‘So tell us, why were you digging?’ the guy resumed the conversation and folded his arms across his chest.
In response, Rupali bent down and picked up a small plastic bag to her left. She opened it in front of everyone and pulled out a sapling from within it. She showed it to everyone.
It was a tiny tulsi plant.
‘I was about to plant this,’ she said without fumbling this time.
‘Lo bhai, to ab Patna, Bihar waley, Delhi mein harit-kranti le ke aayenge!’ (So, now the people from Patna, Bihar, will bring the green revolution to Delhi!) one of the two boys on the back seat of the jeep said sarcastically and clapped his hands. His friends joined in.
Suddenly, the bearded guy raised his hand, gesturing at them to stop.
‘Don’t we have enough plants already in the campus and hostel?’ he asked Rupali.
‘No, it’s not like that,’ she said in haste.
‘Then what’s the need for this one?’ the front-seat guy probed.
All this while, a miserable Rupali kept wondering if she could ask them who they were and why they were asking her so many questions. But then something told her not to.
Unable to hold eye contact for too long with the older boys, whom she didn’t even know, Rupali first framed her thoughts and then answered softly, ‘Today is my first day in this campus. It will be the first day for this plant in this campus as well.’ She wondered if her answer was making any sense to them.
However, she continued, ‘. . . For the next few years, as I grow here, I also want to see this plant growing along with me. This plant is the symbol of my dreams. I want to take care of it. One day, I will leave this campus, but this plant will continue to be here. Even when I am gone.’
For a while she didn’t hear any counter-questions to her response. So she raised her eyes to look up at the face of the guy who stood in front of her. He was staring at her with his deep dark eyes. He didn’t say anything. The rest of the boys looked at each other and waited for their leader to interrogate her further. But he didn’t say a single thing. He simply walked back and sat behind the wheel again. Unable to understand his state of mind, the other guy too walked back and sat inside the jeep.
The ignition was turned on. The accelerator pressed. And in no time, the jeep left. Amid the leftover smoke from the exhaust of the jeep, a relieved yet anxious Rupali stood there with the sapling in her hand. Her eyes followed the jeep till it took a turn behind the hostel block.
By then she’d forgotten the song she had been singing.
Three
The semester had finally begun. The festivities were over and a serious academic life had made its way into the lives of the hundreds of students. No one realized how quickly the first week of college got over. After a busy week filled with classes and taking notes, the first weekend offered a much-needed break to the students to adjust to their new lives.
Besides completing their college assignments, the students utilized the weekend to finish pending tasks like buying new prepaid SIM cards, updating phonebooks and so on. Some first year students shuffled their rooms in the hostel based on new friendship circles that had sprung up at the college canteen and in the corridors of the hostels. The newly formed groups of girls also went out to watch a recently released movie. While a majority of the boys stayed back to play a game of cricket within their hostel compound, some went out to explore the option of buying a second hand bike for themselves.
Within a week of the first semester, friendships and acquaintances, from the real world had also got transferred to the online world. Friend requests, in bulk, had been sent and accepted on Facebook. In some interesting cases, the smart girls had made the desperate boys wait for too long, only to reject their friend requests later. Who was single and who was in a relationship, was all clear by the end of the week.
But unlike others, Rupali wasn’t a social-networking buff at all. She didn’t even have a Facebook account. Saloni, her roommate, had found this very odd. She could not imagine a life that was only led in the real world. She insisted that Rupali open an account. But Rupali stuck on in her refusal. And when Saloni failed to persuade Rupali with her reasoning, she made a funny move to convince her. She made Rupali swear on her brother Tanmay’s photograph that adorned Rupali’s study table.
Rupali was truly shocked. Why was it so important to have an FB account? And why was Saloni so dramatic always?
Seeing her roommate’s astonished face, Saloni immediately thought of another argument. Certainly, she wasn’t going to give up so soon.
