The 3 Mistakes of My Life

by Chetan Bhagat

  ‘It is so fucking unfair,’ Ish said, ‘I slaved for years. I gave up my future for this game. Nothing came of it. And you have this kid who is born with this talent he doesn’t even care about.’

  ‘What do you mean nothing came of it? You were the best player in school for years.’

  ‘Yeah, in Belrampur Municipal School, that’s like saying Vidya is the Preity Zinta of our pol. Who cares?’

  ‘What?’ I said and couldn’t control a smile.

  ‘Nothing, our aunt once called her that, and I keep teasing her on it,’ Ish said. His mood lightened up a little. We came close to our shop. The temple dome became visible.

  ‘Why does God do this Govind?’ Ish said.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Give so much talent to some people. And people like me have none.’

  ‘You are talented.’

  ‘Not enough. Not as much as Ali. I love this game, but have no gifts. I pushed myself – woke up at 4 a.m. everyday, training for hours, practice and more practice. I gave up studies, and now that I think of it, even my future. And then comes this marble player who has this freakish gift. I could never see the ball and whack it like Ali. Why Govind?’

  Continuing my job as the parent of my friends, I had to try and answer every silly question of his. ‘I don’t know. God gives talent so that the ordinary person can become extraordinary. Talent is the only way the poor can become rich. Otherwise, in this world the rich would remain rich and the poor would remain poor. This unfair talent actually creates a balance, helps to make the world fair,’ I said. I reflected on my own statement a little.

  ‘So why doesn’t he care? Marbles? Can you believe the boy is more interested in marbles?’

  ‘He hasn’t seen what he can get out of cricket. Right now he is the marble champ in his pol and loves that position. Once he experiences the same success in cricket, he will value his gift. Until now, he was a four ball freak show. You will turn him into a player Ish,’ I said.

  We reached the shop. Omi had reached before us and swept the floor. He missed coming to coaching, but he had promised his Mama to attend the morning rallies at least twice a week. Today was one of those days.

  ‘Good practice?’ Omi asked idly as he ordered tea.

  Ish went inside. I put a finger on my lips to signal Omi to be quiet.

  A ten-year-old came with thirty coins to buy a cricket ball.

  ‘A leather ball is twenty-five bucks. You only have twenty-one,’ I said as I finished the painful task of counting the coins.

  ‘I broke the piggy bank. I don’t have anymore,’ the boy said very seriously.

  ‘Then come later,’ I said as Ish interrupted me.

  ‘Take it,’ Ish said and gave the boy the ball.

  The boy grabbed it and ran away.

  ‘Fuck you Ish,’ I said.

  ‘Fuck you businessman,’ Ish said and continued to sulk about Ali in the corner.

  It took Ish one box of chocolates, two dozen marbles and a new sports cap to woo Ali back. Ali missed us, too. His mother told us he cried for two hours that day and never attended the marble tournament. He hadn’t come for practice the next two days either. Ish’s guilt pangs had turned into an obsession. Ali had an apology ready – probably stage-managed by his mother. He touched Ish’s feet and said sorry for insulting his guru. Ish hugged him and gave the gifts. Ish said he’d cut off his hand rather than hit him again. All too melodramatic if you ask me. The point was Ali came back, this time more serious, and Ish mellowed somewhat. Ali’s cricket improved, and other students suggested we take him to the district trials.

  Ish vetoed the idea. ‘No way, the selection people will destroy him. If they reject him, he is going to be disappointed forever. If they accept him, they will make him play useless matches for several years. He will go for selections, but only the big one – the national team.’

  ‘Really? You confident he will make it,’ Omi said, passing us lassi in steel glasses after practice.

  ‘He will be a player like India never had,’ Ish announced. It sounded a bit mad, but we had seen Ali demolish the best of bowlers, even if for a few balls. Two more years and Ish could well be right.

  ‘Don’t talk about Ali’s gift at all. I don’t trust anyone.’ Ish wiped his lassi moustache.

  ‘Excuses don’t clear exams, Vidya. If you study this, it will help. Nothing else will.’ I opened the chemistry book again.

