‘Rohit is leaving college,’ Sonali announced simply. Yes! Ankur thought, wanting to punch the air. The guy who had stolen Sonali from him was no longer going to plague him. If he could, Ankur would have bungee jumped from the terrace out of sheer happiness!
‘He’s going to be leaving the city,’ Sonali said, in a voice that displayed no emotion. Even better, thought Ankur. Somehow this news was even better than if Ankur were told that Rohit had left the planet. ‘I think we should be going down now,’ said Ankur, even as he watched the orange sun set . That was the nice thing about the terrace. Five floors up, it seemed Ankur and Sonali were far removed from everything.
The setting sun had left a trail of deep pink that merged with the horizon. It seemed that someone had carelessly spilled a delightful hue that painted the canvas of thesky. Ankur could have spent a lifetime admiring the vast sky above. Even if it was with a craned neck. As Ankur and Sonali stood together on the terrace, they felt the evening go past and dusk descend on them.
‘Okay hurry up, I don’t want Naveen calling for me through the common ducts,’ said Sonali as she trotted down the narrow staircase, her slippers noisily slapping each stair. Ankur didn’t particularly want to encounter Sonali’s tiny police man of a brother either and more so, a certain old woman whose expression was sure to turn sour. After all, a guy and girl alone on a terrace at dusk, is never a good sign!
Twenty-Three
Souvik was sure that he wanted to go abroad. Nothing like a foreign degree to complete his training as a lawyer. Besides it would give him the confidence to impress Jaishree’s family. And most importantly, convince his own.
Souvik was immensely attached to his mother. Being the youngest of three children, he had without a doubt, been her pet. Souvik was mama, the maternal uncle to Suchetana and Shantanu, the noisy children of his eldest sister Satrupa. Yet for his mother, Souvik was still her shona raja. The Bengali endearment that meant ‘little prince’ or more specifically ‘golden king’ would embarrass Souvik to death. But then again, he knew that nobody in the Universe would ever call him that, except his mom.
Of late, Souvik had grown even closer to his mother, ever since she had recently been diagnosed with kidney stones. A relatively minor problem initially, it later turned complicated with an infection setting in, and Souvik’s mother had to undergo regular kidney dialysis.
The old lady now had her movements restricted and Souvik would do anything to ease her pain. Not telling her about his love life was one of them. Not that Souvik’s bed-ridden mother would have any serious objections to a docile vegetarian daughter-in-law. But the extended family just might. Bengalis could be very clannish.
There was a very strange thing Souvik had noticed about his community. In fact about any community. As long as he was a single eligible bachelor liable to get a very well paying job, all the collective old aunties he knew or was likely to know, were acutely interested in the events of his life. Particularly those related to finding him a life partner.
These ‘aunties’ had earlier made an appearance in his life during his naming ceremony. And suddenly, they were beginning to materialise again, a quarter of a century later, to lead him into the nearest wedding hall. That was exactly what had happened to his elder brother. Souvik dreaded such a fate for himself. On his brother’s wedding day as he sat savouring a slab of strawberry ice cream after the guests had left, Souvik had made a resolution. He would choose his own life mate. Come what may!
Ice cream always had that effect on him. It cooled his brain. And of late, there was something else about ice cream. And the rain. The mere thought of the two had Souvik’s mind turn into one of the puddles that Jaishree was gaily skipping into that rainy July evening.
Souvik jerked himself back to reality. After all, right at that moment he was on his bike returning home after picking up medicines for his mother. He was on the road, Souvik reminded himself. The road of life. Romance would have to wait.
Ankur hated the phone but loads of phone calls had to be made. Ankur had not yet decided to run for elections yet, but it was a Holi party that he was organising at home. A Holi party never has anything holy about it. Bhang laced pani puri, garish bright colours with alarming amounts of chemicals in them and of course merciless water sprinklers and eggs. And for the more devious, Holi was an occasion to drown in booze.
