by Milind Bokil
She seemed reluctant to get up, but the girls urged her. My mind was whirling now. She glanced at the boys’ side for a brief moment and our eyes met. She seemed to be saying, ‘Idiot! Say the answer. Do it now!’ My chest was pounding wildly now. A million light bulbs flickered in my mind.
‘Aapki Parchaiyan,’ I blurted out loudly.
Shirodkar stopped dead in her tracks. She looked at me and smiled, as if it was her own victory. She then dropped the chalk piece on the desk and walked back to her seat.
‘Yes!’ the boys chorused. I knew what I had to do now. We were two points down. I stood up brushing Misal aside. That idiot Teredesai was planning to attempt the next round, but the boys pulled him back. I picked up the chalk piece. I had selected an English movie. I had never tried this before. It was a weapon I had saved for a special occasion—for the final battle.
‘La…s,’ I wrote.
I knew there was no way the girls would be able to decipher this; even their fathers wouldn’t know! I then wrote another one. I was about to write a third one and then a fourth one. I wanted to rout the enemy completely.
‘Only one at a time, Sir!’ Mirikar complained.
‘Yes, Sir,’ Dongre added.
Sir did not interrupt. I completed my task and returned to sit on my bench. I was proud of my job.
The girls racked their brains, but in vain. Shirodkar was silent. She did not know and, even if she did, she would not have volunteered. We won that point without any resistance.
‘Joshi, tell the answer,’ Teredesai said.
‘Lighthouse,’ I said. Then I stood up to write another one. But before I could reach the board, the bell rang. The girls couldn’t keep quiet. They started shouting, ‘Two points down, two points down.’
‘Girls! Don’t shout, please. You are creating a racket,’ Sir said, getting up from the chair. But the birdies continued to make noise.
The next class was Redkar sir’s. He had given some difficult problems on logarithms to solve. But Bibikar’s words rankled in my mind. I was sure the other boys in class would surmise what he meant and if I did not take immediate action the word would spread. I was wild at Bibikar. It was evident he had deliberately made that remark.
‘We have to hammer Bibikar after school,’ I told Surya, turning back.
‘Ichibhana, let us solve this problem first,’ he said, looking at his notebook. ‘I am unable to understand anything.’
The problem at hand was a difficult one. Chitre solved it quickly and Surya copied it from him. I glanced at Shirodkar, but she was busy working the logarithms.
School got over and the children started streaming out. We came out through the back door—Chitre, Surya, Phawdya and I.
‘We have to teach Bibikar a lesson, okay?’ I reminded them.
‘Leave it, yaar,’Chitre said. ‘Don’t take it to heart.’
‘No! He has deliberately provoked us. We need to teach him a lesson.’
‘Go ahead,’ Surya suggested.
‘Why don’t you come along, saale?’ I asked. ‘Don’t try to act pricey.’
‘You go ahead. We will follow you,’ Phawdya said.
Bibikar came out and walked through the ground with other children. He tried avoiding us.
‘Hey, Bibya. Wait!’ I shouted.
He stopped.
‘So trying to act smart, eh?’ I said, grabbing his collar. I knew the rule: hold the collar first.
He was a strong guy and probably aware of the technique, and immediately brushed my hand off.
‘What? What do you mean smart?’ he said. He glanced behind me to check whether anyone else followed me. But he did not seem scared.
‘You really want to know?’
‘What can you do?’ he challenged with a straight face.
‘Tell me whether you want to know,’ I said, glancing back. Surya and Phawdya were closing in.
He did not reply.
‘Don’t try to mess with me, okay,’ I warned him. ‘I will break your teeth.’
‘You? What can you do?’ he challenged.
‘You want to see?’ I said, trying to punch him. He ducked at the last moment and the punch was wasted.
‘What’s going on?’ Surya asked, coming near us.
Bibikar was a little worried seeing Surya but held his ground.
