by Antani, Jay
I got up with the intention of moving back to my customary spot, behind Devasia a few rows back. Harley slid past me onto the bench next to Pradeep. “Sit down, yaar,” he whispered to me. “If you are Pradeep’s friend, you are mine also.”
I obliged and sat at the end of the bench, on the aisle. Harley leaned over—he smelled of cheap cologne—and stuck a hand in my face. “Vinod,” he said. The moustache, the pompadour, the gold necklace: He was a mash-up of Saturday Night Fever and Magnum, P.I., a John Travolta-Tom Selleck DNA accident. We shook hands.
“She’s nice, no?” he said in a low, sly tone. He stared off in Priya’s direction then back at me, waiting for my response, so I humored him with a nod and a smile.
“She likes you,” he said. The remark caught me off guard. I couldn’t tell if he was putting me on, and I didn’t like it. “I’m not kidding you, yaar. She and her girlfriends were discussing you in canteen. I think she is liking you—”
“Mr. Deshpande!” Sridharan stepped toward the front of the dais. “Unless you or Mr. Mistry have anything to add on the subject of realism in late Victorian drama, I advise you to keep your mouths shut.”
“Yes, sir,” Vinod muttered.
I shifted and straightened up in my seat. A low chuckling rippled across the hall.
By now, I was used to the strenuous note-taking and would fill several pages, almost half my notebooks, trying to take down Sridharan’s prattling word for word. My hand and wrist felt stiff and sore afterward.
Before wrapping up his lecture, Sridharan announced that our midterm exams had been scheduled for the week before Diwali, mid-October. “If I were you,” he cautioned, “I would start practicing with your essays now.”
Concerned murmurs filled the air above the shuffling of notebooks and the rising of feet. We made our way into the corridor—Pradeep tap-tapping with his stick and Vinod guiding him with a hand at his elbow.
Once outside, I wanted to say goodbye and head for the library (my usual retreat between classes), when Priya and her friend happened by. Suddenly, her friend broke away and asked us, with dramatic effort, if we cared to go to the canteen with them for cold drinks. She beamed at me eagerly and with a palpable nervousness. Priya, on the other hand, seemed content to stand by, hardly looking my way, while we made up our minds.
Pradeep said no, that now was his rehearsal time. “I must go upstairs,” he said. “We are using a vacant hall on top floor.”
“Do you need someone to come with you, Pradeep?” Priya asked.
“I will be all right,” Pradeep assured us.
“What do you rehearse?” I asked.
“I am singer,” he told me. “Classical mostly, but also Hindi pop songs. Filmi music from ’50s, ’60s. At the moment, I am rehearsing for the big Diwali function. You have to attend, yaar.”
“Uh,” I mumbled, “sure.”
“This guy is practicing like mad, yaar,” Vinod said boastfully.
“How is it going?” I asked.
“It is …” Pradeep searched for the word. “Satisfactory.”
“Satisfactory nothing.” Vinod threw an arm around Pradeep’s shoulder, a tad roughly, and Pradeep flinched. “This guy is spectacular. He’s going to be number one in whole India. Number-one playback singer in Bollywood. You wait for the Diwali talent show, Vikram bhai. Then you will see this pandit’s talent.”
Pradeep chuckled, shy and flustered. “Maybe, maybe.”
“Well,” Priya seemed put off by Vinod, “we’ll see you around.”
“At canteen?” tried her friend again, a last plea before the two went their way.
We nodded and waved goodbye.
“Maybe, maybe. No maybe, yaar,” Vinod’s arm encircled Pradeep’s neck like a yoke. “We have deal, no? We have deal!” He grinned at me and, gripping Pradeep, gave him a shaking. “I’m going to be this guy’s manager.”
Pradeep chuckled some more—“Sure, sure”—and separated himself from Vinod. He said goodbye, then slowly tap-tapped his way toward the end of the corridor.
Devasia appeared, taking cautious, deliberate steps from the lecture hall. I asked if he cared to join us for a cold drink in the canteen. He wore a sour look that morning and the usual luster in his eyes had dimmed.