‘Arey baba, you will be able to connect with Tanmay so easily on Facebook. Don’t you want your family to see your pictures from your hostel life?’
Now that was a master stroke! Why hadn’t she thought of it before! Of course Rupali wanted her family to see her in her new set-up, but she still wasn’t sure.
But that was enough for Saloni. She had her foot in the door. And within an hour, she had finally taken her roommate to the digital world. Rupali had a Facebook profile along with a profile picture freshly clicked on Saloni’s 6-megapixel phone—something that helped Saloni justify the need as well as the price tag of her beloved gadget.
Interestingly, unlike Saloni’s previous claim that she would not stay back in the hostel on weekends, she did stay that whole weekend. Rupali wondered if her roommate would ever think of leaving the hostel and going back to her parents’ place.
It was the middle of the second week. After the classes had gotten over, Rupali as usual was on her way back to her hostel when her eyes fell on the notice board. A florescent A4-size paper with pictures of musical instruments on its margins hung from the top of the board. The pictures on that bright page caught her attention. She stopped in order to take a closer look. As she read, a big smile appeared on her face. It was an invitation. The official music club of the college had invited the first-year batch to join them. It talked about a selection process that had a round of auditions, which were due late that afternoon.
Rupali loved singing. In Patna, she had been an active member of her school’s music club. Having won a couple of prizes and lots of accolades in her school, she had always dreamt of participating in one of the music reality shows. Had it not been for the limited memory of her mobile phone, she wouldn’t have had to delete old songs to accommodate new ones. Downloading songs to her phone and managing the limited memory of her mobile had become her biweekly routine. She had planned that the day she would earn her own money she would buy a good multi-gig song storage device for herself. Not just that, she had plans to buy and instal a Dolby surround sound system in her house, that she would switch on every morning while she got ready for work. Music kept her going. Even when she was alone in her room or busy doing something on her own, she would keep humming her favourite songs. A habit which her friends and family found annoying at times because she completely lost herself in the songs and refused to even hear them. So when she saw the notice for the music club, she didn’t need to think twice about appearing for the auditions. On her way back to her hostel, she kept thinking of the song she would sing.
In the excitement of joining a music club, she could not eat her meal properly. And once she’d decided on the song, she rehearsed it a few times in her room. It was one of her favourite ghazals from an old Hindi movie named Bazaar. Sung by the legendary Lata Mangeshkar, the ghazal had peculiar lyrics—Dikhaai diye yu, ke bekhud kiya— something that made it very special for her. She remembered the lyrics by heart. Her attempt at practising it in her room had partly woken up Saloni, who was in the habit of taking an afternoon nap because she stayed up partying till late in the night.
When Rupali was about to step out of her room, Saloni asked her what was she up to.
On finding out the reason she giggled in her lightheadedness and said, ‘Is that the reason you have been humming for so long?’
‘Yeah,’ Rupali responded, a little embarrassed.
‘Who is going with you for the audition?’ Sa
loni asked turning on her side to make herself more comfortable.
‘I don’t know about the others. I read the invite on the college notice board and made up my mind to go for it. All right, I am leaving now!’ she said and stepped out of the room.
‘Okay, good luck!’ Saloni shouted behind her and went back to sleep.
Rupali reached the audition venue. It was to be held in a classroom on the second floor. As the classes were over for the day, the whole building seemed way quieter than in the mornings. However, there were a few students busy installing the acoustics and instruments.
Rupali looked from one side of the spacious room to the other. The benches in the front rows near the blackboard had been pushed to the sides. A guy who was trying to unwind the tangled wires of a few electric guitars noticed her and asked, ‘Yes?’
‘I am here for the audition,’ she said enthusiastically.
The guy looked at his wristwatch and said, ‘Then you are well before time for that. There are fifteen more minutes to go.’
‘Oh!’ she uttered, a little too loudly.
Suddenly everyone looked up from what they were doing and stared at her.
