Mango Chutney: An Anthology of Tasteful Short Fiction.

by Gabbar Singh

  “You need to abandon your cricket bats, hide your television remotes…” and he went on being excruciatingly specific about how to systematically murder any activity that was fun, all for the Cause, for only the most devoted are rewarded at the end.

  I felt like I was in one of those communist countries that look gray, where everybody seems to work all day for a cause nobody knows about. I wouldn’t have been surprised if, later in the day, we were asked to ad- dress each other as ‘Comrade’ and the faculty as ‘Dear Leader’.

  A lack of motivation to settle in a place like this was inevitable; hence their constant bombardment of us with legends about IIT. “It is no other place but the heights of achievement in our country. Be - lieve me, they would put the summit of Everest at second and winning an Olympic gold at third.” A faculty member started bawling midway through a class of organic chemistry noticing the apparent disinterest in the crowd. “A place with monstrous possibilities and shimmering fan- tasies, a palace where knowledge and excellence inundate the environs, where the sun shined paved pathways with perfectly manicured lawns led to hallowed buildings brimming with the purest ofknowledge. Angels pranced around ready to drown you with sustenance and cutthroat innovation that changed the world.”

  Nobody, though, cared about any of this. What everyone did care about was the treasure chest he happened to mention, which lay at the end of this journey.

  Getting this was no easy ride, for you had to know the speed of a ge - netically programmed, super-intelligent bird that would fly to and fro between two trains which for reasons unknown would run towards each other at speeds in square roots.

  Fed up in my efforts which included a sinister plot to kill the bird, derail the train and finally trying to mortally hurt myself with institute-branded stationery, I pulled myself to Suit’s room hoping to ask for a refund or at least demand for photographic evidence of the pathways lit by the sun and frequented by angels.

  Surprisingly, Suits decided to oblige me and pulled out a copy from his desk. It was a prospectus of IIT Kharagpur. Dusty, frayed buildings with their paint peeling off dotted the landscape, the grass, too, was green, not lush green nor like the greener grass on the other side. I felt cheated, like the suicide-bombers who are promised Jihadi heaven in lieu of bombing a crowded market.

  Suits could probably sense the startling drop in my drive which must have showed on my face and said as I was leaving:

  “Study hard you, you really don’t want to end up in some college named after somebody å la Lakhotia or a Gupta or Anatrao or Keswani, It would stick with you all your life.”

  As I revisited the graying buildings in the photographs in my head, I began to wonder if this was the biggest piece of misinformation being spread by grownups in order to make us study for two more years. We were Pavlov’s dogs that would salivate when shown food but would later have their throats sliced. Maybe this place was purely the stuff of hypothesis, or myth: you can only crave to go there but you can never actually get there.

  In that moment a weird sense of calm dawned over me, I could feel all the pressure evaporating. I had seen through the sham.

  For the next two years the belief would only get stronger as the super human bird now

  progressed to making circular revolutions over trains which now for stranger reasons ran at speeds in logarithms. The coursework and its subsequent problems frequently married the laws of physics with scalding chemistry and bore illegitimate progenies of mathematical conundrum. The only way to survive this ordeal seemed to create more fantasy utilities regarding the degree about how it was the ultimate pinnacle of the success ladder, like a trophy wife, that would also later land you a trophy wife.

  The two years of classes, assignments, tests with demotivational outputs seemed like having to meditate while seated on a frying pan. The fruit- lessness of the whole exercise was only compounded by newer facts emerging about the place, thus furthering the aura around it and con- vincing me that ‘This cannot be for real’. Rumors prevailed, of the sex ratio in IIT’s that bordered on numbers long found in mystical king- doms where an evil king decides to order a genocide against females for reasons as stupid as losing a game of ludo or a girl hanging up his call.

  “We have had our first deserter from the Cause.” I was stopped short in the parking lot hearing a classmate murmur to a group, few months into the course.