Ankur was a teetotaller. That was one more reason perhaps why Rohit had never sought his company. But just because Ankur never touched hard liquor didn’t mean that he didn’t enjoy some hard core fun!
The guest list comprised the regular gang, minus Rohit. Ankur was actually grateful that Rohit had admitted himself in a drug rehab. It saved a social obligation. For both parties. Vacation time was genuinely a time to relax. And right now Ankur was feeling lazy to even call up caterers and the tent man. The rich Palekar household believed in celebrating Holi in style. The shrewd Senior Palekar used this occasion to strengthen ties and probably even drive deals with his hiccupping business clients.
Chilled jal jeera stirred with bhang was generally served at the beginning itself so that by the end of the morning there would be a houseful of swaying beings all over the place. The manicured lawns over which a tent was set up would be the scene of the battlefield with water-filled drums placed in discreet corners.
With picchkaris, every hapless soul in sight would get sprayed with coloured water. Ankur really loved Holi. In fact in school essays, Ankur listed Holi as his favourite festival, simply because he could begin with the line, ‘On this day, we get up late in the morning and wear our old clothes.’
‘If you haven’t recognised me, I’m Jaishree!’ grinned a bright green-coloured Pavan, coming towards Souvik.
Souvik returned the grin as he proceeded to smear Pavan’s evading face with dark pink colour.
Jaishree and Sonali stood together in a corner. Jaishree was again in one of her rare moods and was giggling. Except that she went on and on and on. She had apparently had too much jal jeera with bhang in it and responded to any question with a silly giggle.
Souvik liked seeing her that way. The normally graceful Jaishree who usually had her hair in a neat plait, had left her waist length hair loose. The band with which she had tied her hair had broken free, leaving each strand on her head celebrating Holi the way it liked.
Vyas meanwhile, swayed incessantly as if he were listening to trance music. Except that there was no music.
Ankur had hardly finished chasing Pavan with eggs when his attention turned to the vegetarian Sonali. She stood quietly in a corner. Probably even she was stoned. He walked towards her and asked her for a dance.
‘Come we’ll play ring-a-ring-a-roses,’ Ankur suggested.
Jaishree giggled. Sonali smiled. ‘No you play,’ she said smiling indulgently.
‘No we will all play!’ Ankur declared, stamping his foot like a child.
So Jaishree, still giggling, held hands with the self-conscious Souvik as Vyas swayed into the centre of a rather large newly formed circle, clapping his hands like a eunuch. And sure enough, if there was one college memory Ankur would remember years later, it was this wet, colourful Holi.
Twenty-Four
‘Vyjanthi amma Vyjanthi!’ an elderly male voice was calling in a heavy Tamil accent.
‘Appa, I’m just coming!’ said a pleasant female voice whose owner was a mangalsutra wearing, rotund version of Jaishree.
An assembly of guests occupied everything that remotely resembled a chair. Jaishree herself sat nervously next to a guy whose most marked feature were his thick spectacle frames.
‘The sisters are very close…paati and me sometimes feel left out,’ the old gentleman explained in Tamil and everyone smiled approvingly.
Paati, grandmother in Tamil, smiled as she sat in a crowd of similar looking faces. With two flower shaped diamond nose pins decorating either side of her nostrils, paati seemed a very mild person. It was she who had taken the girls under her wing ever since her son had lost
his wife six years ago. Jaishree had been fifteen then. Now at twenty-one she still sorely missed her mother. Especially during times like these.
‘Talk talk, we are “vary” open minded!’ declared an old uncle with such a twang that the word talk rhymed with mark. Indeed. Except that Jaishree and the boy felt more like embarrassed children being forced to play by their parents.
“‘Whaaire” did the boy do his engineering?’ Someone enquired. The question seemed pre-engineered.
‘IIT of course! “Whaaire” else?’ another male relative answered and laughter ensued. Whether it was for the cocky presumption or for the pronunciation, it wasn’t clear. The girl of course was studying ‘La’. But somehow that didn’t seem to be too important.
