‘Rika, did Lavisha suggest I prepare papers for everyone at Amroli’s?’ I ask her bluntly.
I see her purse her lips at me. Then she calmly asks the driver to switch off the music. In a casual voice, she says, ‘Yeah, don’t you know? Remember, like a moronic fool she had gone around telling everyone?’
‘No, not that,’ I clarify. ‘Has she suggested that you people, umm, ahem, misuse this thing about me?’
‘Yeah,’ Rika admits at last. She still refuses to meet me in the eye and is staring out of the window.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I exclaim, aghast. Before she can even turn her face to look at me, I holler, ‘Wait a second, lemme think. Is it because you also think that it is a very good idea? I mean, I don’t blame you! Don’t study, Ira’s there, no?’
I have never been so angry. Rika’s mouth curls at the corners and she answers me tersely, ‘No, Ira. In fact, if you remember, I never forced you to do anything. It is you who thought it was of the utmost importance that you do it!’
‘Quit lying,’ I shriek. ‘I know everything. And I even know that Ass-hok has instructed you all to get the paper from me, hasn’t he?’
Rika looks helpless and explains, ‘Ira, I didn’t know this myself. I came to know about it just today. I didn’t tell you because I thought it would create unnecessary bad blood. Ira, Lavisha is horribly tense. She hasn’t prepared at all and what can she prepare in two days?’
‘Two days?’ I am laughing hysterically. ‘She just got two days? Rika, she got so much time to study!’
‘Yeah, but she was never a particularly brilliant student, was she? She is terrible at everything, and you know that.’
‘Oh, wow. So you mean to say that justifies what she did? Is it my fault that she routinely fails?’
‘Ira, you think I’m a bitch, don’t you?’ she asks me in an even voice. ‘Ira, I’m not your bodyguard that I’ll run around saving you from the Lavishas of the world. I know everything, Ira. Whenever I meet your parents or Harsh I can see what kind of impression you’ve given them about me! It’s so obvious! You didn’t even vote for me. You are just jealous and double-faced.’
According to Tanu bai, we’ve had twenty-eight phone calls since morning. And it’s barely one o’clock.
About ten of them are from a ballistic Ass-hok. He is under the impression that this is a ‘breach of contract’ and he can sue me.
Aside from my fuming mother asking me whether I had performed the ultimate act of buffoonery and signed an illegal contract, it is quite hilarious, really.
The rest of the calls have been from various NGOs supporting the cause of abused kids, news channels, and far-flung and previously non-existent relatives.
‘Who are you mailing?’ I ask Ma, peering at the computer screen.
‘IBSE,’ she says brusquely with a click of the mouse. The bitterness in her voice rises unnecessarily. ‘Someone has to ensure that you pass your tenth standard at least. Your principal, for one, is being astoundingly unhelpful.’
‘Oh, that. Before I left his office, he told me, very condescendingly of course, that until he gets substantial evidence against me, he has no option but to let me sit for the exams,’ I say and immediately feel guilty. ‘Ma, do you know that Lavisha is the one who suggested this to Amroliwallah?’
Ma snorts. ‘Arrey, that girl is an idiot. Do you know that your great Lavisha’s parents landed up in Amroliwallah’s office claiming that he cheated them? He promised their daughter that you would help them.’
I have never heard so much spite in Ma’s voice. ‘Now their worthless and arrogant daughter, who has whiled away her study leave on Facebook, is having panic attacks. You haven’t read any of the e-mails he’s been sending you. He is a deranged man, Ira. How could you even think of associating with him?’
Tanu bai walks into the room, looking disturbed. ‘Madum, abhi the bell rang and when I went to open it, some man was there,’ she says, sounding a little scared.
Ma makes an impatient noise. ‘So what, Tanu? Is it the water purifier guy? Tell him he was supposed to come last week. What would have happened if there was something seriously wrong with the purifier? We could have died! These guys—’
‘No, madum.’ Tanu bai looks extremely distressed and uneasy. She glances at me for help but I just stare back, confused. ‘It was some strange man. He left this big pile of papers for Ira baby.’
18
OK, it could just be some random journalist or one of those NGO guys, I try to calm myself.
