by Pankaj Dubey
He can’t bear to let that thought process continue and hurries out of the class. To her.
‘I have an emergency!’ he yells as he dashes out. The professor taking the class nods as he knows that Aamir is not slapdash about his studies. Kuldeep, however, is not that charitable. He could have cheerfully strangled that Kashmiri if the professor and the law allowed him to. After class, he still might, he thinks.
Aamir runs down, two stairs at a time, races out of the block and across the campus to her hostel block and room. He tries telephoning her on his way but her phone is still switched off. She must’ve forgotten to recharge, he thinks. He knows her by now. And her silly quirks make him love her even more. Love? The word blows him away even as he reaches her door.
Sleep had made Sanam miss her PT. Now wide awake, she decides to bunk her classes too. She’s never done it before but as they say, there’s always a first time. Too many firsts in her life since yesterday! Sanam can count two right away. She needs time to think. To sort stuff out. To plan. No, not plan. Aamir has shown her an easier way—live more and plan less. So, no planning, but she needs to put things in perspective, draw the picture as best as she can. Love may be blind but she can’t be blind to her other goals. Now where did that come from? Sanam’s mind freezes and her heart stops for a moment. Love? The word paralyzes her.
She can’t make it to the door. Someone has been knocking, softly at first, faster and louder later, until it became a loud thudding.
Sanam wobbles on legs that have suddenly become like jelly. Her mind doesn’t seem to be functioning either and her heart . . . the less said of it, the better. On the way she thinks, ‘This Kuldeep is bugging me way too much now! Why must he come knocking again and again?’ She was going to blast this pesky irritant and ensure that he never knocks on another door in his life!
‘What the f***, Kuldeep!’ she shouts as she flings open the door.
‘Kuldeep?’
Scythe-like eyebrows rise in question. ‘Have you been entertaining Kuldeep after me?’ Deep brown eyes bore into her black ones, accusing and amused simultaneously.
‘I will . . .’ She manages to find her tongue after almost a minute, ‘if you trouble me so much.’
‘I was born to trouble you,’ he announces cheerily.
She pulls him in before the whole corridor hears them.
Aamir is back. Sanam takes a deep breath as her heart pirouettes with joy. Her paralysis has vanished as suddenly as it had manifested. He was apprehensive that she might have had second thoughts, so he is particularly relieved at the warmth of the welcome.
And with that one twirl, the graceful spin on one leg, she has blown all his doubts away forever.
Aamir steps forward and gathers her in his arms. It has been too long. Yesterday seems eons away. The two move together, exulting in their closeness in a dance without music, to a rhythm of their own. From one end of the bed to the other, to the window, to the desk in the middle and then to the door and back. Floor space is limited, but not their joy.
Breathless, Sanam flops down on the bed. Aamir follows suit. And they talk for there’s so much to say, and so much to listen to. Aamir tells her how fascinating she had looked on TV. All dolled up and ready. But when the tides changed she turned into a hydra breathing poison on all who questioned her quota seat.
‘So, are you saying that I looked like a monster?’ Sanam asks, mock strangulating him.
‘Sea monster,’ adds Aamir, trying to free himself. ‘The one with nine heads.’
‘So, I got to guard my underworld then,’ says Sanam, ‘and not play victim like you.’
Aamir becomes serious, ‘Why do you feel so?’
She feels upset because he is upset, ‘I was only kidding,’ she says, taking his large, long-fingered hand into her slim, small hand.
‘No, tell me,’ he insists, ‘I need to know what you think of me.’
Sanam opens up then. ‘All that being Kashmiri, etc., always living under a curfew and talk of gunfire. The media built you up into such a hero just for being there. They called you a victim. A victim. Yet you made it.’ Looking straight at Aamir, she adds, ‘And you, you looked like you really lapped it all up.’
Aamir takes a minute before answering. ‘I’m no victim, Sanam. It’s my circumstances. You can’t deny that.’
‘I know,’ Sanam interrupts swiftly, not wanting the discussion to get any more serious than it had gotten.
