Pinto Has An Idea

by Rajeev Saxena

  Professor Verma had the data from Champ’s family’s factory; he knew how well they were doing—but he gave up on all hope that Champ would improve his integrity.

  TEN

  P

  into’s hometown Orai was just three hours away from Kanpur, so after his semester exams ended, he’d stay at the IIT hostel for a couple of weeks, read some books in the library, and research about his innovative ideas. Another perk of hanging around the hostel was spending time with Lavanya, as she also had a lot of free time. His hostel’s mess would be closed during this time, so he’d eat mostly in the hostel canteen. This year, another hometown friend, Rajesh, also decided to stay on for two weeks.

  In the canteen, people were discussing the rewoken Ayodhya dispute. Ramesh, who had joined them, sounded positively victorious. ‘Hindus have united this time. Something good will come out of this, for sure. How can Muslims take our Ram temple away from us?’

  Rajesh took a moderate view. ‘Yes,’ he conceded, ‘but violence is not a solution. We should wait for the court judgement.’

  Pinto was, as always, philosophical. ‘I think,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘if I had been a Muslim, I’d have given it to the Hindus. But logically, they don’t need to. History keeps changing attitudes and opinions. Who’ll decide whether the reference point is five hundred years ago or thousands? Can we say that Afghanistan is part of India—as it once really was?’

  Rajesh tried again to lighten the atmosphere. ‘How does it matter to us?’ he said dispassionately. ‘We need only to worry about our courses and semesters.’

  But nobody knew that, this time, a horrific event in India’s history would have a serious impact on them all.

  On 6 December 1992, Pinto watched on TV as Hindu activists demolished the Babri mosque, which of course infuriated Muslims across the country. In Kanpur, Hindu and Muslim riots began in full earnest. IIT was situated in a secluded place, pretty far from the city, so there was no danger posed to the students lodged in its precincts. For a few days at IIT, it was business as usual. But like the rest of India, everyone there was shocked by the destruction. Ramesh and Aarif would always have arguments in the canteen. Aarif was furious, ‘I thought this country was secular. All we have is fake secularism.’ Ramesh was a right-wing guy. He’d argue, ‘Yes, I agree we are pseudo-secularist. We believe in appeasement. I’d have really appreciated it if you guys showed your big hearts and gave the place of worship to Hindus.’ Aarif would never agree, ‘Nobody can touch a place of worship belonging to another. You have shattered our trust. Today, you attack the Babri mosque, tomorrow you may want Mathura and…’ Pinto and Rajesh would calm them down.

  The canteen manager, popularly known as Lala, also had a reason to be anxious. There were only six students staying in the hostel. He called all of them together one day and announced, ‘All of my suppliers are in the city, which is riot-ridden. I’ll need to cut down the menu slowly. Eggs, bread, noodles, and vegetables are all vanishing off the market.’

  And the day came when Lala had only flour and vegetable oil left, so he said, ‘I don’t have anything now, so I am closing the canteen.’

  Such a simple thing, food, which was taken for granted, took on such compelling importance. Rajesh said, ‘We’ll eat in other canteens. They are still maintaining a decent menu.’ And then he realized, ‘But we need money for that! With Lala we were keeping an account. Where will we find credit with anyone else? And the banks are all closed.’

  ‘What’ll we do for food now?’ Pinto worried aloud. ‘We have no official reason for staying at the hostel so it is not the responsibility of the institute to feed us. Let’s go to Orai.’

  Rajesh was frustrated, ‘Are you mad? Curfew is imposed in the city. You can’t move.’

  Lavanya’s area was also not impacted directly by the riots but the boys had no way to reach her because of the citywide curfew.

  Rajesh and Pinto decided to talk to the hostel warden who, besides being a professor at the institute, was known to be a nice person. He told them, ‘When the rioting started, I stocked a good amount of flour, salt, oil and a few other things—basically, all the necessities which would keep my family going for a couple of months. I don’t have much cash left, but let me lend you a hundred rupees each. Come to me again when you’ve spent it all. Whatever my family is eating, you will join us at our meals. We are your guardians here.’

