Nine
‘What a nice white shirt! Can I autograph it?’ asked Sonali playfully, one afternoon. It had been more than two and a half months since Ankur had actually spoken to her and Sonali had finally noticed. The speed of her observation powers was truly astounding.
Ankur remained silent. If nothing else, he still had the privilege to sulk.
‘So the lawyer can’t laugh!’ said Sonali giggling and nudging him with a pencil.
‘I don’t think your boyfriend will like it, if he sees you flirting!’ Ankur retorted, the hurt in his voice clearly showing.
It was Sonali’s turn to become silent. Her smile had suddenly vanished. ‘I was not flirting!’ she replied, in a tone both defensive and surprised. ‘And Rohit is not my boyfriend…I mean…not really.’
Really? Ankur wanted to ask. How about telling him a few things that were really ‘really’!
‘So what is he?’ asked Ankur, the thoughts in his head moving faster than his tongue. He was almost tempted to switch over to Marathi. It is always easier abusing someone in one’s mother tongue.
‘God! I didn’t think you would be so jealous!’ snapped Sonali, her voice rising in pitch. It is always a dangerous sign when a girl does that. What follows is usually a flood of tears or a tight, matter-of-fact slap. Ankur wanted neither, so he softened his stance, ‘You have been ignoring me these days…,’ he said, in a tone that made him sound like a whining housewife.
‘Ankur, I…I need to tell you something,’ said Sonali, pushing a strand of her silky hair behind one ear.
‘What?’ asked Ankur, intrigued. He fervently hoped she’d say something he wanted to hear.
‘During the last internship, Rohit and I…,’ but before Sonali could complete her sentence, Ankur butted in with a loud, ‘No! Stop!’ He knew what was coming. The very mention of Rohit Randhwah could make him cheerfully commit murder
‘No listen!’ Sonali asserted. ‘The reason I hang out only with Rohit these days, is because…I’m deeply…obligated to him.’
Obligated?!! Now this was new. Obligated for what? For the shade his huge frame provided when he walked beside her, constantly?
‘For my internship I had to work under this sleazy lawyer… luckily Rohit was around…’
It suddenly became very clear. Ankur almost let out a sigh into the ionosphere. So this was the deal.
‘So you two are not seeing each other?’ enquired Ankur, more out of formality, expecting a vigorous no. Sonali remained silent. Ankur panicked. Rohit had saved Sonali from a sleazeball to become one himself. Perhaps he had decided that he could play the role better.
‘I hope you realise, that Rohit himself is a rather shady character,’ Ankur chided. He would have liked to think of more synonyms to drive his point home effectively.
‘I don’t know Anks, Rohit is a nice guy,’ Sonali replied, thoughtfully. Ankur hated being called ‘Anks’. Each time Sonali did that, she expected him to agree with her.
‘Do what you want…,’ replied Ankur, injured as he walked away.
Ten
Zero, it is said, was invented by an unknown Indian. Souvik had a vague suspicion that Pavan could be the culprit. Souvik and Pavan had been paired off to do their internship together, like all the others. At the end of it, Souvik was thrilled that his talkative classmate could spell the word ‘Law’, without any serious spelling errors. Pavan Nair, was basically a nice guy and could make a good lawyer someday, provided he didn’t go about shuffling crime records and stopped asking the judge not to interrupt while he was busy accusing the defendant.
It had been a hectic summer for Souvik. Except for the two weeks that he took off to attend his elder brother, Aurobindo’s wedding. His brother was made to sit in a mandap with what looked like a white pyramid on his head—a successful conspiracy by old ladies who stood around the mandap. Shortly, these ladies formed a semicircle around the bridal pair and made threatening sounds by wriggling their tongues, which were more like an ominous warning to the groom for a tough life ahead!
Souvik was all the more determined not to marry anyone within his community. Yet looking at his traditional boudi, Souvik knew that his nieces and nephews would be brought up on a steady diet of roshogullas and mishti doi. His own kids, he suspected, would be pure vegetarians eating curd rice every day. Quite possibly on a banana leaf. Souvik hardly met Jaishree Subramaniam these days, but his heart still pined for her.
