by Durjoy Datta
‘Dada? Do you agree?’ I asked.
Dada nodded half-heartedly, still leaning to hear the commentary of the ongoing match.
Later, Brahmi told me on our way back to school, ‘She’s so sweet.’
‘Is she sweet enough for Maa–Baba not to notice the burqa?’
Baba came back home early for India’s first match in the World Cup. Imagine the gloom in the Ganguly household when despite Ganguly’s valiant 97, India lost its first World Cup match. Dada and Baba refused to eat the malai prawn curry Maa had made in anticipation of an Indian win.
‘It’s because of you we lost,’ said Baba. ‘You celebrated too early. Next time I will lock the kitchen till the time India wins!’
‘But—’
‘Baba is right. You jinxed our win,’ Dada concurred.
‘That’s unfair!’ I protested.
Dada and Baba left the dinner table and walked to the balcony. They closed the door behind them. Dada was first invited to stand outside with Baba when he cleared IIT. He had smoked his first cigarette that day and had vomited promptly. Maa–Baba had a huge shouting match while Maa cleaned up the half-digested Chinese food we had eaten earlier that day. I peeped in through the window and found the two of them lighting their cigarettes. Mina nipped at my toes. I ate their portion too. The results of the board exams will be announced next week and I have better things to do than mourn our cricket team’s losses.
P.S. Saw many tall buildings today. That’s why Connaught Place is my favourite place. Right there on Barakhamba Road, there are two buildings, each quite tall but each quite hard to get into. Two watchmen outside each building but I’m guessing they must go off to sleep late at night.
21 May 1999
More than the strong-jawed, long-limbed devil Sahil Ahuja, I hate myself for what I’m feeling today. Today was our first dissection. The twelfth grade biology teacher had promised us that. But I reached the biology lab twenty minutes late and saw Brahmi’s scalpel hovering over a pinned frog. On her side was Sahil Ahuja smiling his satanic smile. Brahmi lowered her scalpel and cut through the frog with the dexterity of a surgeon. The teacher and Sahil stood by her side and encouraged her. The teacher then made Sahil finish what Brahmi had started. Once they were done, they both accepted the pats with wide smiles.
I hid from them.
From the laboratory, they went to the canteen and had two Gold Spot cold drinks. Not once did Brahmi look over her shoulder to see if I had come. They were in the canteen for an hour. My blood boiled. Sahil Ahuja was a liar. It was all a plan, I could see that now. He would have orchestrated the chits, rendered a fake, charming apology to claw into Brahmi’s good books. I followed them to the bus they took home. Sahil had the gall to get down at her stop—he had insisted—and then take another bus home. What was this if not a shameless attempt to woo her? And why was Brahmi encouraging this wanton behaviour?
What made me angrier was what happened before I saw Sahil’s wicked plan in action.
The tyre of the first bus I took in the morning had burst and in the few seconds that the bus was out of control I saw my own death. I literally thought I would die. I was happy for a brief bit—like I am always when I picture myself dying—but then I didn’t want to.
I wanted to live!
You know why?
Because I had to get to school and share a scalpel and cut open a frog with Brahmi. For the first time in the longest while I wanted to live on, not because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone but because I wanted to stay alive for myself! In those few seconds—that seemed to last a lifetime—I didn’t see Maa–Baba or Dada, I saw her. I saw my future as clearly as day. In the future that flipped in front of my eyes like a graphic novel I saw myself clearing IIT, scoring much higher in the entrance test than Dada had, and then I saw myself graduating from IIT, then calling Brahmi’s mom, and informing them of my existence. I saw them liking me, and then in two more years I saw myself slipping into the possibility, quite randomly in a conversation with Brahmi, of us getting married, and then I saw her take it to her family and them agreeing to the union on grounds of my loyalty and success.
And the first thing I saw after this wonderful possibility of love and life was Sahil’s stupid face.
I called up at Brahmi’s house.
‘Raghu? Why didn’t you come to school today?’ asked Brahmi.
‘I was a little sick. So what did you do in biology today?’