There was something very staged about the whole affair. It was as if everybody had almost rehearsed their dialogues before making their appearance. That was the most annoying thing about arranged marriages thought Jaishree. Everybody knew the precise reason for which everybody else was here, yet there was a forced casualness.
Worse still was the fact that the marriage, according to thestars, had already been ‘arranged’. The boy meetingthe girl was only incidental. Yet the one thought that niggled the most at Jaishree’s baffled brain and helpless heart was—how will Souvik react? It wasn’t as if Souvik had proposed marriage or had even confessed his feelings for her verbally, yet Jaishree knew. Souvik Bose would be heartbroken. And the very thought almost broke Jaishree’s till now never-been-occupied heart.
Being stunningly beautiful, Jaishree Subramaniam had had more than her fair share of male admirers. Yet with Souvik somehow, it was different. Maybe it was the fact that, not once during a half decade association, did she ever see him lose his temper, a very common thing for law-trainees in the midst of a court argument.
Probably it was the fact that he had patiently waited to ask her out, regardless of the open secret that he had a rather sincere female fan following of his own. And the single-minded dedication he had shown while pursuing law assignments, music, poetry and her made it all the more hard for Jaishree to turn and look at the bespectacled male specimen next to her. Who of course had definite plans of engineering a prison cell called matrimony, exclusively for the soon-to-be Tamil bride.
‘So you want to be a “lawyerr”?’ the boy asked taking a noisy slurp from the hot coffee he had just been offered. ‘No! I hope to be a chef!’ the annoyed Jaishree wanted to retort. That simply had to be one of the most dumb questions to ask a final year law student. Yet Jaishree simply nodded and smiled. She realised that the boy and his thick spectacle frames were trying to make polite conversation.
‘By the way, I’m Srinath.’ The ‘boy’ introduced himself without being asked. Jaishree was almost certain his next sentence would be, ‘By the way, we are supposed to be getting married.’ All Jaishree’s career plans had suddenly gone off track. Now everything in her life was going to be ‘by the way’.
‘You know I don’t like this whole arranged marriage thing,’ Srinath announced, flashing a toothy grin as if sensing her thoughts. Jaishree almost heaved a sigh and was going to open her mouth, when the ‘boy’ added, ‘Actually, we should go around for sometime.’
Jaishree felt an odd knot forming in her throat. Her life was anyway going in circles, without her having to ‘go around’. Besides, thoughts of Souvik assailed her. Should she tell him?
‘I’ve done my engineering, you are doing your law. But our children will find it easier to learn the spelling of law,’ Srinath said, laughing at his own joke. It was indeed all a joke! It was rather presumptuous of the specimen with oiled hair to plan kids and predict their verbal abilities. All because he belonged to the same sub-divisional caste of Tamil Brahmins. Jaishree wondered if she could legally demand that he shut up.
‘You are so quiet…,’ remarked Srinath, looking at her in wonder.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Jaishree said finally, smiling and weakly defending herself. It was true. She really didn’t know what to say. On second thoughts all that she wanted to say had a certain Souvik as its integral theme.
Srinath and Jaishree had moved to sit together in a ‘discreet’ corner of the drawing room with fifteen pairs of ears pretending not to hear their conversation. Srinath was nursing a cup of kapi—coffee, for the uninitiated, in a tiny steel glass, which Jaishree’s paati had prepared for the occasion. For a family that had migrated from Madurai, old habits die hard.
‘Do you plan to continue with your profession?’ Srinath asked in his yet-to-be-perfected-English, taking another noisy slurp. ‘Do I plan to continue with this conversation,’ was the question Jaishree wanted to ask herself. But then again, profession rhymed with confession. Should she tell him, thought Jaishree uneasily as she nervously tweaked the edge of her lemon coloured chiffon dupatta.