Ankur and Jaishree literally spent the summer together, and Souvik never quite forgave Ankur for that, even though the two young lawyers were slogging in a musty sub-divisional court. Even a dusty bench shared with Jaishree would have satisfied Souvik’s romantic soul.
Souvik caught up with Jaishree, her long hair braided, as she was walking towards the girls’ hostel one evening. ‘Err... hi there!’ Souvik mumbled, when he was within hearing range. Jaishree smiled her hello. ‘We hardly get to speak in class, so…how’s life?’ asked Souvik, in an effort to make conversation. ‘Fine,’ said Jaishree, with another shy smile.
When one was around Jaishree Subramaniam, it would help to know sign language. Since only monosyllabic answers came forth, one might feel more comforted talking to oneself.
Souvik stood racking his brains thinking of something intelligent to say, before they reached the gate of the girls’ hostel.
‘Jaishree, I was just wondering…,’ said Souvik suddenly. Jaishree turned her serene face to look at him. Each time she did that, Souvik’s Bengali brain found it hard to synchronise his grammar, syntax and pronunciation, and he could not form a single intelligible sentence, without fumbling.
‘Jaishree, I was just wondering…if you would be interested in having coffee with me?’
No sooner had he completed his sentence, did all traces of serenity vanish from Jaishree’s suddenly pink face. Souvik wished he could vanish. ‘I have to go,’ she said, in a soft yet urgent voice. Souvik immediately wanted to go somewhere himself. To the tallest cliff in the vicinity.
As a fourth year student, he had finally mustered enough courage to ‘ask out’ the class beauty, but it seemed more like she had asked him to stay out of her life. As he walked back to his own hostel, Souvik was sure that he had badly upset Jaishree, whose mind at this precise moment, was doing a Bharatanatyam of its own.
Sitting at the canteen, Souvik aimlessly strummed his guitar. It was a boys’ night out. Ankur, Vyas, Pavan and Souvik sat together brooding over their respective love lives.
‘You actually asked her out? You shouldn’t have,’ declared Vyas. He had mastered the art of enlightening humanity about the right course of action, never mind if he had given just the opposite advice to Ankur.
‘Every girl says no, the first time she is asked out…,’ Ankur consoled Souvik, even as he thought of Sonali. Of course, this rule didn’t apply to female lawyers who were Leos.
‘At least she just said no and didn’t do anything,’ remarked Pavan, who was probably used to being physically assaulted each time he asked a girl out.
‘This life sucks, man,’ said Souvik, finally letting out a sigh. He managed to look sad, bored, hurt, angry, all at the same time. ‘Chuck it!’ declared Ankur. ‘Play us a song on that guitar, and let’s cheer you up.’
‘Yup! That’s a good idea!’ chimed in Vyas, his Aquarian spirit perking up at the mention of music. Souvik smiled, but with the same morose expression in his eyes. He fine-tuned his guitar, already strung across his body, his hands restless from the unpleasant narration of the morning’s incident.
Closing his eyes, his fingers found their way to the right strings, as his voice readied itself to come forth in musical waves. Everything I do… by Bryan Adams was the song that Souvik’s soul sang that evening, as a little group discreetly formed around him. The melody in his deep voice bore testimony to the years of training in Rabindra Sangeet, the proud heritage of every Bengali.
A chattering group of girls at the next table stopped to listen even as a few adjusted their chai
rs and drew them closer. The tired cook who stood in the makeshift kitchen frying samosas, looked approvingly at the boys as did the canteen boy who paused as he wiped careless crumbs from the adjacent table.
There were requests after that, which Souvik, like a celebrity singer, complied with, with a dimpled smile.
For those few minutes, the canteen, the noisiest place on campus, stood hushed as the rhythm from the guitar and the soothing melody rose up to fill the evening sky.
