‘I lied about going on a holiday last month. I was at home the whole time. I actually didn’t want you to see my bruises.’
Afsana remembered now that soon after the board results were out, Raisa had told her that she would be going away to visit relatives in Guwahati.
‘Why did you lie, Rice?’
‘I don’t know, Affu. You were so busy with the admission tests and all. I didn’t want to upset you with all this, so . . . ’
‘Listen, Rice, if you ever lie to me again, I swear I’ll never speak to you. I mean it!’
‘I’m sorry, Affu.’
‘You should be. You shouldn’t hide anything from your soul-sister.’
‘I’ll never lie to you again, god promise,’ Raisa’s eyes moistened further as she pinched the skin on her throat as she swore. Afsana wiped the tears from Raisa’s face and said, ‘It’s okay. And don’t forget to buy some brassieres.’
Raisa smiled through her tears.
‘I’ll leave now. Relax, don’t come downstairs, I can show myself out,’ she said, picking up her bag from Afsana’s study table.
Afsana walked with a slight limp to her study table. As she sat down and opened her physics textbook, Raisa barged back into the room huffing.
‘What’s happened now?’ Afsana asked with a frown.
‘You said Nirmaan doesn’t ogle at my breasts because he’s my best friend.’
‘Yeah, so?’ Afsana shrugged.
‘But you aren’t his best friend so has he ogled at your breasts? Be honest with me, Affu. I’ll kill him if he has.’
Afsana paused to think before she replied.
‘No, he hasn’t,’ she said and wondered why she had hesitated.
‘Good for him. Okay, bye Affu,’ Raisa was about to leave when Afsana stopped her.
‘Rice, do you have Nirmaan’s phone number?’
VOICE NOTE 22
Afsana dialled Nirmaan’s landline number fifteen times that night. Each time Nirmaan picked up the receiver, she just breathed heavily into the telephone, smirking goofily.
‘I know you’re there. Why don’t you say something? What’s the point of calling if you don’t want to talk?’ he snapped.
Afsana herself had no idea why she was calling him. Every time she promised herself that this was the last time, the weird thrill it gave her compelled her to dial the number again. It was only when Nirmaan’s father bawled down the line, threatening to file a police report about the crank calls, that Afsana decided it was indeed enough and desisted. However, sleep eluded her that night, and she tossed and turned wondering why she had been so silly in the first place. Then she thought why she had paused before responding when Raisa had asked if Nirmaan had stared at her breasts? She’d have slapped any boy who would’ve dared to do something like that. But Nirmaan? Would she like him to see her . . .? Afsana covered her head with her blanket. She knew she was blushing but it was so involuntary that she could do nothing about it; nor could she stop the unprecedented sensations in her body, in her heart. It wasn’t as if she had met Nirmaan only recently. She had always known him as Raisa’s best friend. But, during the bicycle ride, she seemed to have rediscovered Nirmaan, and her own self, in a new way. It was disturbing to her, but comforting as well. She tried to assess the feeling and all she could conclude was that it was like she had found something that she had previously lost. She hadn’t actually had a feeling of loss until this moment when she felt that she had regained that something. What was that thing? She sat up on her bed and bringing the phone on to her lap, dialled Nirmaan’s number yet again. After three rings, Nirmaan answered.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hello,’ Afsana echoed in a deep voice.
‘Who is this?’
‘What is my problem?’ Afsana asked.
‘Your problem? What is your problem?’ Nirmaan repeated.
‘That’s what I want to know as well. What is my problem?’ Afsana maintained the pitch.
‘How do I know what your problem is?’
‘If not you, who else would know?’
Afsana heard Nirmaan shout, ‘Nobody, Ma,’ and he cut the line.
Afsana started laughing to herself.