Ma doesn’t. Her hand flies to her mouth and she lets out a strangled, panicky shriek. She runs to the drawing room and stops dead in her tracks when she sees a Big Bazaar packet lying carelessly on the ground.
I follow, petrified. Ma picks up the highly familiar packet cautiously. A bunch of papers fall out in an ominous-looking pile on the ground. She sits on her knees, sifting through the papers. And then the blood drains from her face. I kneel down beside her and pick up the letter that has fallen from her hand.
My heart stops beating for a second. I can’t think of any word to describe how I feel. Tears well up in my eyes. There is no anger, no spite and no thirst for vengeance. I feel weak. I don’t want to get up. I want to spend the rest of my life sitting on the ground, sobbing next to Ma.
He is threatening me. He must have heard the numerous livid messages Ma and Papa had sent for him via his secretary (who, incidentally, is his wife. OK, which guy treats his wife like that?). They had threatened to take legal action against him but had finally decided not to do so because they felt the negative publicity would not be good for me.
The letter says that unless I cooperate and predict the papers for him, he will release all the papers I’d made to the press and say that the prediction theory was just a cover up. I was actually involved in paper leaking. He will create such a furore that, forget giving my IBSE board exams, I won’t even be able to live in peace.
‘How dare he?’ Ma asks in a shell-shocked voice. I’ve never seen her so wretched. ‘Ira, what have you done? I thought everything was going to be fine. The newspapers were more into discovering how the papers had been leaked than into you. Jagdish Burrow, the IBSE head, himself told me that they cannot prevent you from sitting for the examinations.’
We both start crying and Tanu bai rushes into the kitchen to get something for us.
‘This is blackmail,’ Ma mutters, gritting her teeth. I can see a determination to take revenge replacing her initial horror and despair. ‘The only reason we didn’t take him to court is because we did not want you to be haunted by this incident for the rest of your life. Your father and I want you to live normally, without any courtroom drama.’
I rub her arm, murmuring, ‘I know, Ma. It’s fine by me.’
I don’t think she even hears what I am trying to say. Her face is resolute and she states, ‘But this is too much. I mean, we need to lodge a police complaint against him. No one on earth can blackmail and threaten my child and get away with it. Tanu, bring the cordless.’
‘Ma, what are you doing?’ I ask nervously. The earlier decision about avoiding the attention that would come with court trials makes sense. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering, whenever I meet strangers, whether they know the gory details of the horror-filled time I have gone through.
‘I’m phoning your father,’ she says as she forcefully punches the numbers on the phone. ‘That man has to be punished.’
Nihar and company have also been compulsively calling me since morning. Which is pretty dumb of them since they could have easily used this time to study for the exams. Aren’t they aware our exams are starting from day after tomorrow?
It has been tedious going through my textbooks. I have spent two entire months reading them glass-eyed, twenty hours a week while I sat in quarantine at Amroli’s. I can recite Ohm’s Law word for word in my sleep. I can draw all kinds of bacteria and their fellow nauseating microorganisms blindfolded. I can tell you the exact num
ber of figures of speech in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 43. I can solve the longest algebraic problems in my head.
OK, the last one might be a bit of an exaggeration. Just a bit.
However, the fact is that I’ve been dying to pick up even Nim’s calls because I am so bloody bored.
After I realized that I could no longer predict papers, I started poring over my textbooks even more obsessively, disgustingly pining away for that feeling I got when predicting papers.
This would not have happened had it not been for the pesky twenty hours a week studying.
Ass-hok should not have ungraciously thrown me out while my fellow classmates gave their exams.
I still don’t know what Papa and Ma are thinking. As usual, I’ve been exiled to my room for a ‘thorough revision of all subjects’.
I stole my phone from Ma and Papa’s room this morning. I know, I am horrible.
Nihar, Rika, Shantanu and Nim have flooded my inbox with messages.
I perk up with interest when Harsh messages me. How does he have my number?
Hi. Rika wants to talk to you. She says she is sorry. Please, for my sake, do not ask me to forward your reply to her because I will not!
Oh my god, Rika is so desperate to apologize to me that’s she is begging Harsh to ask me? This is fun.