  ‘I tried,’ she said and pushed back her open hair. She had not bathed. She had a track pant on that I think she had been wearing since she was thirteen and a pink T-shirt that said ‘fairy queen’ or something. How can a grown-up woman wear something that says ‘fairy queen’? How can anyone wear something that says ‘fairy queen’?

  ‘I pray everyday. That should help,’ she said.

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or flip my fuse again at her nonchalance. Maybe if she didn’t look like a cute ragdoll in those clothes, I would have lost my temper again.

  ‘Don’t leave it to God, nothing like reading organic chemistry yourself,’ I said.

  She nodded and moved her chair, as a bottle fell over on the ground.

  ‘Oops,’ she said and bent down.

  ‘What?’ I stood up in reflex. It was a bottle of coconut oil, fortunately closed.

  ‘Nothing, I thought I’ll oil my hair,’ she said and lifted the blue bottle.

  I looked at her face. My gaze lasted a quarter second more than necessary. There is an optimal time for looking at women before it gets counted as a stare. I had crossed that threshold. Selfconsciously she tugged at the T-shirt’s neckline as she sat back up. The tug was totally due to me. I didn’t look there at all, but she thought I did. I felt sick.

  ‘Coconut oil,’ I said, probably the dumbest thing to say but it changed the topic.

  ‘Yes, a bit of organic chemistry for my head. Maybe this will help.’

  I flipped the book’s pages to see how benzene became oxidised.

  ‘When is your birthday?’ she said.

  ‘14 March,’ I replied. ‘Pi Day.’

  ‘What day?’

  ‘Pi Day. You see, Pi approximates to 3.14 so 14 March is the same date. It is Einstein’s birthday, too. Cool, isn’t it?’

  ‘A day for Pi? How can you have a day for something so horrible?’

  ‘Excuse me? It is an important day for maths lovers. We never make it public though. You can say you love literature, you can say you love music but you can’t say you feel the same way for maths.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘People label you a geek.’

  ‘That you are,’ she giggled.

  She pulled the oil bottle cap close.

  ‘Can you help me oil my hair? I can’t reach the back.’

  My tongue slipped like it was coated in that oil as I tried to speak. ‘Vidya, we should study now.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, almost done. Just above the back of my neck, please.’

  She twisted on her chair so her back faced me. She held up the cap of the oil bottle.

  What the hell, I thought. I dipped my index finger in the oil and brought it to her neck.

  ‘Not here,’ she giggled again. ‘It tickles. Higher, yes at the roots.’

  She told me to dip three fingers instead of one and press harder. I followed her instructions in a daze. The best maths tutor in town had become a champi man.

  ‘How’s the new shop coming?’ she said.

  ‘Great, I paid the deposit and three months advance rent,’ I said. ‘Fifty thousand bucks, cash. We will have the best location in the mall.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ she said.

  ‘Two more months,’ I said. ‘Ok, that’s enough. You do it yourself now, I will hold the cap for you.’

  She turned to look at me, dipped her fingers in the oil and applied it to her head.

  ‘I wish I were a boy,’ she said, rubbing oil vigorously.

  ‘Why? Easier to oil hair?’ I said, holding up the cap in my hand even though m
y wrist ached.

  ‘So much easier for you to achieve your passions. I won’t be allowed to open such a shop,’ she said.

  I kept quiet.

  ‘There, hopefully my brain would have woken up now,’ she said, tying back her hair and placing the chemistry book at the centre of the table.

  ‘I don’t want to study this,’ she said.

  ‘Vidya, as your teacher my role is…’

  ‘Yeah, what is your role as my teacher? Teach me how to reach my dreams or how to be a drone?’

  I kept quiet. She placed her left foot on her lap. I noticed the tiny teddy bears all over her pajamas.

  ‘Well, I am not your teacher. I am your tutor, your maths tutor. And as far as I know, there are no dream tutors.’

  ‘Are you not my friend?’

  ‘Well, sort of.’

  ‘Ok, sort-of-friend, what do you think I should do? Crush my passion and surround myself with hydrocarbon molecules forever?’

  I kept quiet.