When she got a chance the next day at school, Afsana sneaked out to the parking space. There were three ranger bikes of the same model in the lot, but it took her only a few seconds to recognize Nirmaan’s. There was a Batman sticker on its mudguard and a Superman sticker on the handlebar that she had noticed on her ride back home the previous week. With a quick glance around to make sure she wasn’t being watched, she dropped down on one knee and pricked the rear tyre of Nirmaan’s bicycle with her compass.
The moment the final period of the day was done, she quickly positioned herself in a doorway to keep an eye on the entrance of Nirmaan’s classroom. He soon emerged and she tailed him from a distance. When he disappeared into the parking area, she hung around outside. A distressed-looking Nirmaan came into view, this time wheeling his bike alongside. She called out to him.
‘Nirmaan!’
He looked up and noticed her. He waved to her and then paused seeing her approach him.
‘How is your leg?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely fine. No pain now.’
‘That’s good.’
Afsana eyed his bicycle.
‘Hey, is that a flat?’ she asked casually.
‘Probably one of the seniors did this,’ Nirmaan lamented.
‘Honestly, this school is full of jerks. Someone injured me first and now some idiot punctured your tyre,’ Afsana said.
‘I don’t think there’s a bicycle repair shop nearby.’
‘There is,’ Afsana lied.
‘Where?’
‘It’s not very close, but within walking distance.’
‘All right. Could you please take me there?’
A happy Afsana took his side and as they were about to exit the school compound, she spotted someone outside the school. She instantly turned around. Nirmaan found it odd.
‘What happened, who’s that?’
‘Do you see that boy in a white shirt and black jeans?’ she asked, keeping her face averted.
‘The one with the red rose in his hand?’
‘Yes. He’s a chipkoo [clingy]. He stays in my locality. I’ve noticed him follow me before as well.’
‘If you like I can ask him to back off or even complain about it to the school authorities,’ Nirmaan offered looking at the boy.
‘No need. Please let’s go out today through the rear entrance,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ he agreed and wheeled his bike around.
In the twenty minutes of meandering through winding lanes in search of a non-existent bicycle-repair shop, chatting about this and that, Afsana enjoyed herself like never before. Nirmaan was becoming more and more appealing with every passing second. As he talked, she felt as if she were finally moving towards something, when so far she had just been wandering with no destination in mind. Even though she too was talking to him, in her mind, she was imagining a world where she had the power to design her life her own way, where there were no parental pressures, no societal stigmas, no rules on how to live one’s life and no rituals to define relationships. Where she wouldn’t have to suppress any wish, or sacrifice any desire, or adjust to any norm.
When a tired Nirmaan finally asked querulously where this elusive tyre shop was exactly, Afsana deliberately turned a corner into a lane that led towards a small tea shop and stood staring at a niche beside the stall, her mouth agape.
‘What’s wrong now?’ Nirmaan sighed.
‘I swear there was a bicycle repair shop here until last week.’
‘Oh!’ Nirmaan looked at the empty space with despair. ‘My rotten luck,’ he said.
Afsana couldn’t believe just how gullible he was.
‘Let’s take a taxi back to your place. We can harness the cycle to the roof of the car,’ she suggested.
‘But your place isn’t on the w
ay,’ objected Nirmaan.
Gullible is all right, but something has to be done about his stupidity. Can’t he understand that I want to be with him for a bit longer? she thought.
‘I have to meet Rice also,’ Afsana said aloud.
‘Oh! Great, let’s go then.’
Between other inconsequential talks during the shared cab ride, Nirmaan told her about another chipkoo who kept calling him at night. Afsana laughed in her mind but stopped herself short as the word chipkoo hit her. She wondered what stopped her from telling Nirmaan that the chipkoo with the red rose outside their school was actually the man her parents wanted her to marry. The fantasy world that she had dreamed about a few minutes ago slipped away like sand does no matter how tight one’s grasp is.