She smiled nervously, unsure of what to do with herself. She looked at her watch. In her excitement she had not paid attention to the time. She began to wonder if she should wait there or come back later as she didn’t know anyone there.
‘Don’t worry, till the time we start, you can wait here,’ a girl suggested. She seemed to be the only other female in that classroom apart from Rupali.
Rupali felt comfortable with that. ‘Okay, thanks,’ she said with a smile.
The girl walked towards her and asked, ‘So you are from the first year, right?’
‘Yes. My name is Rupali. Back at my school, I used to sing. I am so happy to see a music club here in college. When I read about today’s audition I got very excited. That’s the reason I came early . . .’ Rupali blurted.
The other girl smiled. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Sheetal from the final year and this is our band. Let me introduce our band to you. That’s Swami,’ she said pointing towards a thin guy with a longish beard. ‘He plays the drums as well as the tabla. Raghu and Mirza over there play the electric guitar. And that is Harpreet,’ she said introducing a tall guy with a turban and clear fair skin. ‘He plays the keyboards. Tenzing is a vocalist and our lead singer. He represents our club at the university level. The DU crowd loves him when he sings . . .’
As she continued to take a few more names, the members responded by either waving a hand or by smiling back. Tenzing seemed to have the most playful carefree smile, Rupali noted.
‘We all are from different streams and different years and we look forward to welcoming a few students from your batch into our club too,’ Tenzing shouted while bringing the mike up to his level.
Rupali smiled. She would love to be a part of this group, she thought.
By the time the instruments were fully installed, it was already ten minutes past four. A little over the time they had been asked to report. By then all the music enthusiasts from Rupali’s batch had gathered in the room. Rupali counted that there were some seven of them, apart from her. She was the only girl.
The club had planned to start the audition process with their self-introductions by playing a number. It was a musical introduction-cum-welcome from the club members for the new students keen on joining.
The band tuned their guitars and synced them with the keyboard and the guy on the tabla tuned his instruments at the right scale.
‘Ready?’ Tenzing asked aloud. Everyone nodded.
‘1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . .’ and fingers ran on the strings of the guitar and tapped over the tabla. All of a sudden the classroom came alive with the vibrations and the melody of the instruments. Within seconds the pulsating tune energized everyone present, especially the newcomers who began tapping their hands and feet to the rhythm. It was a piece by a Pakistani Sufi band.
Rupali was delighted and one could see it on her glowing face. She knew the lyrics well and couldn’t wait for the singer to pick up the first line. And when he did, she sang along. The members of the music club, who were not participating, boosted the morale of their friends by cheering in bursts throughout the performance.
After five minutes or so, when the song ended, everyone gave the band a thundering applause. The performance, on the one hand, had set high expectations for those who had gathered to give the audition, and on the other hand, had charged up everyone to give their best.
When the audition began, Rupali was the first to sing. Two of the boys from the first year, who were there to play the instruments, too joined her. One occupied the seat behind the congo and another stood behind the keyboards.
They took a few minutes to discuss how to go about it. The guy on the keyboards wasn’t too sure if he knew the scale and the tune of this ghazal from a much older decade. But he said that he would try to manage. As soon as they were ready, the keyboards guy gave a thumbs up. Rupali nodded and closed her eyes. She was about to start.
Rupali began with a long aalaap, which was her own customized addition to the ghazal. But before she could arrive at her first pause to catch a breath, something happened. She heard a loud noise approaching the room. She opened her eyes in fear. Everyone was looking towards the door. Suddenly, a mob of about a dozen people rushed in and began vandalizing the whole set-up.
‘You will now sing in classrooms . . . haan? What is this—a classroom or your music school . . . haan?’ Someone in the approaching mob shouted.
‘Break their fucking guitars and their bloody mikes,’ someone else yelled.
‘This must be this chinki’s idea to do events in classrooms now,’ someone else passed a racial comment on Tenzing.