I don’t know whether Rika and Harsh have some mental telepathy thing that snobby vice-heads tend to have because she calls me as soon as I finish reading Harsh’s text.
‘What, Rika?’ I answer bossily, trying to get my cheap thrills by acting pricey.
‘Umm … it’s me,’ a male voice answers.
‘Who is me?’ I ask suspiciously. The idea of Ass-hok getting Rika to call me for him doesn’t seem that farfetched after the cowardly stunt he pulled today.
‘Uhh, it’s Nihar.’
Forgetting that I am supposed to be angry with them, I ask, highly puzzled, ‘Dude, why are you calling from Rika’s cell?’
‘Because you won’t pick up my calls,’ he says warily, ‘and I don’t have Harsh Asnani putting in my sifaarish to you.’
‘Oh,’ I say, feeling mighty pleased, like one of those ranker and scholar types who get pleas from desperate students on the eve of exams begging them to let them Xerox their notes or else they will fail.
‘Ira, when you say that you can’t make papers, are you really serious?’ he asks.
Now I feel like a deflated balloon. Of course, I do still feel like those rankers, the ones who get really disappointed when they discover that people aren’t calling them to discuss the latest episode of Castle but to borrow their books.
‘Nihar, why the hell does it matter?’ My blood is boiling again. ‘I am not helping you. But just to clarify your doubts, yes.’
‘A few weeks back you did not tell me the wrong questions purposely, did you?’ he asks, sounding as if he is (finally) catching on.
‘Yeah,’ I respond drily. ‘Why?’
‘And the first time you went to meet that Amroli you tried to put wrong questions but they all came anyway, right?’
‘Yes.’ I am reaching the end of my patience now. It is difficult feeling like Watson next to Nihar’s Sherlock Holmes.
‘Oh my god, that means you can’t make wrong papers even if you want to!’ he says, figuring out the mystery of my whacky gift at last.
‘Yes, Nihar. Very well done. Can you tell me what it is that you so urgently wanted to speak to me about?’ I am getting a headache. It’s a miracle how I get one whenever I talk to Nihar for more than a minute.
‘No, no. Nothing else. OK, bye.’
Surprised by this abrupt and highly anti-climatic end, I swear loudly. I hear Nihar yelping in the background and what seems like an irritated Rika calling him a dumb ass.
‘Helloooo, Iraaa?’ Rika screeches into the phone. ‘Are you there? I have to talk!’
‘Rika,’ I answer after checking that my eardrums are still intact. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rika says, sounding very sheepish. ‘I may not have forced you to make papers for us, but that doesn’t make me any better. I never supported you. And I never ever show that I really care about you. I never realized how I might have been hurting you with my sarky one-liners but, Ira, you’ve been the bestest friend I have ever had. Ira, I’m sorry.’
I am silent for a minute. No one has ever said something this sweet to me. (Parents don’t count.) A silly smile creeps onto my face and had Rika been in front of me I would have started bawling like a baby.
‘It’s fine, Rika,’ I say, my lips quivering. ‘I was really mean to you. You may be an arrogant south Bombay snob but … I’m sorry too.’
As sincere as Rika’s and my apologies were, it was very awkward to hear us speak like this.
‘Oh god, Ira, you get so cheesy and melodramatic sometimes,’ Rika says, reverting to her former self. ‘I feel as if I’m on Gossip Girl and we’re Blair and Serena. And we’ve just discovered that Serena slept with another one of Blair’s boyfriends.’
‘Whatever but I’m Blair,’ I declare. ‘Serena is so irritating.’
We start giggling. ‘You guys should be studying instead of stalking me,’ I say.
‘Arrey, I wanted to meet you but I thought you would slam the door on my face,’ Rika explains.
‘Listen, what is wrong with Nihar?’ I ask, incredibly curious. ‘It’s like he went bonkers or something.’
‘Actually, Ira,’ Rika sounds guilty, ‘we all thought you were just lying to us because you wanted marks all for yourself. Only Nihar realized that there was no way you could have given us a wrong paper.’
‘Wow,’ I say, impressed. ‘Since when has Nihar become so conscientious?’