VOICE NOTE 23
For once in his life, Nirmaan couldn’t register a word that his mathematics tuition teacher was saying in class. It was wholly unlike him. His distraction manifested out of nowhere when he realized that he had scribbled the letter ‘A’ in the top corner of his notebook and was staring at it. Then he wrote ‘N’ beside it before averting his eyes from it. He soon found himself staring alternately between those two letters.
‘What do you think, Nirmaan?’ the teacher asked.
There was no response.
‘Nirmaan?’ the teacher repeated.
The rest of the class gaped at him. Nirmaan looked around, abstractedly. He assumed that the teacher had reprimanded him for not paying attention.
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘What are you sorry for? I asked you what you thought the next step in this problem should be,’ the teacher gestured at the blackboard. It took Nirmaan a few seconds to study the problem and figure out the next step.
‘Good,’ the teacher said in approval. Nirmaan relaxed but he wasn’t relieved.
Rohan, the boy sitting next to him, nudged him and wiggled his eyebrows at the letter ‘A’ in his notebook. Nirmaan shook his head. He couldn’t explain it to Rohan because he himself didn’t know why he had written the first letter of Afsana’s name. He had never been this silly before.
When an injured Afsana had rode home on the top bar of his bicycle a week ago, Nirmaan knew his every breath would brush her ear. It had made him uncomfortable in a curious way. He hadn’t been that close to a girl before except Raisa. However, his proximity to Raisa felt platonic unlike Afsana’s nearness. Why? If it wasn’t relevant, he wouldn’t have felt the need to analyse the feeling, therefore perhaps it was important for him to unravel this mystery.
As he had pedalled on that day with Afsana in front, he understood his emotions like a torrential river that was flowing in a particular direction but had suddenly discovered undeclared tributaries of curiosity, awakening and confusion. In fact, the emotional vortex in those tributaries made him look for Afsana in school the next day and the day after. But she was absent. It was on the third day that he asked Raisa about it.
‘How is your friend’s leg?’
‘Can’t you call her Affu?’
‘I prefer to call her Afsana,’ Nirmaan was wary lest Raisa became suspicious about his private emotional turbulence.
‘The doctor has asked her to rest. She’ll be back next week,’ Raisa said.
When one impatiently wants time to fly, it teases you with the illusion that it has slowed down inexplicably. The next week, for Nirmaan, took ages in arriving. He knew that it was not every day that he would be able to give her a ride home. When they had looked for a bicycle repair shop together, he felt he had been uncharacteristically talkative. It wasn’t nervousness alone that had made him so—the currents of his feelings in the tributaries also provoked him as they flowed with unmanageable brio in the presence of Afsana.
The tuition was dismissed for the evening. As Nirmaan stood up, he told Rohan he wanted to talk to him.
Rohan had been Nirmaan’s friend from the previous school and was in a steady relationship with Shruti, a girl from Loreto Convent. Nirmaan thought it would be best to consult someone with experience.
‘What is it?’ Rohan asked.
Both of them were cycling through the quiet lanes of Salt Lake.
‘How is Shruti?’ Nirmaan asked. Rohan and Shruti had been together for two years now.
‘She left me,’ Rohan said matter-of-factly.
‘What?’ Nirmaan braked sharply and then, noticing Rohan moving ahead, caught up with him again.
‘Why did she leave you?’
‘She was two-timing.’ He immediately added, ‘Forget her. What did you want to talk to me about?’
‘I like this girl,’ Nirmaan said.
‘Who?’ Rohan shot a this-is-a-revelation glance at him.
‘The name is not important. I like her but I don’t know what to do.’
‘When did you meet her?’
‘Two years ago.’
‘Two years? And you’re telling me this now!’
‘I mean I met her two years ago, but this “liking thing” happened recently and I don’t even know why it happened.’
‘And now that it has happened, do you like this “liking thing” towards her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmm. Does she like you?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps not. She is the best friend of my best friend though.’
‘Who? Raisa?’ Rohan asked. Everyone in their earlier school knew Raisa was Nirmaan’s closest friend.
