people to take advantage of me and for making me go through emotional abuse, etc.
Then even he began to scream. First at the welfare committee and then at me. They were so persistently annoying that he thrust the phone at me and ordered me to tell them that I wasn’t going through mental trauma or emotional abuse … but then he snatched the phone from my hand before I could say a word and hung up.
Tanu bai is glued to the TV screen when we reach home and guiltily switches it off on our arrival. Not before I catch a glimpse of the Marathi news channel, though. She gets up hurriedly to make tea for Papa and Ma and a minute later the bell rings.
‘It will be Aisha baby,’ Tanu bai informs us as she goes to open the door. ‘She was waiting for baby to come home.’
I wince at the thought of facing Aisha after what that student council dude told me. There is only so much that I can take in a day!
‘Ira,’ says Aisha. Her face is void of any expression and it looks as if the stress has got to her. Her eyes are sunken and lined with dark circles. She has lost some fat from her tummy and the glow from her face.
‘Umm, aunty, can I talk to her?’ she asks my mom. When she looks up to discover Ma’s cold eyes set on her face, she flushes red and starts mumbling, ‘Umm, I wanted to say sorry for that day. I overreacted.’
‘Fine with me. But can you talk at your house? I want some,’ Ma looks at me and Aisha, her nostrils flaring, ‘peace right now.’
I scowl at Ma as I trail behind Aisha. She should have refused! Didn’t she see what happened the last time?
My anger evaporates when I realize that I’ve never been inside Aisha’s house. I crane my neck, trying not to seem too eager for a peek while Aisha opens the lock.
Unlike the cool and contemporary house I had imagined, Aisha’s house is warm and grand. Luxurious sofas sit in front of walls adorned with huge paintings. I look at the floor, disappointed with the awfully expensive looking Persian carpet. Tiger skin would have looked so much cooler. Fake, of course.
‘Umm, sit,’ she motions towards one of the sofas. I notice that her umms have returned and feel a bit relieved. At least I know she isn�
�t going to kill me now.
I sit down. The sofa is comfortable and springy, the kind you want to jump and bounce on till you eventually fall and break your arm.
‘Do you want something to drink?’ she asks me awkwardly.
‘No, no,’ I assure her. ‘I’m not thirsty.’
‘So,’ she says, twiddling her fingers. ‘Umm, I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to be so rude to you and aunty that day.’
She is pointedly studying the design on the carpet, trying to avoid my gaze. I tilt my head, looking at an unusual painting opposite me, trying to determine which way it’s supposed to be looked at.
‘Even we don’t know which is the right side up,’ she confesses and smiles slightly as I start at her words. ‘We just bought it at an exhibition without thinking. It was painted by one of my parents’ clients.’
‘Oh,’ is all I say. Fidgeting as awkwardly as Aisha, I remember my encounter with the student council guy. ‘Aisha, are you still angry with me?’
‘Oh, no,’ she answers, a little too quickly. ‘Of course not.’
‘You’re lying,’ I accuse her.
‘So?’ Aisha counters. ‘I just apologized because I had been awfully rude, but I still don’t like what you did.’
Ignoring the somewhat untraditional apology to which I would normally have taken offence, I groan, ‘Why does everyone think that? I am helping you all!’
‘Ohkaaay,’ she says strangely. ‘Why? What happened?’
I tell her the entire story to which she casually responds with, ‘Umm, well, yeah, I don’t blame him. I would react the same way. I study hard for two years, you prepare the paper in two minutes and hand it to me on the eve of the exam. As helpful as your paper might be, it steals credit from me, Ira!’
I am dumbstruck by her reasoning. Is that really the truth?
‘So that’s all you wanted to say? I’m really tired. I want to go home and sleep.’ I stifle a yawn. ‘It’s been such a mess. I don’t know which idiot gave the papers. Was it you, Aisha?’
But Ira Said Page 14