  ‘Say something. I should lump these lessons even if I have no interest in them whatsoever as that is what all good Indian students do?’

  I kept quiet.

  ‘What?’ she prodded me again.

  ‘The problem is you think I am this geek who solves probability problems for thrills. Well, maybe I do, but that is not all of me. I am a tutor, it is a job. But never fucking accuse me of crushing your passion.’ Too late I realised I had used the F-word. ‘Sorry for the language.’

  ‘Cursing is an act of passion.’

  I smiled and turned away from her.

  ‘So there you go,’ she said, ‘my tutor-friend, I want to make an admission to you. I want to go to Mumbai, but not to cut cadavers. I want to study PR.’

  I banged my fist on the table. ‘Then do it. Don’t give me this wish-I-was–a-boy and I’m-trapped-in-a-cage nonsense. Ok, so you are in a cage, but you have a nice, big, oiled brain that is not peasized like a bird’s. So use it to find the key out.’

  ‘Medical college is one key, but not for me,’ she said.

  ‘In that case, break the cage,’ I said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘What makes the cage? Your parents, right? Do you have to listen to them all the time?’

  ‘Of course not. I’ve been lying to them since I was five.’

  ‘Really? Wow,’ I said and collected myself. ‘Passion versus parents is a tough call. But if you have to choose, passion should win. Humanity wouldn’t have progressed if people listened to their parents all the time.’

  ‘Exactly. Our parents are not innocent either. Weren’t we all conceived in a moment of passion?’ I looked at her innocent-looking face, shocked. This girl is out of control. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to get her out of her cage.

  Nine

  26 January is a happy day for all Indians. Whether or not you feel patriotic, it is a guaranteed holiday in the first month of the year. I remember thinking it would be the last holiday at our temple shop since we were scheduled to move to the new mall on Valentine’s Day. Apart from the deposit, we had spent another sixty thousand to fit out the interiors. I borrowed ten thousand from my mother, purely as a loan. Ish’s dad refused to give any money. Omi, even though I had said no, took the rest in loan from Bittoo Mama.

  The night before Republic Day, I lay in bed with my thoughts. I had invested a hundred and ten thousand rupees. My business had already reached lakhs. Should we do a turf carpet throughout? Now that would be cool for a sports shop. I dreamed of my chain of stores the whole night.

  ‘Stop shaking me mom, I want to sleep,’ I screamed. Can’t the world let a businessman sleep on a rare holiday.

  But mom didn’t shake me. I moved on my own. I opened my eyes. My bed went back and forth too. I looked at the wall clock. It had fallen on the floor. The room furniture, fan and windows vibrated violently.

  I rubbed my eyes, what was this? Nightmares?

  I stood up and went to the window. People on the street ran haphazardly in random directions.

  ‘Govind,’ my mother screamed from the other room, ‘hide under the table. It is an earthquake.’

  ‘What?’ I said and ducked under the side table kept by the window in reflex. I could see the havoc outside. Three TV antennas from the opposite building fell down. A telephone pole broke and collapsed on the ground.

  The tremors lasted for forty-five seconds, the most destructive and longest forty-five seconds of my life. Of course, I did not know it then. A strange silence followed the earthquake.

  ‘Mom,’ I screamed.

  ‘Govind, don’t move,’ she screamed back.

  ‘It is gone,’ I said after ten more minutes had passed, ‘you ok?’

  I came out to the living room. Everything on the wall – calendars, paintings and lampshades, lay on the floor.

  ‘Govind,’ my mother came and hugged me. Yes, I was fine. My mother was fine too.

  ‘Let’s get out,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The building might collapse.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said as my mother dragged me out in my pajamas. The street was full of people.

  ‘Is it a bomb?’ a man spoke to the other in whispers.

  ‘Earthquake. It’s coming on TV. It started in Bhuj,’ a man on the street said.

  ‘Bad?’ the other man said.

  ‘We felt the tremors hundreds of kilometres away, imagine the situation in Bhuj,’ another old man said.

