Will She Be Mine

by Subir Banerjee

  “I wish I was living in his time, painting by his side.” It was a broad hint to discuss my interest in painting, before moving on to my other interests- in music, writing, medicine and spirituality- and effectively show her how I was a polymath kind of person myself, hopefully with fame to follow me soon as well.

  “You do come up with weird ideas, RK,” was her rejoinder, discouraging further discussion on the topic. “Don’t ever talk of going back into the past.”

  I felt at a loss for words. How had I offended her? It was the last thing I’d imagined to do with my harmless comment. “I only meant that I’ve many of the same interests,” I explained timidly. “So-”

  “Don’t misunderstand me, RK, but I’ve no interest in historical characters or history.”

  “Well, I’ve no interest in history either,” I said hurriedly. “We’re on the same page regarding that. I was just trying to say I’ve many of the same interests.”

  “I’m sure you have.” That was a rather unromantic way of looking at my rich skill-set. “I’ve an exam tomorrow,” she added ominously. “If you’re busy, I can go back home and try to manage things by myself.”

  “No, no, Shalini, I’m not busy at all. I can never be busy for you.”

  She looked at me with innocent eyes as if to ask if I was sure. I wanted to draw her close and kiss her. Who wanted to discuss history or my skills if she agreed to look at me like that every time we were together?

  Her disinterest wasn’t difficult to fathom. Being a practical person, she tended to discard unproductive topics. Perhaps, by my very nature, I was too circumspect, approaching my goal in a roundabout way. Instead of telling her directly about the skills and qualities I possessed, I tried giving hints each time which she refused to take. I needed to develop more direct, effective ways of getting noticed, not just by her, but by others too. All my qualities were of no use if I remained unknown to the world. I was determined to not go by unnoticed like so many others.

  While on the topic, I remembered with pride that once I had got an offer to paint for a foreign embassy in New Delhi. My parents were getting a couple of my oil paintings bound in gorgeous frames at a shop where an embassy official happened to catch a glimpse of my masterpieces. He asked them if I might agree to paint some of the walls at his embassy! I was away at college at the time, but when I later heard about the official's offer from my parents, I felt happy and flattered.

  You’d have guessed by now that I was never interested in studies, despite getting an opportunity to study at a premier engineering college like MSIT. So it might come as a surprise that my disinclination for higher studies stood on an edifice of excellent academic abilities demonstrated throughout my middle and high school years. I mostly obtained first rank in academics at elementary school, and later in senior school too, right through class 12. Not that I was intelligent or full of initiative. Just that- out of habit- I meticulously avoided doing things in a manner that would give others an opportunity to point fingers at me. So I did things assiduously, to the point of being extremely disciplined and conscious lest I got ridiculed. I applied this principle to my studies as well as sports. Somehow, the attitude helped me excel.

  It wasn’t at night alone that I dreamed of Shalini. I dreamed about her during the lectures in daytime too, barely noticing my professors prance about on the podium explaining deep concepts. My sinking grades amply reflected my lack of attention span during the lectures and tutorial sessions.

  I sometimes wondered how I’d live without her, if I ever had to. I remembered the recent past when I was in class 12, ready to pass out of senior school with a heart full of love for her. She was in class 10 at that time, not too young either. I occasionally wondered about the cold shoulder treatment she habitually gave me. Was a tenth grader really all that young to have adult feelings? If I could appreciate the curves in her figure two years back when I was myself a young lad in class 10, why didn't she suspect anything of what went on in my mind and try to reciprocate when she herself reached class 10? I’d heard girls matured faster than boys. I could always help her if she faltered in her expressions, but she never showed any initiative.

  The lack of responsiveness from her side left me with an uncomfortable feeling. I didn't like dwelling on the possibility that she didn't think of me romantically at all. Or worst still, she thought of someone else!

  When I passed out of senior school, she was still struggling to cut through the boring academic quagmire of her 10th class board exams, with a couple more years of school life left. It would turn out to be a long wait. I’d require all my patience, I decided, because after school she’d enroll in a college and waste another three precious years, before I could hope to come close to realizing my dream of matrimony with her.

  I remembered before I got admission into the engineering course at MSIT, my father sometimes encouraged me not to worry if I didn’t get an opportunity in life to study engineering. So long as I was able to give my best to whatever course of study I pursued after high school, I could still gain people's respect. That did it. I gave my own spin to his advice.

  I decided I’d try to win over Shalini's respect and admiration by qualifying for admission to MSIT. Education at an MSIT was attractive to most and was the usual ambition for any girl her age, unless she was interested in studying medicine.

  But she’d once told me she wasn’t interested in the medical profession. Obviously, that left engineering as the only other likely option, since in traditional middle class families in those days- and even now to an extent- it was usual to aspire for higher studies in either medicine or engineering. In that sense, an engineering degree at one of the five MSITs was the crest jewel of all engineering educations.

  With that in mind I took the plunge and prepared for the Ma Saraswati Institute Entrance Exam for admission to the MSITs. I had to win. I’d realize years later that this was my first real fight, against my own lethargy, lack of self confidence and usually low motivation level. But even with such a low key mental makeup, I always had this streak of determination in me- that when I set my mind on something there was no stopping me.