“I am going back to hostel.” He shook his head and made circling motions over his stomach. “Canteen food is not agreeing.”
“Ouch,” was all I could think of to say. For a moment, the pains of sympathy stirred in my own gut as Devasia shambled away across the quad to his room and, surely, to the sanctuaries of cot and toilet.
“Problem is they are not boiling the water in the mess hall,” Vinod informed me as we crossed the courtyard. “So you are drinking filth along with the water. What do you expect in that case?”
“You don’t have tell me twice.” But I was barely paying any attention to him. All I could think of was Priya and the possibility that there was any hint of truth to what Vinod told me back in the lecture hall. I only wanted to speak to her, to speak with any girl I found halfway interesting and attractive, who didn’t keep to her own sex.
Vinod asked me the standard questions about America and why I had moved. Then he told me he used to live in America too.
“In Florida,” he said with affected nonchalance. “Six months there, a year also in San Diego and after that NYU.” He said he went over to get his B.A., but he lost interest in his studies and decided to come back. “After I finish here, I’ll push off again,” he said. “London, New York. Not sure yet. I’ve got uncles in both places, waiting for me to come back. After graduation, I’m gone. I can’t stay in this kachurputti place.”
We entered the canteen—a small gray room with small tables and large windows that overlooked the quad—throbbing with students, gossiping, laughing. Someone waved us over; it was Priya’s friend. They were all seated, four or five of them, at a table. Cola bottles everywhere. I felt Vinod’s hand at my back urging me forward, and we pushed on for the table.
I got the sense these were the popular kids at Xavier’s, the rich kids. Besides Priya and her friend—who introduced herself as Manju—there was a fair-skinned girl, half-German, half-Indian named Hannah and Ashok, a stout-shouldered, third-year guy seated next to her, who spoke of getting his M.Sc. in computer science at this place in Delhi. He told Hannah that computers were the wave of the future. Indeed, Ashok fixed all his attentions on Hannah, and they spoke closely; truly, this was the first coed gathering I’d found here, and I felt strangely like a transgressor as I sat here among them.
Ashok, Hannah, and particularly Manju fell over each other with questions about America, what brought me here, and how I was adjusting. Vinod interjected with his own impressions of life in the States, which, somehow, seemed culled from American movies and sitcoms.
Priya leaned forward, sipping from her bottle of Limca, her elbow on the table and resting her chin in one hand. Her skin was a shade darker than the typical Gujarati’s, and her eyes glistened black. Her hands were slim, bare, the skin kept diligently soft and radiant with moisturizer. Except for the gold stud that she wore in her nose, Priya seemed free of any ornamentation, minus the touch of lip gloss, the kohl accenting her eyes, and the translucence of clear nail polish. A bump high on the bridge of her nose and a slight prominence to her lower mouth kept her features, thankfully, from reaching classical perfection, and I wondered if they didn’t make Priya even lovelier. I was desperate to ask her something, to hear her speak.
“What are you majoring in?” I blurted.
“Psych.” She wiped at her mouth. “Not crazy about it, but I was even less crazy about English and econ.”
“You could’ve gone to H.L. and majored in commerce or some other school, right?”
“I could’ve,” she sighed, either weary or bored. Her voice was so quiet, unfazed by the noise of the café. “But a degree from Xavier’s means more than one from almost any other college in the state. You know, you can go farther with it.”
“Don’t know,” she said. “I’ve still got two years. Lots of time to decide.”
“So, now I have to ask,” I continued. “Why are you here? I mean, here in India?”
A measured pause, then, “My father’s a lawyer. About three years ago, he decided to leave his firm in Boston and start his own practice here.”
“Just decided to pack it up?”
“He wanted to raise my sister and me here, close to family, and …” Her sentence finished with a light toss of her head and the flick of an eyebrow.
“Wanted to keep an eye on you.”
She laughed, tipping back a bit more of the Limca.
I had not expected Priya, someone this close to my experience. I wondered if Shannon would be jealous if she saw me now and couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. After her lack of letter-writing, though, I hoped she would be jealous. And what would Nate and Karl think of Priya? They would agree: she was beautiful. “Bring that lovely thing back to America,” I could hear Nate’s voice now, “and give your boys back home a chance.”