  We stood out for an hour. No, the foundation of our building, or for that matter any in our pol had not come loose. Meanwhile, rumours and gossip spread fast. Some said more earthquakes could come. Some said India had tested a nuclear bomb. A few parts of Ahmedabad reported property damage. Stories rippled through the street.

  I re-entered my house after two hours and switched on the TV. Every channel covered the earthquake. It epicentred in Bhuj, though it affected many parts of Gujarat.

  ‘Reports suggest that while most of Ahmedabad is safe, many new and upcoming buildings have suffered severe damage…,’ the reporter said as tingles went down my spine.

  ‘No, no, no…,’ I mumbled to myself.

  ‘What?’ my mother said as she brought me tea and toast.

  ‘I have to go out.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Navrangpura … now,’ I said and wore my slippers.

  ‘Are you mad?’ she said.

  ‘My shop mom, my shop,’ is all I said as I ran out of the house.

  The whole city was shut. I couldn’t find any autos or buses. I decided to run the seven-kilometre stretch. I had to see if my new store was ok. Yes, I just wanted that to be ok.

  It took me an hour to get there. I saw the devastation enroute. The new city areas like Satellite suffered heavy damage. Almost every building had their windows broken. Those buildings that were under construction had crumbled to rubble. I entered Navrangpura. Signs of plush shops lay on the road. I reasoned that my new, ultra-modern building would have earthquake safety features. I gasped for breath as I ran the last hundred metres. Sweat covered my entire body.

  Did I miss the building? I said as I reached my lane. The mayhem on the street and the broken signs made it hard to identify addresses.

  I retreated, catching my breath.

  ‘Where is the building?’ I said to myself as I kept circling my lane.

  I found it, finally. Only that the six storeys that were intact a day ago had now turned into a concrete heap. I could not concentrate. I felt intense thirst. I looked for water, but I only saw rubble, rubble and more rubble. My stomach hurt. I grabbed it with my left hand and sat on a broken bench to keep my consciousness.

  The police pulled out a labourer, with bruises all over. Cement bags had fallen on him and crushed his legs. The sight of blood made me vomit. No one in the crowd noticed me. One lakh and ten thousand, the number spun in my head.

  Unrelated images of the day my dad left us flashed in my head. Those images had not come for years. The lo
ok on his face as he shut the living room door on the way out. My mother’s silent tears for the next few hours, which continued for the next few years. I don’t know why that past scene came to me. I think the brain has a special box where it keeps crappy memories. It stays shut, but everytime a new entry has to be added, it opens and you can look at what is inside. I felt anger at my dad, totally misplaced as I should have felt anger at the earthquake. Or at myself, for betting so much money. Anger for making the first big mistake of my life.

  My body trembled with violent intensity.

  ‘Don’t worry, God will protect us,’ someone tapped my shoulder.

  ‘Oh really, then who the hell sent it in the first place?’ I said and pushed the stranger away. I didn’t need sympathy, I wanted my shop.

  Two years of scrimping and saving, twenty years of dreams – all wiped away in twenty seconds. The ‘Navrangpura Mall’s’ neon sign, once placed at the top of the six floor building, now licked the ground. Maybe this was God’s way of saying something – that we shouldn’t have these malls. We were destined to remain a small town and we shouldn’t even try to be like the big cities. I don’t know why I thought of God, I was agnostic. But who else do you blame earthquakes on?

  Of course, I could blame the builder of the Navrangpura mall. For the hundred-year-old buildings in the old city pols remained standing. Omi’s two-hundred-year-old temple stood intact. Then why did my fucking mall collapse? What did he make it with? Sand?

  I needed someone to blame. I needed to hit someone, something. I lifted a brick, and threw it at an already smashed window. The remaining glass broke into little bits.

  ‘What are you doing? Haven’t we seen enough destruction?’ said someone next to me.

  I couldn’t make out his face, or anyone’s face. My heart beat at double the normal rate. Surely, we could sue the builder, my heart said. The builder would have run away, my head said. And no one would get their money back.

  ‘Govind, Govind,’ Ish said. He screamed in my ear when I finally noticed him.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here man? It is dangerous to be out, let’s go home’ Ish said.

  I kept looking at the rubble like I had for the last four hours.