‘What do you want?’ he said.
Surya may have, in some other circumstances, not got into a fight. But seeing his attitude, he shifted his books from his right hand to left and said, ‘You want to know that, huh?’ and before Bibikar could reply, punched him in his stomach. Bibikar buckled down in pain. He stood up, challenging Surya.
‘He is our friend, understood?’ Surya said. ‘If you try crossing his path, I will break your jaw.’
Bibikar was silent. A few boys had gathered around us. There was no point in hanging out there any more.
‘Go. Go home now,’ I said and we started walking towards the gate. ‘Else you will get hammered unnecessarily.’
‘Come alone, if you have the guts,’ he said. ‘Why are you hiding behind him?’
‘Go.Go now,’ I said.
I took the route through the paddy fields. I had to go home and then leave for tuition, but I stopped when I reached the woods. The fields were barren. A few stubs were all that were left of the harvested rice. There were no children playing there today. I stood near the trees. Bibikar’s comment rang in my ears. The other boys and girls would easily surmise the meaning.
He must have suspected this for long. No doubt he spoke the moment he got an opportunity. It was likely that the others would tease us as well. But there was no point in getting angry. Shirodkar had not got angry. I realized I should not have got into a fight with Bibikar. He was not a bad guy after all. He may try to act smart, but he had been nice to me. Chitre was right—I should have ignored him. I had picked up a fight for no reason. The boys would know I get upset when teased.
It was getting late, but I stood there lost in my thoughts. I realized that deep down I wasn’t really angry with Bibikar. In fact, I had felt good. It was a great relief in some sense. He would not tease me any more and I was feeling relieved. It felt like a spring erupting forth, after being stuck under the rocks for a long time. I felt free—bindaas!
I had to find a way of bunking tuition now. There was no point in meeting after the classes. It got dark soon. And no girl would have liked to stand and chat in a dark lane. We could not even see each other well so the whole point was lost. But luck was on my side that day. On the blackboard was written in large letters—‘There will be no classes today and tomorrow due to unforeseen circumstances’. The earlier batch was expectedly not around, but a few students from our batch had come. No one knew the reason till someone found out that Sir’s mother had been admitted to the hospital.
I whiled away some time talking to the guys from Subhash. Pingle had not come. He may have probably seen the notice earlier and left. I glanced at the girls. Shirodkar stood chatting with Mande and Juvekar. It was a golden opportunity. We had an entire hour to ourselves. But the question was—how to let her know. She looked at me once. The next time she glanced at me, I looked at the watch. I was keen to somehow let her know. Mande saw me looking at her. I was getting restless.
I decided to go and wait near the peepal tree. I was hoping she would come that way. I decided I would wait there for a while and then head back home. Had the girls not been there, I would have told her to meet me. But I could not do that. Lucky that Pingle was absent! I said, a tad loudly, addressing to no one in particular, ‘Hey, guys. Bye,’ and then moved on. There was no need to shout, but I was hoping Shirodkar would hear me. She would have seen me walk in the direction of her house.
I was prepared to wait for long, but I was lucky. I glanced at the watch. It had taken her thirteen minutes. The street lamps were on. There was enough light and yet adequate shadow under the peepal tree. The lane seemed desolate as usual. A few municipality workers hurried past, followed by a man on a bicycle,
a young boy returning from tuition and then a couple of college girls. I looked at them carefully; one of them could be Shirodkar’s Akka. If we were spotted together we could land in trouble.
‘Lucky that Juvekar let you off early,’ I said, the moment she arrived.
‘Yes,’ she said, smiling as usual. ‘But Mande was not willing to leave me. She, in fact, wanted to come along to my house.’
‘Then?’
‘I managed to wriggle out somehow,’ she said, glancing in both the directions.
I was silent for a while. We didn’t have to worry about the topic of discussion. The events of the earlier class were fresh in my mind.
‘Where did you get the names of all those movies from?’ I asked.