  Thus I sailed through the entrance exams and was selected to study at MSIT, albeit with a poor rank. That didn’t hurt me as much as the subsequent realization that despite so much hard labor on my part, Shalini wasn't really interested in engineering or even impressed by my efforts! MSIT was just another college where some queer people studied and she couldn't have cared less. She was more interested in pursuing commonplace commerce or economics whenever it was her turn to enter college…

  Sighing I snapped back to the present and got up to drink water, looking at my watch by holding it against the light streaming in from the lamp post outside my dark hostel room. It was rather late but I couldn’t get to sleep, tormented by her thoughts. The rest of the hostel seemed dead asleep. It didn’t matter. I’d skip the first couple of lectures in the morning. It wasn’t the first time I’d be doing so. Contented, I went back to my thoughts of her.

  I didn't blame her for not appreciating my selection to a grand college like MSIT. She was still too young, unaware of the worldly ways and academic centers of excellence- which was no cause for worry. Her future was safe, as I hoped to marry her and protect her.

  Doubt assailed me momentarily. Would I ever become her husband? There were few signs in the present to indicate that. Was she really all that young or did she not care about me at all, about what I did in life and how I felt? I quickly brushed aside the dangerous thoughts and tried to catch some sleep, otherwise the next day I’d end up missing all the lectures till lunch.

  I’d pinned too many hopes of my future life with her to consider other alternatives. I’d either live my life with her or die, I decided. There was simply no question of a third choice.

  I often visited her house as a good neighbor during my breaks from college, much to my mother's dislike. In contrast, her mother loved my visits and treated me to delicacie
s whenever I dropped by, sometimes prepared specially for me.

  I suspected she looked forward to my visits somewhat, though over the years her fondness for me soured drastically. Whenever I visited their house before I lost her favor, she’d try to garner all my attention. During my visits to meet them, more often than not Shalini would be busy with something in the kitchen or browsing television channels, while I’d fidget around, trying to deal with her mother or sister, all the while hoping to catch her attention somewhere along.

  Usually I’d sit on a chair, trying to divide my attention between her mother, or sister, or the nonsense on TV, and the attractiveness of Shalini's figure as she sat down with a plate of snacks to watch a program.

  I tried to strike small conversations, but she either ignored me or gave an absentminded nod once in a while, with a soft, heartwarming smile that always stole my heart, as she remained primarily absorbed in her television program. She apparently didn’t have difficulties with her studies anymore, though I offered my services on more occasion than one. I hoped her smile wasn’t the tolerant courtesy one usually reserved for a hired home tutor who’d been paid to drop by.

  Her kid sister, Ragini, was more cooperative in comparison and invariably hijacked the interaction with me from her sister and mother. She’d seize my presence as an opportunity to bounce her singing skills off me. Engaging her in chatter was easier, though that wasn't the purpose of my visits. I suspected she too waited, like her mother, for my visits, for musical reasons of her own.

  Thus, I usually felt trapped between the mother and sister whenever I visited their house, but went all the same. How could I forget I’d spent restless days and weeks in the distant city of Kanpur planning my encounters with Shalini during my vacations? I couldn’t be shaken off so easily. It was important to sow the seeds over time. I realized it’d demand all my patience and determination in the face of her stony silence. Her father was usually more courteous whenever he was home during my visits, though he suspected nothing of my amorous intentions for his elder daughter.

  Talking to the younger sibling, Ragini was a good way to justify my prolonged presence in their house, as she was way younger than me. Being Shalini’s kid sister, in a sense she was like my kid sister too. She wanted to become a singer and I’d cajole her along as she crooned and sometimes also ventured to say I’d compose the music for her albums in the distant future, casting hopeful sidelong glances at her elder sister once in a while. But even if Shalini heard, she didn’t show any interest in my musical abilities.

  Ragini on the other hand would laugh heartily at my suggestions. Both sisters seemed poles apart. It was never clear to me whether the younger sibling laughed at my jokes or my musical skills. I considered my fledgling tunes and the boisterous accompaniment music I arranged on my small synthesizer keyboard, catchy. Whenever she broke out laughing it hurt me.

  I took my music seriously. I might never become an R. D. Burman, but my melodies were sweet in their own way. However, in the end, it didn't matter how the other members of that family behaved, so long as I got an opportunity to be near my Shalini. I was like a faithful dog, oblivious to all opposition to his devotion for his mistress. Kick me away, but I’d come back wagging my tail.

  CHAPTER TWO

  During one of my vacations home she evinced interest in my oil paintings that adorned the walls of our living room. I promptly took the opportunity to have her stand beside one of them and clicked her snapshot with an old camera, saying that I’d paint her portrait. I omitted to add that it would also enable me to carry her photograph in my wallet henceforth, allowing me to look at her whenever I wished.

  I took my tubes of oil pastels and brushes to my hostel room after that lovely vacation, eager to paint her portrait. In our photography club, I developed the negative of the snapshot I had clicked and printed her photos in various sizes. The smallest one I carefully kept inside my wallet, while the biggest one, of an arbitrary size of 14 inches by 10, I used as the subject for my portrait. In this way I set about painting the masterpiece of my life on a canvas I bought from a local store in the college campus.

