The pressure had transformed Rishabh too, who now arose before his alarm rang. He had even started having a glass of milk with a raw egg in it. Each time he saw the gooey yolk rising in his glass like a malodorous sun, he reminded himself it was good for his stamina and then gulped it down before gagging.
They offered so much of themselves on the ground that there was little left to give beyond it. At school, Rishabh could feel the post-lunch drowsiness set in at 10 a.m. He tried his hardest to battle the blurring of vision and the shuttering of eyelids, but to no avail. One morning, Pillai Miss, the chemistry teacher, caught Puro and Rishabh nodding off and ordered them to go wash their faces. When the boys trooped into the loo, they found Dave, Rahul and Tejas already splashing water on their mugs. They were soon joined by Floyd and Pinal Oza, and they all agreed that training for a tournament was wearisome but worth it.
The bone-deep tiredness doubled at home. Rishabh would set his bag down and then discover that he had no more energy left in him, not even to get out of his uniform. He would then toddle over to the sofa, lie down and watch television for the remainder of the day. His mother grew alarmed at how much TV he was watching and how little he was studying. When she brought it up with him, he waved a hand in her general direction and said, ‘I’m too tiiiiireeeed. I need some rest. Just a little while.’
‘You’ve been watching TV for three hours, Rishabh.’
‘It’s getting over in two minutes.’
‘When did you even start watching tennis?’
He had started watching tennis ever since it meant not thinking about his studies. It bothered him that every time his parents saw him, that’s all they thought of. They didn’t see their young son, they didn’t see their tired boy; they saw a lazy student. He was itching to tell them he just wanted to be left alone, but could never muster the courage. The panic got under his skin. Each moment of every day, no matter what he did, he was trailed by the looming ghost of the ‘boards’, like a black beast inching closer and closer to devour him, destroy him.
The only time he didn’t think of textbooks and results was when he had a ball at his feet. The tenth standard did not intrude on the football field. The fear and worry that had dogged him ever since the school year had begun couldn’t keep up with him when he flew down the flanks. The coach was the only grown-up who didn’t ask them what they wanted to be in life; the coach never hounded them to a desk; the coach was the only adult who didn’t believe they would disappoint him.
Rishabh lay on the sofa and toggled through TV channels. Cricket dominated the sports channels and Animal Planet was airing a documentary about sea anemones, which was interesting only to other sea anemones. He was still wearing his school uniform—the sweaty, dusty shirt had congealed on his body—and sported the oiliness on his forehead like a headdress. Yet he stayed moored to the sofa, held back by paralysing lethargy.
The doorbell rang. His mother fluttered out of the kitchen to answer it. His father tromped in. Rishabh knew he should show some semblance of regard but couldn’t get himself to summon the feeling. Mr Bala took one look at his son fertilizing the sofa while watching an English movie and grew red in the face. Had Dr Desai, their family physician, checked his blood pressure at the moment, he would have surely shaken his head and said, ‘Mr Bala, you must learn to relax.’
And Mr Bala would have lashed out. ‘But how can I relax if my only son is watching TV all day instead of studying for his boards! The boy is going to fail, disgrace the family. The only thing he is good at is changing the channels, and which job pays you to use a goddamn remote control!’
Enough was enough, Mr Bala thought; today he would confront his lazy boy. ‘Rishabh! Shut that thing now!’ he thundered.
Rishabh sighed and switched off the TV. Then he peeled himself off the sofa and assumed an upright position.
‘Do you even realize the importance of this year?’ said Mr Bala.
‘Yes, Papa.’
‘Don’t answer back. I have never seen you study, not even once. Never seen an open textbook in your hands. Your goddamn desk is gathering dust. All I ever see you do is watch TV!’ He goggled his eyes at his son, who seethed silently. He could see the boy’s chest rising and falling.
‘Maybe you shouldn’t see me for only one hour at night,’ came the reply, and Rishabh slunk off to his room.