  “Mayank Sharma, says he is going to pursue his dream of pursuing architecture.” He further added, to laughter from the group as they bal- anced their cycles, with the overweight bags weighing them down from the shoulders. I failed to understand how following one’s dreams can be a subject of mockery.

  “Even you said you wanted to quit.” I asked a member of the group, joining the conversation. “No way.” His eyes widened. “You don’t real- ize the importance of the degree from IIT. It could make or break the dowry economy of my village.”

  “Dude, get serious,” another one from the group snapped. “While we sit herewonderingwhatuseisof Internettotheworldatourdialupspeeds,by the way, searching it can only induce further pain with slow speeds. IITians getspeedsthatmirrorthatof light.Inthenameof bringingintechnological change all this speed, though, is subtly diverted to watch porn.

  The arguments they raised, though tempting, needed serious relooking for they failed to back them up with any authentic paperwork. On being slightly interrogative about this, I was heckled, termed a non-believer and was insulted as fit to being a ‘Liberal Arts’ student.

  I had the last laugh, though, as days passed and none in my batch of numb-nuts were even close to figuring out anything numerical with the behavior of our super intelligent bird. As trails of zeroes piled endlessly on our weekly result sheets, they started to come accompanied by a mo- tivational quote.Sometimes they would just be instances from The Life and Times of Suits. As in ‘at the tender age of 10 he wrote essays in four languages.’ The practice was discontinued after someone wrote below it ‘Uppercase and Lowercase don’t count as two different languages.’

  Finally a month before the exams, Suits entered our classroom after a year (in the meantime he had only been sending over-the-top power point presentations, I couldn’t remember much of it except they had a lot of birds flying towards the sky).

  “The last two years have been tough on us.” He skipped the niceties and the usual exaggerated monologues over achieving goals and came to the point he had come to make. “We have been pressurized; have endured magnanimous coursework, though nothing goes in vain as the land of opportunity beckons you. United States and its universities is where change is happening, still the Americans need us more than we need them.”

  For a moment I felt vindicated. He didn’t mention the ‘I’ word even once. As if the place had suddenly stopped admitting students. I even wondered whether he would dare to tell us to go out there, follow our dreams, not become a part of the herd. I kept wondering, only for all of it to go downhill as he elaborated.

  “The sooner you start preparing for the GRE, the better your chances are of getting admitted into the best American universities. Software engineering is the hottest field with the swankiest pay packages and best perks.”

  He went on till he finally unveiled the banner of his new GRE coaching venture that promisedthe best scores to get lucrative opportunities at universities abroad. The class looked around spellbound, for them IIT’s had ceased to exist and another venture of madness with another mad race for aspiration was now beckoning to them.

  The final nail in the coffin was when I looked around after two years at the local engineering college, named after someone I am too embar- rassed to enunciate, and I spotted familiar faces. The bespectacled boy in the corner scribbling notes or the one who had made indexed sheets with formulae or the one who would try reactions between inorganic and organic chemistry to gain greater insight into the workings of IIT and so on. The only conclusion I could arrive at was that either none of us made it or I was right all along and IIT never exis
ted in the first place.

  Meanwhile the last I heard of our super-awesome bird was that it was trying to curve a parabolic path between two trains whose low morale made them want to want to match up in complexity by bringing in a factor of pie into their speeds.

  17. End of a Weekend

  Ruchika Goel

  There is one thing worse than a fingerprint on glass: an obstinate finger - print on glass. The kind that takes ages to begin fading before it turns into a smudged ghost of a print. Then after turns and turns under a furious tap and the most dedicated scrubbing, it disappears off the owner’s pre- cious vessel. This was one of the cons of the job. But if Preity wanted to keep it, she had better get down to cleaning this blot, and the next, and then the one after until every man, woman and child in Paschim Vihar was snoring in bed and the kitchens were closed. But that was still hours later. For now, it was just her and her castle of dishes.