  When I brought back the finished painting and showed it to her, I daresay she was impressed.

  “It’s really nice, RK,” she said shyly.

  “I spent a lot of time on it,” I enlightened her promptly. “Usually, I complete my paintings faster. But not this one.”

  She blushed and kept staring at the painting for a long time. “You should have become a painter,” she ventured at length.

  After briefly praising my skills and choice of subject, she left. I felt elated! Had I found a way to her heart at last? All women had some vanity hidden away somewhere that desired attention, adulation and gestures of love. One needed to possess the ability to recognize the secret switch, discover where that yearning lay hidden and bring it out in time. The right kindling ignited the fire. The rest was easy. I felt on a high.

  She said I should have become a painter! Coming from a practical girl like her, I took it seriously and regretted chucking the opportunity to paint the walls of the foreign embassy. I should have chucked my engineering course instead. Anyway, by painting her portrait I seemed to have corrected some of my earlier lapses and gaucheness. It seemed like our love was headed in the right direction at last. She appeared quite pleased by my artistic effort.

  I had no idea at that time that the rest of the journey wouldn’t be as easy. She simply refused to give any hint subsequently of how seriously she thought about me. At one point I was even tempted to pluck out my hair one at a time, and guess if 'she loved me', or, ‘loved me not'. Thankfully I never engaged in the futile exercise otherwise I might have gone bald at a pretty young age.

  Since I thought a lot about my love life and grappled with its uncertainties, it was natural to take my daydreams and worries into my lectures as well. Bunking lectures altogether was easiest in case I stayed awake late into the night thinking of her, but if I happened to attend them, walking out of them midway was trickier, though the size of L-7 made it possible to slip out unnoticed, unlike the lectures scheduled in L-1 or L-2 or one of the other smaller L’s.

  In L-7, the dais used by the professors for delivering their lectures faced seats arranged in ascending semi circular rows occupied by students. The seats were divided into sections with walkways in the aisles in between that led up a flight of stairs to the next level that was flanked by massive doors on either side. Beyond this there were further rows of seats ascending up to the projector room at the rear from where our movies were projected in the evenings after college hours. During the lectures, I usually preferred a seat nearer the first row of seats in the middle level, closer to the doors. It was at a fair distance from the professor’s podium and allowed me to walk out in the middle of the lecture unnoticed on most occasions.

  One such day, as I got up absentmindedly in the middle of a lecture and started walking out of L-7, I heard the professor shriek.

  “You there!”

  My blood froze as I turned to face the dais.

  “Yes, you!” he shouted. I swallowed. He was addressing me!

  Standing in the midst of the huge hall with all eyes on me, I felt stripped to my skin.

  “What do you take this place for?” he asked sarcastically. “Are you in a garden, taking a stroll by the moonlight?”

  Snickers passed around till the professor glared at the crowd. Immediate silence followed. He turned back to me.

  “Sorry, sir,” I stammered, my mind fast at work. “Actually I’ve a stomach upset,” I managed to say, passing a hand over my stomach.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you walk out,” he retorted. “Do you consider yourself invisible that you can walk out at will? Stop lying and don’t come into these lectures if you don’t have the patience to sit through.”

  I meekly walked back to my seat and hung my head low. Thankfully, he resumed the lecture without alluding to my lie of a st
omach upset any further. To get caught or not depended on my destiny, I decided.

  I gradually grew to believe in destiny in everything. Love too, among other things, simply happened by the same stroke of destiny. There was a place for everything in life and a time for it.

  My time with Shalini had not yet come. I was prepared to wait, but how long? When would my time come? Would it come at all in this lifetime? How long would I have to wait to know? So many troublesome questions, so much uncertainty- but no answers!

  One thing was certain though. At MSIT most of my homesickness was on her account. I missed her nearness, the glow of sunshine on her wavy brown hair, the hint of smile in her dark, expressive eyes, and her frequent appearance at our door to seek help with her assignments. Given a choice, I’d rather have spent my life solving her mathematics and physics problems than studying engineering to solve society's problems or my family's economic ones.

  I felt quite Shalini-sick over time and gradually reduced my visits to Lucknow to see my grandparents whom I’d visited regularly earlier. Instead I preferred to go home to Delhi whenever I could, literally on each weekend, and sometimes extended my stay on some pretext or other to be close to her. In this way I ended up missing quite a few classes in college, and missed the better grades as well.

  What I found annoying was people’s inquisitiveness about why I went home so frequently and their snide comments. One day as I stepped out of my hostel to go the central library one of my batch mates slapped my back jovially.

  “Where to, RK?”

  “I’m going to the lib to re-issue a book. Coming along?”

  “You go ahead, I’ve to go somewhere else,” he said, adding with a grin, “I thought you were on your way to Delhi.”

  “Why?”

  He laughed. “Don’t you know? Whenever you step out of the hostel, the boys feel you’re on your way to Delhi. It’s become a kind of joke.”