‘Arrey, I don’t know,’ Rika says, exasperated. ‘Ever since he did his history project on Mahatma Gandhi, he has become really strange. He has actually stopped lying, wrestling with me, and being himself in general. And get this, when we went to visit our stepmother, he asked her why her face looks frozen!’
I gasp and start guffawing loudly. ‘Oh my god, tell me he didn’t do that!’
‘He did,’ Rika assures me. ‘He’s even stopped his smoking sessions with those awful kids behind our building.’
‘Oh, he was only smoking there?’ I say, a little disappointed.
‘Yeah, why, what did you think?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ I answer quickly. Papa is right. My imagination works waay overtime.
‘Ira, what did you think?’ Rika asks, giggling. ‘Ira, you know that doing drugs would give Nihar constipation or something, na?’
‘Shut up,’ I giggle even more. ‘Now go, don’t you have to study?’
‘Yeah,’ Rika agrees wearily. ‘Listen, if your parents don’t mind, can I come over to your house and study?’
‘I don’t know if they’ll mind but, Rika, instead of wasting time coming to my house in this traffic, why don’t you study at your place only? Come tomorrow,’ I reason.
‘Arrey baba, I just have to hop, skip and jump to reach your house,’ she informs me.
‘What?’ I ask, surprised. ‘Aren’t you at your house?’
‘No,’ Rika exclaims in delight. ‘I’m just next to you, at Aisha’s!’
We spend the rest of the conversation gasping and giggling. I go up to Ma and meekly ask whether Rika can come over. Surprisingly, she says yes. She’s probably hoping that Rika will help me overcome my depressed mood.
Only it isn’t just Rika who comes over. Trailing behind her are Aisha, Nim, Shantanu and Nihar.
Understandably, Ma isn’t very happy about it. But she agrees grumpily. Tanu bai dashes off to the kitchen to fill our hungry stomachs while everyone settles into my room.
It is strange. We haven’t met like this in so long. Yash and Lavisha are conspicuous in their absence.
Ma is watching us like a hawk. I look at her, thoroughly annoyed, and she glares back murderously before going into the kitchen.
‘Ira, we’re really sorry,’ they all choru
s.
I try to accept their apologies as gracefully as I can in order to show how mature I am, but there are too many niggling questions.
‘Were you guys ordered by Amroliwallah to coerce me into giving you the papers?’ I ask.
‘That wasn’t us,’ Nihar states flatly. ‘That was Lavisha and Yash.’
‘Yeah, I noticed they didn’t storm my house like you all!’ I say, trying to joke. The atmosphere is too tense. To use a phrase I’ve been wanting to use for a long time—you could cut the tension in the house with a knife.
Everyone’s expressions change and they all look uncomfortable.
‘Forget them, ya,’ Shantanu says after some time. ‘They’re not worth it.’
‘Cowards. They don’t have the balls to ask you for the papers directly,’ Nim tells me. ‘They haven’t contacted you, have they?’
‘Oh, no,’ I reply, wanting to squash this topic at its root. They were never that close to me anyway.
Aisha smiles at me as she sits down on the bean bag opposite me. I don’t know what tone or manner to adopt when I speak to her. I am afraid that a volcano will erupt again. Aisha is obviously not the wallflower I’ve known for the past two years, but she isn’t the fiery lunatic I’ve encountered in the recent past, either.
‘Listen, Ira, I really am sorry,’ Aisha says. ‘I should never have contacted those journalists. It was irrational and silly of me. I don’t know what happened to me. Let’s just say I’m a bad loser. When I didn’t get in, I just couldn’t believe that someone could reject me too. I am so insecure that I blamed you. It is not your fault at all.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. But there is something still nagging me. ‘Aisha, do you genuinely believe that the results weren’t affected because of me?’
‘Ira, they weren’t,’ Rika groans. ‘How many times do we have to explain this to you?’
‘See, Ira,’ Aisha states matter-of-factly, ‘no one knew your revision papers would be a ditto copy of the main paper. So no one gave any special attention to those questions. Usually on the morning of the exam, people try to revise everything they can. Your paper might have helped them but not enough to push their rank from the top two hundred to the top hundred!’
But Ira Said Page 16