She did not reply but smiled. I waited.
‘Tell me, please!’
‘My Pappa got me a book.’
‘Which one? The one with songs?’
‘No. Not a book of songs,’ she clarified. ‘I had asked Pappa to get me a list of movie names and he borrowed this book from someone in his office. It is called History of Hindi Cinema.. It has a list of all the movies at the end.’
‘Really?’ I asked, surprised. ‘All the names?’
‘Yes. The complete list, right till date,’ she said. ‘Till last year that is—so it does not have Sholay, but the rest are there.’
So that’s that, I thought. I had a few names in my book, but here she had the entire list. And it covered the history of cinema, so it would have names which I had never heard of. No wonder she won.
‘Then… the movie which I wrote—you must have guessed their names,’ I said.
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘I was planning to use the same in my turn. I had copied the name into my notebook actually.’
‘Then?’
‘Then what? I kept quiet!’
‘Why?’ I asked. Like an idiot!
She glanced at me once and then looked away, smiling mysteriously.
Her smile was lovely. There was no need to speak. It was like the time when we sat in the Ganesh temple. I felt the same invisible connection between us. We could not see it but it was there. And the darkness around added to its allure. I felt I could stand there forever, without saying a word. The invisible connection would keep us there. We would stand there, fixed, like statues. We would just move our eyelids once in a while. The time would stand still.
‘I gave that Bibikar a solid warning,’ I said.
‘Don’t get into fights,’ she said.
‘You know, the boys in the class now know.’
‘What?’ she asked. She laughed in her sweet way.
I was about to explain, but seeing her laugh I too joined in.
An old man came our way, interrupting our laughter. I was hoping he would walk by without saying anything, but he stared at her as he crossed by. Luckily he left without saying a word.
‘It is good that we got a break from tuition,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but we can’t miss our studies now. Maths is so difficult.’
‘Redkar sir is a pain,’ I said. ‘Lucky that Bendre ma’am does not teach us Maths. Else, we would have been dead by now.’
‘You bet!’
I discussed the teachers, but that was not what I wanted to talk to her about. I wanted to say something else, something sweet.
‘What shall we do going forward?’ I blurted.
‘Meaning?’ she asked. I could clearly see her eyes twinkling despite the darkness around.
How do I explain! She may not have got the drift of my question.
‘Going forward means…ahead, you know!’ I tried explaining.
She laughed again. She must have understood.
‘I don’t understand all this,’ she said.
I wondered how I could elaborate. I wanted to tell her that we were still in class nine and we had quite a few years to go. We needed to be together. There were a hundred things I wanted to say. But the question was—how to say?
‘How is your Akka?’ I asked, changing the topic.
‘Akka? She’s fine. Why?’
‘I mean, what is she like?’
‘She’s fine,’ she said. ‘But why do you ask?’
‘No. Just like that,’ I said.
‘There was a singing competition in her college. She got a prize there.’
‘Really? That’s great,’ I said. ‘Our Ambabai is no good. If she starts singing, everyone will run away.’
‘Why do you ridicule your sister so?’
I could have spoken about Ambabai for hours. But then seeing her reaction, I shut up. I wondered how to continue the conversation.
‘Your dress suits you,’ I said.
‘Aiyaa! It is such an old one,’ she said, smiling.
I realized while speaking to her that I was trying to grasp that elusive ‘something’ which enveloped us. We stood there surrounded by a fog binding us together. I could sense it but not catch it.
We were lost in our own world and I did not notice an old woman walking towards us. She was holding a bag which seemed pretty heavy as she walked with slow steps. I decided to ignore her keeping my head down. But she was watching us as she walked towards us. It was Ponkshe kaku! She recognized me the moment she came near us. She would recognize me in the middle of the night in pitch darkness too.
‘It’s Mukund, is it?’ she asked, coming closer. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Nothing. Just chatting,’ I said.