  Rajesh and Pinto were deeply touched by the warden’s response. It was really funny that what lay at the core of their discussion with a professor of mathematics was food. ‘We are not rich,’ reflected Pinto, ‘but I never thought finding food would be such a big problem in our lives. It’s such a sad thought that millions of people in our country live with that problem every day of their lives. I should really do something for the poor when I come to my professional life.’

  The money they had been given by the warden was soon spent.

  ‘I cannot go to our warden again for money’, said Pinto. ‘Let’s ask Lala. He’s a local guy and is better off than us. Other canteen managers are feeding him for free but he hasn’t offered us any help.’ Pinto was close to giving up. ‘Or let’s just go home,’ he finished dispiritedly.

  When they went to Lala as a last resort, he said, ‘The situation is hopeless. I’ve been trying every day for a way to find a vehicle to help us escape, but there is no bus, tempo, auto-rickshaw, no public transport at all. Only trains are running, that too on a limited basis.

  Rajesh thought of home. ‘None of our parents have phones so they’re not sure what’s happening in Kanpur. The newspapers are saying everything’s calm around IIT, but our families must be worried about us.’

  Lala suggested, ‘Let’s try and leave the city together. Three people are better than one.’

  Pinto had some doubts. ‘We have never travelled in this kind of situation. Will it be safe? If we are attacked, we’ll have nothing to defend ourselves with.’

  Rajesh took the decision. ‘We don’t have any other choice,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ll walk to Kalyanpur railway station, take a train to Kanpur Central, and then Pinto and I will get ourselves into a train to Orai. Lala will get down at Central and can walk to his house from there.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  ‘Let’s start.’

  All agreed.

  Pinto called Lavanya from his hostel to inform her of his plans. Lavanya was afraid. ‘I suggest you stay here if you can,’ she said. ‘That’d be better. I’d be so worried about you even leaving the gates of your hostel.’

  Pinto argued, ‘There are three of us.’

  Lavanya cried, ‘What’ll you do against a mob? Do you have any weapons? Please, please think again!’

  Pinto replied, ‘Nothing will happen to me. I promise. Just wish me luck.’

  Danger was everywhere, but at a young age, naïveté rules over any mature sense of self-preservation. For a city which had always struggled with travel congestion, crowds, street fights, students’ and factory workers’ protest marches, it was eerie when they saw nobody on the roads. Even the byways were totally deserted, but for one or two policemen.

  Pinto observed, ‘Only seven people at the railway station? It used to be 1,000 passengers, easily.’

  Pinto and his companions became increasingly skeptical of the other travellers; they began to redefine the idea of safety in numbers and discovered how easy it was to get lost in a crowd. Because, right then, all seven passengers were eyeing each other, wondering which one was the terrorist and which one was innocent and which one had a weapon.

  ‘It’s already 10:30,’ said Rajesh. ‘Why hasn’t the train arrived?’

  ‘Have some patience,’ said Pinto. ‘Trains are always late.’

  Their train chugged in shortly after that. Rajesh thought, ‘If a foreigner were here right now, he’d have described Indian Railways as one of the best services in the world.’ There were no jostling crowds at the station, enormous spaces in the compartments to sit in or lie down�
�and, most importantly, not a sound.’

  The forty-minute journey to the Central railway station felt like an age. When they got down at the platform, there were twenty-odd passengers waiting there. On a normal day, a crowd of thousands of people would be racing pell-mell down it. The train to Orai finally arrived. After much banging on the doors, an attendant reluctantly appeared, as if expecting a headlong attack.

  Rajesh and Pinto were the only two passengers who boarded the train to Orai from Kanpur. The good part was that the train started on time. They took care to securely close the door to their compartment.

  There were five passengers in that compartment overall, each suspicious of the other. In the middle of the journey, after travelling almost 40 kilometres in tense silence, their train stopped. Everyone held their breath. One of the passengers announced, ‘The train is surrounded by a mob and they are going to attack us soon.’