Tenzing wanted to react. He was in two minds. As the mob outnumbered their gathering he didn’t have much of a choice. Besides, there were two girls with them. His first priority was to safeguard the students and then his instruments. It wasn’t wise on his part to get into a scuffle.
The suddenness with which all that happened didn’t give him enough time to make up his mind. The next second, there were noises of benches being thrown here and there and of people breaking the instruments.
The first year students who had come for the audition stood up in shock. The guys from the music group jumped to stop a few in the mob. They shouted their names and asked them what they were upto. Sheetal ran towards Rupali to protect her. She pulled her against the wall, next to the blackboard. Tenzing and his team attempted to save their instruments. They kept shouting at a few people in the group, asking them to stop the ruckus. But the mob outnumbered the members of the group. Luckily, no one hit anyone.
Before anyone could make any sense of what was happening, a guitar was broken, the drums were punctured and a raw fear was instilled in the minds of the newcomers.
Four
‘But who were these people?’
Later in the evening that day, at Shafi’s teashop, members of the music club, along with the first-year students, had gathered.
Behind a wide serving area at the counter sat Shafi, the owner, who was known for his jolly nature. It wasn’t just a teashop. For anything, the painted red sections on the otherwise white walls of the shop advertised the branding of Coca-Cola. Stacks of crates with empty cold drink bottles along with two fridges full of sealed bottles stood next to each other just outside the shop. The shop served all sorts of packaged snacks and offered a limited variety of evening snacks like samosas and pakodas. Yet, the shop was called a teashop, for the special masala tea it served. Even students from other colleges which were not in the immediate vicinity of the shop would turn up at Shafi’s to sip a cup of this speciality. Shafi took great pride in telling the world that he used some unique herbs in his tea. When his customers enquired about the same, he would take similar pride in telling them that it was his trade secret. Not that he hadn’t ever revealed it to anyone. Till not so long back he used
to do so. But he stopped telling people the day he learnt that even the makers of Coca-Cola that he sold, did not share their trade secret.
People humoured Shafi’s pride in his concoction for the good-natured guy that he was. They didn’t bother him much as long as they were assured that he wasn’t using any drug in his tea. To add to the aesthetics of Shafi’s teashop was a huge banyan tree rooted only a few feet away from his shop, with its magnificent branches spreading out in various directions over his shop. Shafi had intelligently placed two dozen fibre chairs and a couple of tables under the shade of that banyan, thereby making it a perfect hangout for students.
The meeting that evening at Shafi’s teashop wasn’t planned. It was Tenzing’s idea to bring everyone there. He wanted to use the opportunity to talk to everyone and calm them down.
Apart from being the leading member of the music club at college, Tenzing was also the head of the cultural club at the university. He felt it was his responsibility to clarify the matter.
‘Please listen to me guys,’ he said addressing the group.
Tenzing updated the first year students that a year before, their music club had performed in an event organized by the present party in power in the students’ union. Back then, that party was not in power. The music club was not aware that the leaders of that party wanted to gather the crowd through a music event and later make their appeal for vote to them. The club was never into any election gimmick and had always stayed away from political equations. But the party had managed to keep them in the dark till the very end of the show. They were told that the event was meant to raise a voice in favour of improving student life on campus. It was about implementing new ideas that the students wanted to introduce and to do away with the administration’s outdated policies. In all, it was an event meant to make some noise in the deaf ears of university administration. Tenzing and his team were promised that it wouldn’t be political activity in any way. But once they had performed and the crowd cheered for them and against the DU authorities, the present leading party broke its promise. They announced that the band favoured their party and appealed to the crowd to vote for them. The very next day the music club had officially denied the allegations of supporting their political party, or for that matter supporting any party in DU. But the damage was already done. In the next few weeks, the party played various populist games and came to power after the elections were held.
Your Dreams Are Mine Now Page 3