‘You wouldn’t believe it! We dissected a frog. Oh, by we I mean Sahil Ahuja and I.’
‘Sahil was there?’
‘The frog had such a tiny heart! We saw it stop beating. It was sad and beautiful. Wait? Did you not come because you were scared?’
‘I wasn’t scared.’
‘The teacher might let us cut another one next week. Will you come? Sahil Ahuja is coming too.’
‘I will,’ I said.
‘Okay, fine. I will have to cut the call now. Taiji is coming! Okay? Now, bye—’
She seemed happy and I couldn’t be happy for her. Once again, my selfishness and envious nature confounds me.
I was the frog. Pinned to the dissection table, my tiny heart beating in full view of Sahil Ahuja and Brahmi, them nudging my little heart with their bloody scalpels and bright smiles, laughing, and then watching it beat its last beat. Lup-dup. Lup-dup. Dead. A flat line.
22 May 1999
Here are the board exam results.
Raghu Ganguly: 91.2 per cent
Brahmi Sharma: 91.2 per cent
Like I’m being mocked.
Sahil Ahuja scored a 62 per cent. I walked out of the school before Brahmi could spot me. She seemed happy high-fiving Sahil Ahuja and laughing with him like she was the only one who scored that high.
The mood at the Ganguly household was upbeat through the day.
‘I knew you would score more than me,’ said Dada, smiling. ‘But not by this margin.’
‘You have always been a little slow, Dada.’
‘Wow. Maa–Baba never really taught you modesty, did they?’ he said and ruffled my hair which was irritating because I’m not a three-year-old any more.
In the evening there was a party at home to celebrate my No.1 position in my school. SO MUCH FUN. LIKE SO MUCH FUN. I’m being sarcastic, of course. Sounds much better when you say it out loud rather than write and read it.
No one cared to mention to the attendees of the Gangulys’ Son’s Board Exam Result Celebration Party that I shared the top spot with Brahmi Sharma, the breaker and breakee of hearts. Countless Bengali families including the Bhattacharyas were home eating Maa’s mutton chops. Despite their daughter Arundhati’s rather dismal performance, it was hard to spot the disappointment on their faces.
‘She got a 100 in English!’ squealed Bhattacharya Aunty.
‘So nice,’ said Maa.
The women and the men skilfully concealed their envy and congratulated me and showered love on me like I was their own son. Richa Mittal on the other hand scored a 43 per cent and there was considerable gloom in her house. I know because they complained of the noise we were making and they made Richa make that call.
‘Hello?’
‘Richa?’
‘Can you please ask your guests to stop making noise? Or my father will complain to the residents’ welfare association next week. We don’t say anything doesn’t mean we will keep bearing this,’ she said in a voice that seemed to have churned from an ocean of limitless sadness. This was also the longest string of words I had heard from her. Her parents would have made her mug up the sentence I think.
‘Okay, I will tell Baba.’
‘Congratulations, Raghu.’
‘You too.’
I don’t know why I said that.
‘Is Arundhati there too? I know she is. She’s so beautiful, isn’t she? She is. She is very beautiful. And intelligent. She lives right across you and gets to go to the temple with you. Very nice.’
‘Yes, she has come with her parents,’ I said.
She disconnected the call.
After the dinner, the men and the women were inside drinking and talking about politics and sarees and marriages; and the younger ones were sent outside to the balcony and busied themselves with Mina. Mina revelled in the attention and let all of them be her masters and licked them equally.
‘You don’t seem to be happy? What did you expect? A 95?’ asked Arundhati.
‘No. 92 per cent. Just half a per cent more than Brahmi. I could have got it. I still don’t see how I could only score 92 in mathematics.’
‘You both scored the same? Like you are soulmates! That’s so sweet.’
‘There’s nothing sweet about that!’
‘Of course it is. And why are you so grumpy? Beat her in the next boards. Big deal. No one will ask us about these marks when we grow up anyway.’
‘Please don’t talk to me right now.’
‘Fine, grumpy head.’