  In an extreme situation, logic doesn’t work. Nobody asked for the source of that information.

  The attendant started giving directions. ‘Hide under the seats,’ was the first of his instructions.

  After waiting crouched for fifteen minutes, Pinto came out of his hideout. The attendant was furious. ‘If you want to die, feel free, but let others live. Go back, I say, go back!’

  Now there developed a veneer of trust and caring over the passengers. They were no longer thinking one amongst them would attack the rest. The focus shifted to the ‘mob’ outside.

  When nothing happened for another fifteen minutes, passengers started emerging from under their seats. One of them peeped out of a window cautiously. He didn’t see any mob. He asked the man who had made the earlier announcement where the mob was. The guy said innocently, ‘I heard some noise, and there were some trains on this route which were attacked by a mob a few days back, so I thought we were going to have the same fate.’ Every one burst into relieved laughter at his and their own stupidity. The train resumed its journey after almost two hours.

  Rajesh and Pinto were relieved when the train touched the platform of the Orai railway station. Rajesh said happily, ‘The platform looks much more normal, compared to Kanpur, even though the crowd is thinner than on normal days.’ Pinto added, ‘And there is a large presence of police.’ Their happiness didn’t last long when they learned that a curfew had been imposed in the city. A policemen said, ‘It is done as a precautionary measure as the riots are spreading.’

  Pinto asked, ‘How do we go home?’

  The policeman was helpless, like most of the police in India are. ‘I am from another city,’ he said, ‘and was called during the riots on special duty. All I know is that there are police on all the main roads so I recommend you take the small lanes.’

  Rajesh grew conscious of his family’s status. ‘If a policeman canes us,’ he said like a warning, ‘it’d be a big stain on our reputation. The police are very powerful, especially in times of emergency.’

  Pinto was a risk-taker. ‘We don’t have an option,’ he told Rajesh. Let’s keep walking. Even if we are caned, it won’t be our fault. We are not criminals.’

  On the smaller roads, life appeared much more normal than they’d expected. Pinto asked a passerby, ‘How is everything around the CCS area?’ Pinto lived near the Chitragupt Cricket Stadium, popularly known as CCS. The guy replied, ‘The army has been deployed there.’

  ‘My God!’ Rajesh exclaimed. ‘What happened there? They typically deploy the military only when the police can’t handle the situation.’

  Pinto joined in. ‘Do you know why the army has been deployed?’

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ the man replied.

  They were almost in tears.

  The man asked them in passing, ‘By the way, have you come from Kanpur by the 1:00 p.m. train?’ Pinto nodded. The guy then asked, ‘Was your train attacked by a mob on the way?’

  The boys were surprised by how rumours spread faster than light. They sat on a pavement worried, frustrated and sad, torn this way and that.

  Rajesh asked, ‘What’ll happen now?’ Shall we go back to Kanpur? Nobody is checking tickets so we can go without buying one.’

  Pinto’s question was the basic one, one which none of them had an answer to: ‘What will we eat?’

  A policeman came by on a cycle and asked, ‘What’s going on?’ They were ready for anything. Pinto was frustrated as well as desperate. ‘Sir,’ he pleaded, ‘you can beat us up all you like, but please help us reach home. We are doing our B.Tech. at IIT Kanpur, and are trying to get to our parents.’ Pinto emphasized the ‘IIT’.

  To their surprise, the policeman was extremely polite. ‘Why would I beat you? You’ll become my big bosses one day. I respect IIT students. I’ll drop both of you home. Nobody can stop me in my uniform.’

  Rajesh asked, ‘Why is there a military presence in CCS?’ He wanted reassurance that there was no risk in their going home.

  The policeman laughed, ‘Don’t worry. A regiment was en route to Jhansi so they camped here. We are facing a lot of rumours because of that. They’ll be gone tomorrow.’

  Their parents were amazed to see them. Ram’s anxiety for his son showed when he scolded him a little. ‘Why did you take such a big risk? Do you know rioters targeted some passengers coming out of Kanpur Central station today? They were showing it on TV.’ Pinto grew worried, too. ‘Lala also took the same route today. I pray he is safe.’