‘No, listen,’ Aamir stops her. ‘Those are my circumstances, my reality,’ he repeats. ‘I’m not crying about it, but I do want to do something about it. That’s not wrong, is it?’ he looks at her.
Sanam nods in agreement.
‘As for TV debates and the media—they project you as they want to for their story.’
Sanam knows this, and mumbles in understanding, ‘For their TRPs, they paint you a victim if it suits them.’
‘Exactly,’ agrees Aamir. ‘And who am I to deny them their bread? But Sanam,’ Aamir grips her shoulders and turns her to face him fully, ‘if I hadn’t faced what I have faced, I wouldn’t be who I am.’
Sanam gets it then. His brooding self-absorption, it should have told her. How stupid she was! And so mean. He must’ve gone through a lot of difficulties in life and she had held even that against him! She pulls him into a hug, holding him tight, wanting to squeeze away all his pain and all that darkness within him. Aamir’s eyes mist over. She understands, his girl understands; that is all that matters. Tears slide down and he feels light, a big load is off his shoulders. Sanam accepts him as he is!
They go down for lunch to the Mess hall. Sanam wants to spirit her mountain boy away to some place outside where it will just be the two of them at the table, but Aamir talks her out of it.
‘Let’s go slow,’ he says, ‘and keep this to ourselves.’
She’s okay with anything.
With stars in her eyes and a growling tummy that has been deprived of breakfast, Sanam enters the hall first and takes a plate. Aamir enter a few minutes later. Sanam waits with her full plate, choosing to sit at a table close to his. Aamir smiles at his biryani. It’s safer than doing it to her face. Who knows, she might whack him for laughing at her? Sanam was this way. One minute, fire. The next, ice.
Their charade is wasted on Kuldeep. He has seen them enter within minutes of each other and take up vantage seats that offered unrestricted views of each other. Each glance they exchange eats away at a part in him that burns and yearns for her. At the end of the meal, he vows to deny them this new fondness simmering between them. So caught up is he with his thoughts that he accidentally bites his own tongue and yelps.
Sanam instantly fetches him a glass of water. She feels sorry for having been beastly to him earlier.
‘It’s okay,’ Kuldeep forgives her that small insult. He has bigger scores to settle.
Badal, who is nearby and also watching Aamir closely, keeps sniffing Aamir at the table. ‘I want to enjoy your ittar too,’ he says.
Aamir slaps his roommate on his back. He does not know how to take this ribbing. This Badal was getting too sharp-tongued day by day. One thing he knew, Badal was not one to tell tales. So even if he had guessed something, Aamir’s secret was safe with him.
The day ends with Anita taking Aamir out for coffee. He tries to get out of it but cannot fob her off and Sanam steams more than the coffee he shares with the other girl.
Goodnight, texts Aamir to Sanam.
Yes, your night must have been good. Wish her. Not me.
Aamir tries to explain, but Sanam keeps rejecting his explanations until both are too sleepy to text-fight any more.
22
The academy is famous for not giving its trainees sufficient time to breathe and these two want to romance. Aamir and Sanam work hard to wrangle out moments—between classes, assignments and guest lectures for their assignations. Anything is possible in love.
Skip Mess tonight.
Sanam texts and sets up a rendezvous with him
at their favourite place, that clearing in the forest behind the staff quarters where she had found him ruminating one day. She carries a picnic basket with Maggi from the canteen. And there, under the trees, they feast on each other and the cold, sticky Maggi. And then talk.
Sanam tells him about her college. The brawl in the pub. And the PUBG match at the coaching centre where she didn’t get coached.
She’s in the middle of recounting the spectacular debacle of her Tinder date when Aamir reaches over and slides his hand into her jean pocket.
‘What you doing?’ squeals Sanam.
‘I’m looking for something,’ he tells her, his hand fiddling inside it.
‘There’s nothing there.’
‘There should be,’ he insists and keeps at it. Sanam slaps his hand away as he starts chuckling. ‘You were lying,’ he tells her. There’s no Dheeraj sir here.’