“Have you visited America at all since?” I asked.
“A couple times,” she said. “I’ve got cousins there.”
“Ever think about moving back?
“I could,” she said vaguely. “I was born there, so it’s always an option.”
That quickened my blood. “You were born there?” To be an American citizen: The ultimate blessing. “What are you doing here then? If I were an American, I’d be in America right now.”
She kept the Limca bottle tipped at her mouth, and I could tell I’d hit a nerve because her expression became serious. She lowered the bottle and spoke in a low, steady tone. “America isn’t the Holy Grail. I mean, everyone around here thinks it is.” She rolled her eyes toward Vinod, now in a heated discussion with Ashok about the relative merits of Harley-Davidsons versus the indigenous Enfields. “But whatever. I just don’t get the America worship. There are plenty of places to live in this world. America isn’t the end-all-be-all.”
“This world is mostly shit,” I snapped. “Maybe America doesn’t matter because you can go back any time you want.”
Vinod’s voice suddenly leaped above all others. “A Harley will leave it in the dust, yaar!” he said forcefully, his palm angled as if here were going to karate chop Ashok’s neck.
“It’s not just power,” Ashok countered, sleepy-eyed and sure. “Enfield has class, a certain swaad, that Harley cannot match.”
“To hell with swaad, yaar,” Vinod pumped his fists. “What I want is power!”
Hannah laughed, covering her mouth.
“You should be wherever, do whatever you want, no matter who you are,” Priya said defensively, almost smugly.
“Really? And you want to be in Ahmedabad, huh?” I hoped that hadn’t come out snobby.
“What I want is no one’s business,” she said. “I’m here right now. And when I want to leave, I will.”
I was not enjoying the direction this conversation was going. I wanted to like this girl and for her to like me. So far, neither was happening. What nerve had I struck?
“You’re right,” I managed to say. “It’s your call. We should be and do whatever.”
I was happy for the interruption when Manju leaned over the table to ask, “You are going to be in our French class, no?”
“French? Uh, yes, I am.” Then I began to ask, “But how did you know … ?”
Manju giggled. “Madame Varma told us we will be having one student joining class late. I thought it must be you, as you cannot take Farsi or Sanskrit or like that.” She smiled and shrugged coyly. I told her and Priya about the class I was enrolled in at the Alliance Française.
“I was in that same class last year,” Priya said.
“We both were,” said Manju, all teeth and fluttering eyelashes.
“It’s not so bad,” I said.
“It’s a breeze,” Priya said, “But then you’ve got Madame Varma to deal with.”
“She’s tough, huh?” I braced myself.
“I hope you like Les Misérables,” Priya said.
She finished her Limca then slid back her chair to leave. Straightening the hem of her kurta and brushing her hair back over her shoulder, she said she’d see us all later, and that it was “nice” to meet me.
I told her goodbye as pleasantly as I could. But I still tasted a lingering bitterness from our conversation. In a flurry of goodbyes around the table, she clipped away on heels that peeked beneath the cuffs of her jeans. Priya’s exit was a cue for the rest of us to go our separate ways. I shook hands with Ashok and Vinod, waved to the girls, then turned and sped toward the college gate.
“Hey, take it easy, man,” Vinod called out.
I spun around, noticed him following me, hand extended. I shook his hand again. This time, he grasped my hand three different ways, in that typically American switch-up handshake. “Whatever you need, man, I can arrange whatever, I’m here for you,” he told me. “You want to get friendly with Priya?” he half-whispered with mock sleaziness and slapped my shoulder, laughing.
“Ha-ha.” I played along like a goddamn good sport but felt the need to extract myself immediately, unsure if I was annoyed at Vinod, at Priya, or my whole goddamn life. I thought if I didn’t get out now, I might take a swing at Vinod or start shouting obscenities at him—and what an impression that would make here in the middle of the Xavier’s quad! So, with an abrupt wave goodbye, I pulled away, anxious to gather my thoughts on the fifteen-minute walk back to the bungalow. Meanwhile, the sky grumbled, and I noticed it had darkened since morning.