  In a couple of days, Pinto asked his mom, ‘Can I go to Rajesh’s house?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘No, I won’t allow that. The situation is still tense everywhere.’

  In fact Pinto wanted to make a call to Lavanya on the pretext of going to Rajesh’s home. He got a chance only after a fortnight.

  Pinto rang Lavanya, rejoicing in telling her, ‘See, I told you nothing would happen!’

  Lavanya was emotional. ‘You remembered to call me now. I couldn’t sleep for nights.’

  ‘My mom didn’t let me go out.’

  ‘You need to tell your mom about me.’

  ‘What do I tell her?’

  ‘I don’t know. You know better.’

  ‘I know nothing.’

  ‘Are you trying to sound innocent, or are you really so?

  ‘By the way, my bill is increasing. I’ll have to disconnect now.’

  ‘Okay, bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  When they returned to IIT Kanpur again the next semester, they got the sad news that Lala had been killed in a riot on his way home from the railway station. It was an emotional moment for Rajesh and Pinto, and also a strange feeling to know they had made such a narrow escape.

  It was their final year at the institute. Some professors threw parties for their favourite students at which liquor was served. That was the indication that they had finally grown up and could handle adult challenges. Starting from the first semester of their final year, campus recruitment began. There was a lot of excitement among students about their future. Some took jobs, others applied for scholarships at foreign universities, and a few prepared for the IAS and for management exams.

  Pinto joined a software company but didn’t like the job and resigned after two months. He decided to go for higher studies. Luckily, he got admitted into one of the top colleges in the United States with a full scholarship. Though he initially planned only for post-graduation, his interest in research motivated him to pursue a Ph.D. in physics. He eventually became a professor of physics at Harvard. It was a big jump from mechanical engineering to physics. He started advanced research on subjects such as how one split electrons, or the predictability of motion pattern of electrons at high temperatures.

  Though there was a lot of pressure on Lavanya from her mother Shalini, as well as her kind in-laws, to re-marry after she completed her engineering studies, Lavanya didn’t budge. ‘I want to become financially independent. I’ll do my Masters and then get a Ph.D.’

  She had been so devastated by her first marriage
that the thought of another arranged marriage made her uncomfortable.

  Pinto had always kept in touch with her but never in a really romantic fashion. Whenever they talked about future plans, she didn’t seem to figure in his.

  She had hoped she and Pinto would someday be together. For no reason she could put a name to, she kept the hope alive.

  ELEVEN

  D

  r Rajat (Pinto) Srivastava was sitting in his lab in Harvard with his assistant Ms Mary Kay, and was as usual, deeply engrossed in detailing yet another experiment. Mary had set up the necessary laboratory equipment as per Pinto’s directions, and then suggested they take a break at Starbucks on Memorial Drive in Cambridge. ‘Dr Srivastava,’ she persuaded him, ‘we have two hours to kill.’ Mary was an efficient and lovely lady, happily married, and as devoted to Pinto at work as she was to her husband at home. They had also become friends.

  ‘Sure,’ Pinto responded to her suggestion, raising his eyes from his work for the first time in hours. ‘Lavanya told me, never say no if a beautiful lady invites you to a chat over coffee.’

  ‘Who is Lavanya?’ Mary was curious. ‘Is she your girlfriend?’ Pinto response was confused. ‘I don’t know. I am so much into this I don’t think I can keep any girl happy.’

  Mary disagreed warmly. ‘You are a brilliant, intelligent and successful person. You are only thirty-four years old, yet you already have forty patents, and another hundred waiting. Anybody would be happy with you. I’d have married you myself, if I knew you earlier,’ she ended jokingly.

  Pinto said slowly, on their walk to the cafe, ‘It depends on how you define a successful person. Sometimes I feel success and work satisfaction are not related at all. The practical usage of my inventions is very limited. Most of them will probably not be used at least for the next 200 years. Sometimes I wonder whether it really makes sense to spend so many sleepless nights on inventions that I will never see implemented in my lifetime.’