  “How I envy you…Not!” Laughing, Meera Employee of the Month marched into the dining hall at rush hour, smiling and chatting up customers, silently opening ‘Section: Desserts’ in front of the children, and collecting tips into the sleek pocket of her waist-apron. Sundays are the best days for business. The boys from college are out to hang and families can drop by for lunch or dinner. Meera loved this shift, not only because it was good for her pocket, but also for the variety of stories she gleaned.

  Just like the man who came in right then; Casual-formal, strolling in with a generous share of time, and all alone. The rose gold frame of his watch smacked light across the room. It caught the eye of an old woman in the very end, eliciting a hard squint. This was a new place for him, and he lingered at the threshold selecting his seat. To his left, there was a spot by a family of five that included a newborn. To his right was another close to where he stood, in a corner with a view of the rest of the hall. He chose peace and quiet and distance. It was just that kind of day.

  He flopped into the seat, bounced a little right back and when finally settled, went through the menu. He already knew what he wanted. All he had to do was find what seemingly exotic name this place gave to a regular coffee and sandwich, and then order that. As final confirmation that he did want his lunch here, he looked up and swept the room. He saw a pretty waitress looking at him. She quickly flashed him a smile, and disappeared around the corner. This place would do.

  “Hey, can you…” Table 3’s query was cut off as the waitress rushed to take the order. “Okay, I would like a plate of…” but the general gather- ing was not to know what plate he wanted, as then the newborn erupted into a wail, shattering the peace of its grandparents in heaven. The cul- prit’s mother followed it into frenzy, juggling the baby, trying to coo him into silence, embarrassed by the commotion and trying to keep the other kids in their seats. Pronto, one of them toppled a glass of water as kids and their wild-horse legs tend to, and the other splashed her foot in the puddle.

  Meera rushed the order to the kitchen. She passed Preity, who held a mop and wore a frown, while the baby screamed with- out inhibition and innocent bystanders suffered in silence.

  All, but a little boy. You see, boys when they are little are smarter than when they are all grown up. They don’t fret through their days worrying about their hateful jobs, the lack of a head-turning girlfriend or their ageing parents and their silver smile expectations. In fact, they don’t fret about most of anything. They exploit the power of noise cancellation, coupled with their lack of cares, and hum to themselves, waiting for their extra-mayonnaise burger, unaware even if a baby wails right behind their head. Life is wonderful! Which begs the question if children are indeed as brainless as they tend to be treated, but then that is not a question we need to answer now. Kartikey strung his guitar to the hoots of his audi- ence, side by side with the greats of Metallica. He went on one knee as the chords became quicker and the music faster. He banged a wild mane from side to side, secured to his head by an orange bandana. Two chains around his neck clanked as he moved. The beats rose, faster and faster to an end worthy only of true metal. Thank you, thank you! He’d learnt from Hetfield that real rockstars work the audience even after the song is over. He walked onto the runway and blew kisses. He clasped random hands stretched up from the moshpit and left more yearning. He joined the rest of the team on the main stage and yelled goodbye... He was the new member of Metallica and the audience loved him!

  “Hey?”

  Kartikey opened his eyes. She was shaking his arm, her face full of ques- tions. Kartikey nodded off, pulled back his arm and switched the track on his iPod. Sigh. The next song was by Coldplay, and to tell the truth, he always wanted to be Coldplay more than Metallica.

  Nini drew back her hand. God alone knows what goes on in his head, she cast a stray thought to her cousin before resigning to the menu in her hand. She studied the menu, then gave it up and went back to the more interesting subject in eyesight: a woman across them, glaring at her baby. She won- dered if this would be her in ten years. Rakshit seemed like a good guy, he didn’t even expect her to cook. He knew what he wanted in life, had achieved most of it, wasn’t fanatic about cricket and shared her choice in music. They both hated travel, and were only too happy to watch a movie to kill a holiday. But she knew she didn’t really know him. She liked him, but she didn’t love him. He wasn’t someone whose iris she would remem- ber. Yet she had agreed to marry him.