Eleven
‘There shall be showers of blessings,’ sang Ankur one morning as Vyas sneezed for the nth time
‘Shut up!’ was his muffled retort as Vyas hastily wiped his bulbous nose. His ever so often rendezvous with Caroline and no proper rest had taken its toll on him. Submitting assignments, attending classes and taking time out for Caroline had taken the life out of Vyas. Having a steady girlfriend could be injurious to one’s health, Vyas was learning.
‘You better stay back and take rest, and who knows Caroline might again climb windows and come visiting,’ Ankur said with a laugh as he looked at his own reflection, combing his hair. Vyas was still in bed with a blocked nose, the result of a blocked head. Without a doubt, there is always an intimate mind and body connection.
Ankur soon found himself in class vigorously taking down notes. The Keshav Nanda Bharathi case, the Minerva Mills case and all other landmark cases that had come to define the legal practice over the years. Rohit Randhwah sat in front of him, scribbling away. The loud mouthed Rohit had promoted himself to the first bench in the fourth year. Suspiciously fishy, given that he sat in the fourth bench in the first year. For the next two years he had moved steadily backwards. Until his sudden appearance right in the front along with Sonali, Rohit had remained a chronic backbencher.
Mrs Sunanda, the lecturer who stood dictating notes also noticed this latest development
‘Rohit,’ she said stopping her dictation, ‘How is that you have migrated to the front?’ she asked. Her tone suggested that she had just seen the giant Olive Ridley Turtle wash up onto the Orissa shoreline.
‘Madam I…,’ the Punjabi drawled. But Mrs Sunanda wasn’t looking for explanations, she simply continued with her dictation. Mrs Sunanda was the kind who didn’t like the sound of anyone’s voice, apart from her own. Ankur didn’t believe that ghosts could exist, but after being dictated to by Mrs Sunanda, he wasn’t so sure. There was nothing remotely ghostly about the figure who wore a starched sari, with not a pleat out of place, yet there was something so strangely cold about the lady, that it would make Ankur gladly take refuge in a graveyard. Probably even climb into one of the coffins.
The self-righteous air with which the sarcastic professor carried herself would not seem so comical, if she didn’t keep contradicting herself mid sentence. Mrs Sunanda vehemently asserted that she hated people who spoke a lot and then would proceed to give a half hour lecture on the very subject. The boys would pause to figure out what could possibly be troubling the middle-aged lady, while the girls in class only hoped they wouldn’t find a motherin-law as cranky as her. Yet Ankur was always his normal polite self when he was around her. He had a vague feeling that when people like Mrs Sunanda died, they would automatically metamorphose into beings that provided inspiration for filmmakers documenting the paranormal.
Twelve
Malayalis had to be very good at spellings. Pannikaveetil, Ottamassery, Varrier, Kuruvilla. These were some of the pronouns that Ankur’s eardrums registered, each time he went for dinner to the Nair household. Ankur was glad that these were names and hence proper nouns. Though of course with names like that, Ankur was scared to thinkof what the not-so-charitable things in Malayalam would sound like.
In the beginning when he heard the language, even a normal conversation sounded like a verbal duel in the Nair household. He would try following an animated conversation, only to realise it was a good eye exercise. His retinas would do their level best to record the swift movements of the Malayali tongue, the speed of which could only be matched by his own blinking.
Pavan and his friends had the advantage of having families in the same city as they studied. But AIU College’s rules being such, it was mandatory for all students to stay on campus. If not for that, Pavan could have jumped from the hostel terrace to reach the compound of his house everyday. His parents lived just outside the college campus which meant that they would invite the boys home for many a weekend dinner.
‘Caroline’s mother is a Malayali!’ Vyas had exclaimed, excited at the prospect of meeting probable and remote maternal relatives of his girlfriend with the Goan surname. Caroline’s great grandfather was a Portuguese. Which explained her accent. An accent, like lunacy, is always genetic, thought Ankur.
But back to the weekend dinners at the Nairs’. A couple of meals of coconut laced dishes later, Vyas decided he was better off meeting his girlfriend on weekends. Even if it was in desolate graveyards.
Ankur, meanwhile, had no such choice, so every other weekend he found himself at the Nair household, assaulted by indulgently aimed verbal missiles.