She narrows her eyes. What was that?
‘Dheeraj sir was in your pocket, na,’ he elaborates. ‘Or so you claimed.’ Doing his best to keep a straight face, and failing, he adds, ‘Clearly it was a false claim.’
She beats him up then. The creep had listened in when she was talking to her dad that day, long ago, when they had just joined, how she had chummed up with Dheeraj sir, and how helpful he could be.
‘Pocket!’ she pelts him with pine cones. ‘I never meant it literally. I . . . I was only friends with him. Nothing more. Never.’
Aamir has this wicked gleam in his eyes. She never fails to rise to his baiting . . . and her furious disclaimers were hilarious, they had him in splits.
Sanam gets it. He is amusing himself at her expense. She bowls her own googly then, ‘And just where did you put your senorita, in which room should I check?’
‘Senorita?’
Aamir frowns. He doesn’t know Sanam’s nickname for Ramya.
‘The one you cosied up to in the library, in full public view.’
‘Oh! Ramya.’
‘Yes, Ramya,’ Sanam tilts her head.
The mountain boy does not rise to her bait and goes serious instead, ‘That was only poetry.’
‘Only poetry?’ Sanam sounds unconvinced.
‘Sanam, you have to trust me,’ Aamir says. ‘I’ve never had time for all this and never felt this way with anyone,’ he looks at her, ‘until now.’
Sanam puts a finger to his lips softly. She had been just teasing and repaying him in his coin.
But he kisses her finger and continues, ‘I never saw Ramya that way. She could’ve had a moustache for all I cared.’
‘And what if I become fat?’ Sanam asks.
‘I’ll starve you until you get back these curves,’ he teases her. Then adds on a serious vein, ‘No matter what shape you are . . . to me, you’ll always be beautiful.’
Sanam is content. This Ramya thing had been niggling at her for a long time and today it is finally vacuumed away.
It’s time to get back as there’s an assignment to work on before the looming finals. With the time crunch, their romance will have to be put on hold too, except for stolen moments such as these.
The days fly past. It’s a mad dash from one class to another, to the library and then to a guest lecture. The Mess hall becomes a pit-stop to fuel up just enough to keep them going. All talk is of polity and economics and history and law. Especially, law—that being a new subject for most of the OTs. Extra-curricular life has been put on a back burner until all submissions, if not the final examinations, get done.
And bang in the middle of this intellectual slogging, when eyes were bleary and brains saturated, a scandal rips away all the sombreness that the exam monster had whipped up. Posters appear out of nowhere. On the hostel walls. In the Mess hall. And even on trees lining the dhaba that the OTs frequent for late night coffees and restoratives. Aamir figured in all of them. Some even had Sanam.
Rank No. 2,
but Fraud No. 1
Not an Officer Trainee (OT),
but a Girl Trapper (GT)
Training to Administer,
But wanting something far more Sinister
Out to Snag;
Sanam already in his bag
Kashmiri Out to Loot
Using Sanam as his stepping stone to Affluence and Influence
India Day Absconder
Beware!
Kashmiri on the Prowl
Who gave a damn about who was going around with whom? This wasn’t the Stone Age! Such scandal broths only thrived in the chatter of the Mess hall and in the lounge gossip; beyond it, no one cared. But the posters and their toxic taglines turned the Aamir-Sanam affair into something sensational and obscene overnight. The two became the topic of all batch gossip. No one dared to question or say anything to their faces, but they stared and sniggered and whispered, making life uncomfortable for both protagonists.
Aamir worries not for himself, but for Sanam. He knows she is image-conscious and this acrimonious attack will wound her deeply.
He watches her tear down two posters pinned on trees, rip them up and fling them away in disgust without bothering to even look for a bin for their disposal. The environment is clearly not on her mind today. She is flushed, trembling and sweating despite the November chill. From the library window, he sees his girl pull out a notebook from her sling bag, scribble something on it and pin it on the tree that had borne the toxic poster. She is having trouble pinning it.