As I stepped past the college gate, I felt the first drops of rain, and I picked up my pace. What was Vinod going on and on about? “Get friendly with Priya”! Did that mean what I thought it did? And what made him think he could make that happen? Priya had hardly given me the time of day, and she’d stung me with her words.
“Viiikraaaaam!” came a girl’s voice several paces behind me. Oh, no! It was Manju. She held a black umbrella in her hand, stood at the college gate, and motioned toward the rickshaw that she had just hailed. “Do you need a lift?”
“No, thanks,” I shook my head vigorously enough to cover the distance between us. “I’m not that far. Bye!”
She may have said something else, but I didn’t want to stick around. I just turned and walked away as fast as I could, keeping my ear tuned for the motor of her rickshaw, assurance that she was going away. I did not fancy a ride with Manju, any more than I did falling face-first into warm cow dung.
As I walked home, Priya’s words stuck like burrs in my brain: be wherever, do whatever you want, no matter who you are. Isn’t that what she said? When I want to leave, I will.
What a fucking luxury, I thought to myself, feeling an envy and bitterness I never expected to feel toward her. The luxury of choice. Because being able to choose one thing over another—one place over another, one kind of life over another—that was something I could never imagine feeling. That must be true freedom.
By the splat of raindrops on the road and on my head, I knew we were in for a heavy rain shower; I’d be drenched by the time I reached the bungalow. I thought of the hours ahead: after lunch came the journey aboard the number “67” to the Alliance Française. Then back home for dinner, studying, and cramming for the midterms. I wondered, as I did each afternoon, if any letters might arrive for me that day.
None did.
* *
My father offered to buy me a Kinetic Honda scooter, sleek and sturdy. I chose the Luna moped.
“The Kinetic will last longer,” my father said.
He was right: Compared to the Kinetic Honda, the Luna was a skin-and-bones machine—just sinews of cables running from a pair of handlebars and tires that looked hardly more durable than a bicycle’s. The Luna was just the basics, the kind of vehicle the lurked along the ed
ges and got where it needed to go without attracting attention. It was a machine meant for transience, and transience was my ally.
“The Luna will do,” I said.
With the Luna, I no longer had to sweat and shove my way along on buses. It would zip me around wherever I needed to, and that meant college, mostly, and the Alliance Française.
The French course went on for six more weeks. It was set up to give students a practical knowledge of the language, but what it did, more than anything, was thoroughly dislocate me. Our lesson book contained short sketches—dramatic scenarios that we read along to cassettes in which actors voiced the lines, acted the parts, and the whole thing was done up like a mini French radio play. A broadcast from another world.
“Je m’appelle Jacques Martineau,” said a Continental, disembodied voice. “Je suis pianiste. J’habite à Paris, place de la Contrescarpe.”
And that’s all it took for the boundaries in my mind to crack open. I imagined a world outside the immediacies of Ahmedabad, a clean and cosmopolitan Parisian universe in which this blonde, supple-voiced musician Jacques Martineau lived (Place de la Contrescarpe had to be galaxies removed from anything I knew, might ever know) and conducted his affairs free of despair and circumstance. A part of me deeply wished to be this fictional Frenchman, far away from here, living in another reality entirely.
Another grammar lesson involved a carload of teenagers on a road trip through rural France. They suffered flat tires and surly farmers (who eventually welcomed them into their home and served them delicious plum-dark wine). In the next lesson, the teenagers rolled into a cobblestoned village and danced to a bandstand concert during the Fête de la Musique. I imagined myself in each of these adventures, wishing I were out in the European country myself, with Shannon at my side.
In another, a father came home to announce to his children that he had been promoted and they would all be moving from Paris to a distant city called Montpellier. The children whined and stamped their feet, lamenting how they’d lose their friends and how their schooling would be disrupted. But nothing doing. Their father packed them up and off they moved. The kids’ antics amused me. Parisian wimps. What they needed was to spend a few weeks in Ghatlodiya.