That evening at the dinner table, after the guests had left, Jaishree sat quietly eating curd rice. Her father kept raving about the boy’s qualifications. Jaishree remained silent. She hadn’t told the talkative stranger about the recently realised existence of the love of her life. She didn’t have to. He could sense it. Just as Souvik didn’t have to tell Jaishree of his feelings.
Twenty-Five
‘Drugs?’ asked Souvik dazed, as if he himself was on dope. ‘You mean Rohit was on drugs?’ Ankur and Vyas gave a synchronised nod. College had reopened and the trio were final year law students now. It was their first day of the semester and Rohit’s last day in college. It was unusual for anybody to leave during their final year. But immediate therapy had been prescribed for the suddenly violent Rohit Randhwah. He would do his final year through correspondence. Away from college. Away from Sonali. Ankur couldn’t help but feel delighted. Yet Rohit‘s lavish treat at the farmhouse had managed to serve a smallpurpose—of gettinghim closer to the group. The guys suddenly felt that they were losing a friend. At least Souvik did.
‘But he seemed normal to me,’ Souvik repeated as if still in shock.
‘That’s because you are abnormal,’ Vyas said as if reminding Souvik of a fact. ‘Remember that time he asked me that cheap question during “Truth and Dare”?’ said Vyas.
‘Hello!’ corrected Souvik. ‘You act cheap and then call Rohit cheap,’ Souvik’s Libran sense of fairness disliked the idea of anyone being branded. Especially if the person in question was not around to defend himself.
‘Enough guys!’ Ankur butted in as he sensed an argument brewing. ‘We should at least be around to see Rohit off. He’s leaving for Pune for treatment. He has his train in the evening.’ Ankur couldn’t believe that he was the one furnishing details about Rohit. To think his original plans were of breaking his bones.
Yet now with Rohit actually headed for a hospital, Ankur didn’t feel the sense of triumph he thought he‘d experience. Such was life. Vyas’s incessant blabber jerked him back to reality, ‘Caroline and I have patched up, and she’s coming to visit me.’ Oh my God, not again! Ankur thought as he panicked. He could imagine Caroline sitting in his cupboard as they spoke.
‘Caroline has never seen our canteen. I’m inviting her on Saturday,’ Vyas was saying to a rather bored looking Souvik. Souvik was generally bored if he didn’t have his guitar, great conversation and the company of good-looking girls. More specifically Jaishree.
Even the canteen where they were presently sitting didn’t hold any charm if Jaishree wasn’t around. Souvik didn’t just miss Jaishree. He pined for her.
‘Rohit, just a minute,’ Ankur’s voice called out. Rohit turned around, suddenly looking pathetic. With a few days old stubble and sallow cheeks, Rohit seemed a picture of misery.
Ankur was not sure if he ought to do what he was about to do. But one thing was clear. It would make Ankur very proud. Even years later. Rohit looked a little suspicious as Ankur came towards him. They were at the main gates of the institute with Rohit having just collected his transfer certificate from the pokey office of the college.
With big strides, Ankur approach
ed the one guy whom he had always considered a villain. The guy who had stolen Sonali from him and then stolen Sonali’s smile from her. There was definitely something Ankur wanted to give to the big bully.
‘So your train is in the evening?’ asked Ankur when he was closer to Rohit. ‘Yeah,’ Rohit answered a bit challengingly. Even if he wanted, Rohit wasn’t ready for a fight. His coughing frame simply wouldn’t allow it. But Ankur had made up his mind. He wasn’t about to let Rohit leave just like that. ‘This is for you,’ Ankur said holding out his right hand, which held a neatly wrapped gift.
Rohit literally flickered his eyelids like he was about to receive a punch. Or had already received it. The expression on his face bordered almost on shock.
‘This is Hugh Prather’s, Notes to Myself. One of my all time favourite books. You should read it,’ said Ankur, smiling, as he handed over the gift wrapped book to a dazed Rohit.
When a Lawyer Falls in Love Page 9