‘Chatting? And who is she?’ she asked, looking at Shirodkar carefully.
Where the hell did this Ponkshe kaku land up from? And what was she doing here so far away from home in the evening?
‘She’s in my class,’ I said. ‘And what brought you this side of the town?’
‘In your class? Arre, but what are you both doing here—that too in this darkness?’
‘Nothing. Just talking. Where are you returning from?’ I tried changing the topic.
‘I had gone visiting the Gharpures. Their daughter-in-law gave me some fresh vegetables. She asked me to take this route. So where are you headed?’
‘Home,’ I blurted.
‘Going home, is it? Beta, then carry this bag home for me. I have to drop in at Khatavkar Aaji’s place on the way. I don’t want to carry this and answer her barrage of questions.’
Oh god! I was now being forced to carry her bag home. I looked at Shirodkar, but her face did not betray any emotion.
‘No, Kaku. I have to go a friend’s house from here. I would be late.’
‘Let it be. You are going home from here, isn’t it?’
I was desperately looking for an escape route.
‘No. I have to visit another friend from here. I will be very late.’
‘Look at today’s children,’ she mumbled to herself. ‘They have time to chat standing in this darkness but not help an old lady like me. Now I have to lug this bag around.’
She walked away towards the Devgiri bungalow. I kept looking at her for a while.
‘Who was she?’ Shirodkar asked.
‘Our neighbour Ponkshe kaku.’
‘What’s wrong with carrying her bag?’
It then dawned on me. I had committed a blunder I should have volunteered to take the bag home. She would complain to Aaisaheb now and would report to her about my standing here and talking to some girl. She would exaggerate and make a mountain out of a molehill. Shirodkar was right. I should have taken the bag. For a moment, I thought of running after her and asking for the bag. But it was too late. She was already far away.
‘It’s fine. She’s quite a nag, actually,’ I said, putting an end to the discussion.
But her arrival had broken our chain of conversation.
‘We should not stand here,’ she said. ‘Shall I go now?’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘If you reach early, won’t your mother get suspicious?’
‘Suspicious?’ she asked, and started laughing. ‘I will tell her my class got over early.’
&nb
sp; ‘What if she asks what took you so long?’
‘So what? I will tell her I was chatting.’
‘With whom?’
‘What do you mean “with whom”? I will say with Juvekar; and then with you.’
I was jealous of her. There was no way I could have told this so casually to Aaisaheb and Ambabai. They would make my life hell.
‘What is the plan tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow? What about tomorrow?’
‘There is no class tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Will you meet me?’
She thought for a moment.
‘But there is no class tomorrow, isn’t it?’ she asked.
I wondered how to tell her, the very fact that there was no class made it easy for us to meet.
‘I won’t be able to come tomorrow,’ she said. ‘And we should not stand here and talk.’
‘Then where?’
‘Will you come home?’
‘Home?’ I felt I was floating in air.
‘Yes. Why not? Come home and we can sit and talk.’
My chest was pounding away. Land up at her home! She had asked me earlier too. And isn’t that what Naru mama used to advise all the time? But listening to his advice was different from actually following it. I could take the chance, but if the school mates come to know of it, I would be dead meat. I was at a loss for words. But I could not refuse.
‘What will you tell your mother?’
‘I will tell her you are my class fellow.’
‘Won’t she object?’
‘What do you mean? My Akka’s friends come home. What is so different?’
My chest continued to pound. The feeling of emptiness in the pit of my stomach grew deeper. The very thought of visiting her home was beautiful. I could not believe my ears.
‘So, will you come?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, finally getting the courage to say so.
‘What time?’
‘Same time as our class?’
‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘I will go now.’
‘Will you wait for me outside?’ I said. I did not want her to leave.
She nodded and smiled again, without saying a word.
‘Wait a little more,’ I said. I had to say much more. I had not yet said what I wanted to. I had frittered away all the time.