‘Yes. Any idea what I should do?’
‘First, find out if she is already with someone or not because it hurts to know later,’ Rohan said and added sagely, ‘Love may be blind but you need to keep your eyes open otherwise a lot of shit could happen to you.’
‘But how do I know if she has someone in her life or not?’
‘You just said that she is Raisa’s best friend. Ask her!’
VOICE NOTE 24
Nirmaan was nervous about sharing his feelings with Raisa, especially because he had himself asked Raisa once to sever her friendship with Afsana. It was ironical. A couple of years ago, if somebody had told him that he would have sleepless nights because he had certain out-of-the-ordinary feelings for Afsana, he would have slapped that person. It was ludicrously improbable. But that was what life was all about: to encounter something highly unlikely—and then manipulate the journey to harness that incongruity.
In that single moment, when he saw Afsana sitting beneath the banyan tree by his new school and chose to approach her, everything changed. What if that moment hadn’t happened? What if Afsana hadn’t injured her leg? What if Afsana hadn’t applied for admission to the same school as him? What if she hadn’t fled her home and later studied hard to secure a seat in the science class? What if she had never been Raisa’s friend? What if Raisa had never taught him to ride a bicycle? What if Raisa had never given him that mango? When Nirmaan sat staring stupefied at his dinner plate that night, tracing back his life with a series of questions from the moment when he’d had no other option but to approach a distressed-looking Afsana a few days ago, it all seemed totally inevitable. The ways by which he arrived at that point could have happened in multiple ways but the root event—his first meeting with Raisa in Guwahati—and the result—approaching Afsana by the banyan tree—would always remain the same.
After dinner, he told his parents that he was going out to get some fresh air. He went to talk to Raisa.
‘I have an important thing to ask you,’ he said the moment Raisa opened the door.
‘It’s good that you came. I too have something to ask you. Let’s go downstairs,’ she replied.
They made their way to their usual spot where they often sat post-dinner, a bench in a secluded corner of the housing colony. In the fading light, they were barely visible.
‘Somebody proposed to me yesterday and I’m confused,’ Raisa said as soon as they sat down after blowing the dust off the bench.
‘Who?’ Nirmaan held himself in check with immense will power although he was itching to tell her his story.
> ‘Kapil Juneja. He’s obviously a junior, but now I’m in his class. He says he has loved me from the day he first saw me in the class.’
‘Oh! And what about you? Do you like him too?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then how do you want me to help you if you don’t know whether you like him or not.’
‘How do I know if I like him if I know nothing about him? The “first-sight thing” doesn’t always work, does it?’ Raisa said.
‘Hmm,’ Nirmaan was confused. He too hadn’t fallen for Afsana at the first sight and he didn’t know her well either. So what was it that he was going through? Infatuation? Was it hormonal changes or something that happened to almost everyone his age? Temporary? He didn’t want whatever he was feeling for Afsana to be something temporary. And if it really was about hormonal changes, then why Afsana specifically? Why not anyone else? Why not Raisa considering she was his closest female acquaintance?
Nirmaan’s thoughtful trance was broken by the sound of the snapping of fingers.
‘Hello! You should be the one talking and I should be the one listening here,’ Raisa said.
‘I think you should give it some time,’ Nirmaan said answering his own inner quandary.
‘But I like the way Kapil looks at me. What if he stops looking at me after I say “no”?’
‘How does he look at you?’
‘Umm . . . as if I’m not really a being for him but an idea. His most amazing idea perhaps.’ Raisa was carefully choosing her words, ‘A kind of startling idea that takes one by surprise when it strikes.’
This is by far the most matured avatar of Raisa ever, Nirmaan thought wonderingly.
‘A notion,’ Raisa continued, ‘that he isn’t quite sure why it struck him, but he is happy that it did. One never knows how, where and why one could have an epiphany, can one?’
Silence.
‘Okay, I don’t know what I just said,’ Raisa confessed.
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