Pavan lived in one of the few independent houses where overgrown flower pots, a dusty shoe rack and an obsolete car fought for space in the congested compound. They say there is always that one thing to do during graduation without which one’s college life is not complete. For the young batch of lawyers in AIU College, it was a ride in this car.
Pavan’s family car was a quaint blue Ambassador—bought when the young lawyer was still recovering from the diaper rashes. It was more of a family heirloom really, an ‘heir’ that loomed large in the congested compound of the Nair family. Yet for the static bunch of hostellers, any mode of locomotion was welcome. Even if it was this relic from the past whose wheels would act up at the very thought of being driven around…
In fact as a child, Pavan remembered piling into the car along with a family tree of assorted uncles and aunts. However, within minutes of starting their journey, all the male relatives would suddenly find themselves pushing the rear end of the mighty Ambassador. So much for a family outing!
The Nair household also had a huge white Labrador, a cross breed that looked more like a miniature cow. He appeared cross on most occasions, perhaps because he had been named Caesar, by apparently the most literate member of the household. Caesar, now reduced to a more functional ‘Scissors’ by the children of the colony, had a very busy time-table as he heroically contributed to the food chain by gobbling up all traces of meat in his doggy dish. Besides this, he would let out a sharp bark each time the phone or the doorbell rang, or when he battled his boredom with existential questions.
On Pavan’s front door there was a plastic sticker that said, ‘God Bless Our Home’, quite obviously given by a well-meaning Christian family. Perhaps a hint, that any place where Pavan stayed deserved a greater degree of blessing.
And once you got to the other side of the intimidating dark brown door, this feeling was almost confirmed.
It is said, no place in Kerala is located more than 115 kilometres from the sea. That’s why probably everything in Pavan Nair’s house seemed to swim. The brown furniture swam in dust, Pavan’s brain swam in the empty space of his skull and Ankur’s head swam as he tried to keep pace with the swift current of conversation.
Pavan’s mother was a Bihari whose family had migrated to God’s own country, during the time of the continental drift. She could speak Malayalam with a fluency that gave Ankur a newfound respect for all Biharis. Yet he couldn’t say that for the rest of the family. Akash, Pavan’s fifteen-year-old brother was someone Ankur didn’t particularly hit it off with the first time he saw him.
Akash generally wore a pained and bored expression. The spoilt second son of the Nair household was fond of wearing bright coloured bermudas that drew attention to his dark flabby thighs. The grouchy Akash would have already parked his bulky frame at the dining table each time Ankur and Pavan arrived. No one was to disturb the irritable class ten student who would be wor
king out mathematical problems even as his jaws busily tested the crispness of salted tapioca chips.
Then there was Ritu, Pavan’s thirteen-year-old sister, who without a doubt, had a crush on Ankur. She would break into a shy smile flashing the bright metal of her braces each time Ankur came visiting. Ritu would dart from one room to another like an embarrassed mole, the comparison not altogether misplaced as her parents called her ‘mole’. ‘Mole’ is the affectionate term for a girl child in every Malayali home, perhaps also meant to rhyme with ‘doll’.
The TV would always blare noisily in the congested drawing cum dining room and served its purpose of providing at least some fodder for conversation. Especially for Mr Nair. The balding, lungi wearing gentleman, almost always had something to say about any given ‘pro-blum’. Be it a natural calamity, a minister coming to power or the maid not coming at all, Mr Nair always had something to say to the ‘bo-eez’.
Even though Pavan didn’t in the least bit resemble his father, once he opened his mouth, all proof of paternity could be established beyond doubt. Pavan spoke fluent Hindi with a Malayali ‘twang’. Yet with his mouth shut, he could easily pass off for a Bihari. That’s why it was easier to imagine Pavan milking cows than climbing coconut trees. Rohit Randhwah might want to join him for that, thought Ankur with a wry smile as he got off the Ambassador car that had come to drop him back at the hostel after a kind dinner of ‘meen curry rice’.
When a Lawyer Falls in Love Page 4