She sat next to me and stayed quiet.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘It’s okay.’
‘Tell me something, Arundhati. Like you only scored 62, don’t you feel you’re letting down your parents?’
‘Why would I? They were expecting lesser. If anything, they are impressed!’
‘But they would still want you to score as much as, say, I did, wouldn’t they?’
‘They would love it. But they know I’m not smart enough—’
‘Oh please! Not that intelligence crutch again. Everyone can score. It’s just about putting in the hours. I’m not gifted, I just work harder. And you don’t work hard enough for your parents’ happiness.’
‘That’s not very nice of you to say.’
‘No, I am saying that’s good. Like how do you do it? Like how do you ignore your parents’ wishes just like that?’
‘By doing what I want! It’s pretty simple. You should try it out sometime,’ she said and giggled.
25 May 1999
A deathly silence has descended over the Ganguly household. The three men had each vowed wars—the father against a religion, the elder son against an ideology, and I against love. The mother looked like she would have a stroke any moment. Let’s start with the eldest—Baba—whose worst fears have come true. In what’s being said to be one of the biggest intelligence gaffes, 800 Pakistani infiltrators have been found occupying 25 kilometres of Indian Territory in Kargil and Drass.
‘IT’S A WAR!’ said Baba, waving his fists. ‘Look at the betrayal. Our government sends buses to them and they send us dead bodies of our soldiers. See, Raghu, didn’t I tell you? We Hindus are too soft! We gave them a country and yet they want more! You think the Musalmans who live in Hindustan are loyal to the country? Thoo!’ Baba spat on the ground and stomped on it. ‘If they are so loyal, let them fight on the front lines, let them fight their co-religionists, spill their blood!’
‘Baba, you’re overreacting. Why do you think the Muslims chose to stay back? Because we promised them a secular state. Their allegiance lies with us. Our country was built on these principles,’ grumbled Dada.
‘Bullshit! Secularism, my foot! What will we get out of secularism, haan? Tell me?’ he shouted. ‘It’s because of people like you that we are treated like second-class citizens in our own country. Always with the appeasing of the minorities. You think they will be brothers, no they won’t, they find you sleeping and they . . . ’ Like always, Baba put forward a chilling scenario of an impending massacre. Gruesome stories with gruesome endings come easily to Baba. Strange that he and Didimaa don’t get along.
‘Ei!’ Maa shrieked to stop Baba but the words had flown out of his mouth.
‘I’m saying nothing wrong. Just wait and see what happens to us. We should all band together before it’s too late and . . .’
Midway through Baba’s rather hilariously impractical but cruel plan, Dada had left. Baba turned his attention to me. He said, ‘Do you have any Musalman friends?’
‘No, but—’
‘Good. Good. Never make a Musalman your friend. We are not the same, remember that!’
Maa asked me to go to my room. I was happy to oblige. Pakistan’s betrayal of the olive leaf that the Indian government had extended to them was nothing compared to what Brahmi and Sahil Ahuja had done to me. Today’s lesson wasn’t about an arch nemesis’s betrayal, but that of a friend’s.
Earlier today I was intentionally late for school. I had given Brahmi the chance to wait for me but she went about her day like I didn’t exist. I had followed their trail . . . the dead frog with the still heart in the dustbin, the crumbs of wafers in the canteen, the lingering echoes of Sahil’s laughter in the empty corridors. I found Sahil and her sitting with their legs dipped in the swimming pool, their hands within touching distance.
Of all the places—the swimming pool—where it had all begun.
They must have sneaked in like Sami and I had, feeling brave, feeling adventurous. Unlike the swimming pool here, the one in my older school had new diving boards, the ones Sami and I were the first ones to test. They were dismantled soon after Sami plunged to his death. I didn’t want to enter the swimming-pool area but Sahil’s laughs drew me in. And in the water, I saw Sami. He was right there, struggling, looking at me, taking my name and begging me to save him.