  Her parents had never asked her for much. They let her shoot down a seat at Delhi University and learn ballroom at an academy in Mumbai. She had stretched the limits of their beliefs and become non-vegetarian. She wore rebellious low-cuts and off-shoulders and all her mother asked was that she have pepper spray on her at all times. At twenty-six, when her parents asked her if she liked a boy, she began to feel their concern for her marriage. And in two months, she had been set up with Rakshit. Nini didn’t hate arranged marriages for the sole reason that she didn’t know otherwise. All uncles and aunts, as well as her parents were am- bassadors of it, and they seemed to be doing fine. Kartikey’s mother had in fact grown to love his father, even though she called him ‘Ji’ and couldn’t bring herself to say his name. They were all living in wholesome arranged marriages. But it still scared her in her bones. She had no reason to distrust Rakshit, no reason to believe her marriage wouldn’t work. But the future was a myriad of possibilities, and none of them were comforting because they were all conditional. Would she be this woman, in ten years? Living with a man she obviously had no love for, but stay- ing just to raise his children. She had probably thought it will be okaytoo. A sudden thought imploded. Nini didn’t know what Rakshit felt about dance. Hush now, Nini told herself, as a tear slipped onto her cheek. You can’t know what will happen.

  Now what are you looking at , the tears turned to ice as her eyes narrowed on the man sitting across. The man who was staring at her. She cocked an eyebrow, tilted her head and sat up straighter, threatening with all her power: WHAT are you looking at!

  He took his time. Did that man have cheek! He just stared back at her, unmoving, untroubled by her confrontation. Not even a whimper of hesitation as he simply looked on. And then in flutters of effect, as if a barricade of glass had suddenly gone down, he realised what he was doing and pulled himself away. He bowed his head, a mixture of embar- rassment and apology and bit his lip. He checked quickly to see that the girl wasn’t still staring at him. She wasn’t. Lakshay kept his head low for good, happy that he had saved face to continue sitting, sad that reality was a slam in his face, even in this unfamiliar district. He fidgeted with his watch, rose gold, like memories of childhood past.

  Every evening around five, Lakshay and Kedar ran out in the barbarous summer sun stinging their skin and half-shutting their eyes. If they could tell time, they’d know it was actually four and as a consequence of their hyena yells, many a neighbour cursed them in their fleeting sleep.

  Kedar was usually the one who brought the ball. Their precious, frayed, green Cosco, which they’d reject in a few years. It w
ould be too used for them and they would be too wealthy for it. Lakshay and Kedar were still below the bar that divides pocket money age, you see. This was the side that pleaded with their parents for ice cream and once bought, the whole family had a party together.

  The green ball was their little treasure, and Kedar safeguarded it with his life. He kept it in an old show box with other assorted treasures: marbles and broken yoyos, next to his shoes under his cupboard. Lakshay guarded the bat, and on the distasteful occasion that his older brother found it and took it (a bat is harder to hide after all) they would abandon two-player cricket for an invention of their own. This invention was an inexhaustive competition between the friends. They swore by it. It determined the leader of them, the person who got to choose which video game to play, who called the shots on whether they would play with a new kid or not. In a gang of two, the leader was everyone except the loser. That was until the other defeated him.

  Lakshay and Kedar had devised the laws of international politics long before they knew international politics existed: Fight to keep your place or lose to the guy contending. It was democracy, fair and square. The invention was like this: standing at any point behind the yellow line that marked car park space, the boys had to each fling the ball into the sky without quite flinging it into the sky. The ball was supposed to touch the building in front of them at some point along its height. The person who threw the ball highest became king of the universe. Kedar usually won. He was an inch taller, which made all the difference when he bent at his waist to increase momentum. Lakshay had understood this strategy and copied him but biology played to his disadvantage. He rubbed his palms now, flexed his fingers. The ball itself just fit his hand. Sometimes when he swung his arm upwards, he was afraid it might slip mid-throw and fall like a rock on his face. As precaution, Lakshay stepped a bit out of range of his own swing. That didn’t help lift his odds from their cur- rent place at the bottom bench at an air show. But he went for it anyway. Lakshay grinned, as the aroma of hot coffee escaped in the air.