Mr Bala wasn’t one to stand motionless in a fight. When his temper flared, he could be a formidable opponent. But something about his son’s chiding left him wounded in a visceral way. The unhappiness stung him. He wondered whether he should console his son. But he quickly brushed that impulse aside. Console him for what? For being told not to be a spoilt, lazy, sulking sack of potatoes? No. He had seen the trajectory of such a life. He knew he was right to be worried about his child’s future. He knew he had been justified in reprimanding his son. He knew the boards were important. The only thing he didn’t know was the mysterious mind of his moody son.
The next morning, there was a disconcerting commotion in the tenth standard corridor. A crowd swarmed around the noticeboard, writing pads and pens in hand, jostling and swaying as they scribbled something down. Rishabh sensed the anxiety from afar. He asked Pooja Matroo what the fuss was about.
‘Exam timetable,’ she said.
‘Which exams?’
‘Um, the first-term exams.’
‘Oh, shit! Really? When is it?’
‘Why don’t you just read the noticeboard?’
Rishabh grimaced. He wondered why he even bothered asking Pooja. She was always too snarky for her own good. Walking up, he craned his neck to get a glimpse of the timetable but could barely read the print on the A4 page. I’ll copy it later, he thought. When there isn’t a stampede.
But, of course, he would forget to do it in the short break and it would completely slip his mind in the lunch break. In fact, it wouldn’t be until two days later that he would finally get around to returning to the noticeboard, only to find the timetable had been yanked off by some miscreant. A scrap of paper still tacked on with a pin was the only sign of it ever having been there. I’ll just copy it from Puro, Rishabh thought. There’s plenty of time.
Still, the news of the impending exams finally settled in his stomach. It swirled and it churned and it made the school day insufferable. Rudely awakened to academics, he was surprised by just how adrift he was with his studies. He didn’t know which chapter Kaul Miss was reading from, and his head hurt just trying to keep up with maths. During physics, he looked around and saw the rest of his class nodding attentively while he couldn’t even grasp the gibberish Anita Miss had scrawled on the board. And it wasn’t just because her handwriting was bad.
Fittingly finishing off a depressing day, the last period was English. Rishabh felt a gob of saliva collecting at the back of his throat as soon as Bobde sashayed into class in a revolting moss-green sari. She had a tired yet imperial look on her face, as if she were doing them a favour by showing up. It hadn’t rained all day, and the air was sticky and oppressive. Rishabh could feel the rim of his collar sticking to the back of his neck. He just hoped this terrible day would end soon.
As it happened, it ended on a good note. Within five minutes, Bobde pulled up Rishabh and Puro for talking. They apologized half-heartedly. She autographed their ‘Remarks’ section and stationed them outside the classroom. They accepted the sentence a little too eagerly, Poulomi Bobde should have figured. Because when she went to check on them mid-lecture, she found the corridor empty. She would have had better luck finding them if she had only peered out the window that overlooked the ground.
At Oswal’s the following day, Rishabh gave an award-winning performance as ‘attentive pupil’, a feat made more impressive by the fact that he kept it up for over four hours. At the end of the second lecture, he trickled out of class with his group and they puddled outside. It was Kunal who proposed the great idea. ‘Let’s watch a movie,’ he said.
‘Yeah, good idea,’ said Sumit.
‘I don’t think I’m coming,’ muttered Rishabh.
‘Why?’ asked Kunal.
‘Look, I just got a bad remark yesterday. My parents are already super angry. If I tell them I went for a film today, they’ll kill me.’
‘Don’t be a baby, yaar. Just come. It’s only two hours,’ said Kunal.
‘I’m really sorry, guys. Some other time, pakka.’
‘Accha, I just spoke to the girls,’ said Amay Khatri, joining in. ‘They’re coming too.’
Rishabh turned around and saw Krupa, Suman, Preetha, Divya and Tamanna walking towards them. Krupa waved at Rishabh, and winked.
He turned to face the boys. ‘So which movie are we going for?’
Like most teenagers, they didn’t visit the mall, they stormed it. They travelled en masse, moving like one organism, a giant amoeba, pushing and pulling in different directions. They whirled through Planet M, picking up every CD and cassette in the store and putting them back in the wrong shelves. They blitzed through Pizza Hut, wolfed many pizzas and quaffed gallons of Pepsi. Finally, fed and spent, they came down to the main order of business: which movie to watch.