Their smiles, their little murmurs shook me out of my reverie and broke something inside me, like Sami himself was reminding me what I had done to him. It could have been a minute or an hour that I stood there, watching. The pain spread through my body like a plague. The anxiety gave way to despair, the despair to anger, the anger to pain, and the pain fuelled an urge to avenge myself. I woke up the watchman and told on the two of them. The watchman hurried inside and caught them by their ears. I came back home and waited for her call. None came. Now I’m thinking of ways to lay waste their love story before it begins.
I will have my war.
I was still weighing my strategies when Dada stumbled into my room. It was only then that I noticed the scraggy beard and the overcast eyes of a heartbroken lover. I know because I have looked into the mirror and I look a bit like him. Two brothers with doomed love stories.
‘Her parents know,’ he said, slowly and painfully, as if the words were carving their way out of his throat. ‘They have locked her in. Her brothers said they would strangle me if they found me near her ever again. They are planning to get her married to someone else.’
‘Dada.’
‘Can you imagine what she must be going through?’ he asked, his eyes glazed over.
‘You should have been ready for this. You should have never fallen in love, held her hand, gone on dates. What good has ever come of falling in love? Didn’t you tell me you weren’t sure?’
‘I need to talk to her parents,’ he said with a sense of urgency. Like he wasn’t listening to me.
‘Won’t you make it worse by talking to her parents? Just let it be. Slowly everyone will forget everything,’ I said, despite knowing that if his love story meets this abrupt end, it will break his heart and he might not love ever again. We aren’t on a merry-go-round; love doesn’t keep happening to us. It’s one moment, one person, one life.
‘I don’t want to forget her. I want to get married to her.’
Poor, naive Dada. He doesn’t know how much love can hurt.
‘Dada, but this is an escape hatch. You can get away from this toxic relationship. Even Maa–Baba will be happy. Take this opportunity, please. I know you love her but—’
‘That’s bullshit. I don’t care what her parents or Maa–Baba think. I’m looking out for my own happiness,’ argued Dada.
‘But she’s a M—’
‘One more time you say that and I will smack you. When did you become so bigoted?’
‘Dada, I’m not. Like I’m okay with them.’
‘Them? When did they become THEM?’
‘I mean, Dada. I don’t mind at all. I like Zubeida Didi. But Maa–Baba. They want—’
‘SHUT UP,’ he sc
reamed and got up.
‘Bu—’
He strode out.
How quickly things fall apart.
I feel feverish.
I can see Sami looking at me. He’s saying, we will jump at the same time, Raghu, on my count, one, two, three, you jump at the same time, okay, I can’t swim but you can, okay, so jump. I promise him that I will jump. I can see him jumping. I have not jumped. I am still there. It’s too high, it’s too high. And suddenly, he’s drowning, he’s calling out my name. He’s calling out for me. A minute passes, then another. There’s time, there’s a lot of time. I can climb down. But the blood, the water, the splashing around. It’s too high, it’s too high. My feet are bolted to the ground. I can’t move. It’s too late. His voice is fainter, his eyes are looking at me, and now his body is limp. I should have done something. I can do something. He’s floating lifeless, right there. I have to run, run from the swimming pool, go out and say nothing to anyone. I’m too scared.
Sami rotted.
I feel sleepy.
27 May 1999
There are rumours about Sahil Ahuja. I hadn’t thought much of him or the rumours around him because he or his supposed charm with girls older or the same age hadn’t had a bearing on my life. Now it does. After all, he made the dissection of a frog into a romantic activity. He’s a threat and so are Brahmi’s smiles. I will not be abandoned and be wrested of my will to live.
If I had to wage a war against them I had to take the rumours surrounding Sahil Ahuja seriously. It is said that last year a girl two years older to him was found in a manner of undress with Sahil Ahuja. This was the worst of all the urban legends that surround the boy who is talked about in whispers on the last benches across all sections. While I was alternatively chalking out plans to drive a wedge between them and sulking, the bell of my house rang.
I peeped through the peephole and she shouted from the other side. ‘It’s me! ARUNDHATI. I wondered if you would want to join me for a game of carrom. I can give you a head start if you want one. I’m really BORED!’