Aamir dashes down the staircase, jumping over most of the stairs to reach her side in two minutes flat.
‘Don’t.’
Sanam does not heed Aamir as her blood is on the boil. Hence the abuse on her retaliatory poster. Aamir swings her around to face him. The sheet that she is trying to pin flutters away.
F . . . U . . . !
‘Will this solve anything?’ he asks. Tears spill from Sanam’s eyes and he gathers her close, in full view of the campus. She had been avoiding him since yesterday when the posters first appeared. Shy. Confused. Tongue-tied. Furious. Concerned for him. Her feelings had held her back from running to him, terrified of the watchful gaze of everyone in the campus.
He knew and so he waited, giving her the time and space she needed to overcome her emotions. The posters didn’t affect him much as he is used to humiliating taunts and trumped-up defamatory allegations.
Although Sanam is taking it badly, Aamir believes that learning to deal with it will help her grow and become stronger. So, he stays away until he sees her reach breaking point and he cannot bear to see her suffer any more.
The OTs, on their way to and from the library, get an eyeful of the poster couple. Hugging.
The embrace heals and calms Sanam. She silently watches Aamir pick up the pen that she had used to write and pulls her down beside him on the grass. The sheet that she had scribbled on is in Aamir’s hand. He flips it over and writes on it, signs it and asks her to sign it as well. She reads it and complies. He then pins it on the tree.
Our love story is now a legend. Thank you, whoever you are.
The smile is back on her face as they leave.
No one goes into the lounge these days. The pressure of the final exam restricts the OTs to their rooms or, in their free time, the library.
In the Mess hall that night, Aamir and Sanam are inundated with kudos and compliments for the way they tackled the poster beast.
From the Mess hall, the couple proceed to Plaza Café. No, it’s not a date, they’re tackling a chapter together. It’s the same café where he had come with Ramya and she with Dheeraj sir and by some strange twist of fate they, Sanam and Aamir, have ended up together. Life has come full circle since then. She sits in a daze.
‘Come back,’ Aamir commands, seeing the faraway look in her eyes.
‘You’re truly Rank Number One,’ she pronounces solemnly.
‘No, Ma’am. I prefer playing the victim,’ Aamir bows graciously.
‘Well, I can play hard to get,’ she gives back, playfully. And pushes back her chair to walk out of the café
, play-acting like him. He reaches out to her and pulls her back to her seat, enjoying the gameplay. And the mood changes. Things are back on an even keel. They proceed with the chapter they came to study and can be heard bickering about its contents.
The chapter and the night ends with a goodnight and a promise to not text each other until morning—late night texting being hazardous to early morning PT, if not health.
It rains that night and the sky remains overcast the next morning. However, a sodden ground and biting winds that numb both limbs and brain are not reason enough for PT to be cancelled. The trainees plod on like zombies, cursing the PT instructor in multiple languages. But the morning brings something even more torturous than PT. Thankfully, it comes after breakfast. Sanam has fuelled herself up well with porridge and fruit. In addition, Kuldeep had brought her hot toast with her favourite strawberry jam. Neeti, having lost her appetite from the viral infection, can only stomach weak tea. Aamir breakfasts heartily with Badal and others at another table. Anita is there with him, but is no longer all over him. The poster effect, perhaps, Sanam thinks and smiles at the thought.
Food is a necessity, so they are all there but no one lingers. Most, like Rohit, wolf it down and hurry to class to revise the PPTs emailed to them the previous night. The first lecture is on Pub Ad and Dheeraj sir’s substitute takes the class. It’s not easy for the trainees to switch from one teacher to another at the tail end of the course, but then who could’ve anticipated the ill effects of Dheeraj sir’s libido!
Fifteen minutes into the lecture and there’s an interruption.
‘Sanam to report to the Admin Office. Immediately,’ announces an office boy who enters the class with this message.
‘I’ll come during the break,’ says Sanam, unwilling to miss crucial class time.
‘Immediately means . . . ?’ checks the new faculty. The two-word remark is lethal enough to send Sanam scurrying out.