The one they settled on after much high-pitched squabbling was The Da Vinci Code, an A-rated movie. Not a pansy U, not a non-committal U/A; it was the full-fledged bold red capital letter ‘A’. Plus the film had caused controversy for graphic violence as well as hurting religious sentiments. It had all the elements that piqued the interest of humans aged fifteen.
‘Will they give us the tickets?’ asked Preetha. Her pragmatism punctured the building excitement.
‘I’ll get them,’ said Rishabh. He hadn’t said much throughout the afternoon. If I remain silent, I won’t say anything stupid, he had decided.
Now he stepped forward because he was confident that if anyone could get those tickets, it was him. This was not misplaced confidence. You see, Rishabh Bala was the victim of a strange affliction called premature bearding. At some point during the seventh standard, puberty had smacked him in the face. Unfortunately for him, it had struck him before everyone else in his standard. By the end of term, he’d had a moustache thick enough to put army colonels to shame. When he’d walk through the corridors, chants of ‘Uncle! Uncle!’ went up. When he’d enter classrooms, a chorus of ‘Good morning, sir!’ greeted him. It had been a nightmarish situation that had only been resolved a year ago when his older cousin finally ushered him into the loo and handed him a razor and foam.
To his dismay, people had then started teasing him for being clean-shaven. Shave Puri, they called him. There was no winning with people who played for both sides, so he’d stopped bothering with the jibes and soon they stopped bothering him. That day at the mall, Rishabh had suddenly realized that he could use his two-week-old goatee for the greater good. He collected the money and confidently stepped up to the counter.
‘Ten tickets for The Da Vinci Code,’ he said authoritatively.
The ticket seller saw a fifteen-year-old boy asking for tickets to an adult movie in a voice that had barely cracked and happily handed them to him. Let the doorman deal with them, he thought, counting the cash.
‘Got them!’ said Rishabh, waving the tickets in front of his bearded face. He had solved the problem. He was their hero. He thought he saw a glimmer of admiration in Tamanna’s eyes.
Everyone was ecstatic. ‘Hold on,’ said Preetha, right on cue, ‘we still have to get past the doorman.’
‘What should we do?’ asked Tamanna, forcing Rishabh to wonder how anyone could look that good even when they were worried.
‘Arre, now they can’t stop us,’ said Kunal. ‘We’ve paid for our tickets.’
‘That’s not true, haan,’ Suman added her two cents. ‘My brother and his friends weren’t allowed to go in even after they bought tickets.’
‘I knew this would happen!’ Preetha sighed. She still wore her Oswal’s ID card and flapped it around anxiously. Rishabh watched it hypnotically fluttering around her wrist.
‘Wait a minute!’ he said. ‘Everyone has their Oswal’s IDs?’
Yes, they did.
‘We show them to him as college IDs. Do it fast and he won’t notice. If he says anything, just insist that Oswal’s is a college in Thane East. Okay?’
‘I’m not entirely sure . . .’ mumbled Khatri.
‘The film starts in ten minutes. You got any other plans?’ said Rishabh.
‘Okay, let’s try it your way,’ said Khatri.
Rishabh led the line. He walked slowly, maintaining steady, relaxed eye contact with the usher. He was assured in his robust hairiness. In fact, he half-expected the usher to say, ‘Sir, you can pass but your kids will have to stay behind.’
The doorman nodded and let him pass. Rishabh walked into the cool environs of the air-conditioned theatre and bit his lip. He watched as the doorman stopped the rest of the gang. The trap was sprung. Each shoved their Oswal’s ID under his nose. The swarm overwhelmed the doorman. He did his best to inspect the IDs on display, but the clamour was deafening and the swell of the bunch pushed against him.
‘Go,’ he croaked. The teenagers rushed past him, giddy with excitement and chuffed that they had passed off as adults.
‘Rishabh, my man, you did it again!’ Kunal slapped his back.
‘My hero!’ said Krupa.
This time he definitely caught a glint in Tamanna’s eye, but it was gone in a flash.
‘Screen 1!’ she called, walking off a bit too quickly.
They ran into the theatre and filed into row F, seats 11 to 20. Rishabh noticed with a mix of horror and delight that the only seat left was the one next to Tamanna. The clever bastards, he thought. Kunal knocked him on the shin as he passed, Khatri winked and Parth told him that if he spilled his popcorn he would murder him.
‘I guess, uh, I’ll have to sit here,’ said Rishabh to Tamanna without looking at any one in particular.
She hummed sympathetically.
Rishabh sat back in his chair, feeling hot under the collar. He was stock-still while the trailers played. He didn’t even sing along to the national anthem, rightly surmising that she would find it creepy. At last, the movie began. Pictures flickered on the screen. Tom Hanks ran helter-skelter, trying to save the world.
But none of that mattered to Rishabh Bala. All he thought was: I’M SITTING NEXT TO TAMANNA! The voice in his head was so loud that he was sure she could hear him. In four years, this was the closest he had got to her. He was determined to remember it, all of it: the dark of the theatre, the white-blue-green light dancing on her face, bouncing off her hair, the way she was serenely staring at the screen and the grace with which she blinked. He tried sneaking a look at her as often as he could without it becoming obvious that he hadn’t paid to watch the movie.
His biggest dilemmas were his hands. He suddenly realized that hands were the most awkward parts of the human anatomy and that they tended to get awkward-er when you were sitting next to the girl you liked. He didn’t know what to do with his stiff, tense arms. He folded them across his chest but felt he appeared frigid. He put them on the armrest but they slid off. He propped them on his knees but that made his back ache. He knitted his fingers and supported them on his stomach but felt like he was approaching retirement. Finally, he let them dangle by his side like fishing rods. He felt the uncoolness wafting out of him. What will she think if she sees me sitting slumped in my seat like a squid? he thought. I am a vertebrate; I must spine up. So he continued wriggling and squirming in his seat, trying to play it cool, while Tamanna calmly followed the film flitting across the screen in front of her.
He didn’t have money to buy popcorn in the interval. Tamanna didn’t want anything to eat. So they both sat steadfastly, staring at the screen with the same intensity as when the movie was playing on it. When the second half started, Tamanna did something strange. She turned around and surveyed the theatre, and then mysteriously
got up and left. This crushed Rishabh. She can’t stand sitting next to me. It must have been the hands that drove her away!
‘Rishabh!’ came a hiss from his left. It was Parth, spitting at him from a distance. ‘Go after her!’
‘What . . . why?’
‘She’s gone behind to sit alone. Look.’
Rishabh looked, making sure he was as coy as could be. Tamanna had gone and perched herself on one of the empty seats higher up in the hall.
‘So?’ quizzed Rishabh.
‘So go and give her company!’ said Preetha, who couldn’t tolerate more of the movie getting ruined by this dithering conversation.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes!’
‘She won’t mind, no?’
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ stated Preetha, shoving Rishabh out of the seat.
Rishabh stood up as coolly as possible and tried to saunter up to Tamanna in row M. He asked as breezily as he could, ‘Can I sit here?’ This was a feat because his heart was fluttering in his chest, his stomach had come unmoored and his mouth had dried up. He wondered if he was having a seizure. Please, God, not now. Dying would look so uncool to her.
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘sure.’
‘Cool, thanks,’ Rishabh said and proceeded to squeeze past her awkwardly, trying not to crush her toes in his passage.
‘You could have just sat here,’ said Tamanna once he had settled down. She was pointing at the empty seat to her left, one that could have been reached with greater convenience.
‘Ahhh . . . I didn’t see that.’
‘I couldn’t see anything from those cheap seats. Plus the place is empty. Who’s stopping us from sitting here, man?’
‘Yeah. Nobody can stop us. Not even God!’
Tamanna’s eyes narrowed.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why can’t my mouth just shut up?
The theatre reverberated with Dolby surround sound but for Rishabh Bala there was only silence. He tried, bravely, many times to utter something smart or thoughtful, but his brain seemed to be jammed. To Tamanna it just sounded like the boy beside her couldn’t stop clearing his throat. He felt time escaping like air from a balloon. Oh, how many days and nights he had dreamed to be alone with her! He had imagined saying a million beautiful and poignant things, but now when the chance had come, when she sat an armrest away, all he could do was sound like a car with engine trouble.
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