by Durjoy Datta
20 July 1999
For the first two periods, I sat alone in class.
Brahmi had changed her seat and sat with Shrikant Gupta, a dour-faced, unimpressive fellow, in another row. Sahil and Rishab were sitting on the seat behind her. Conciliatory smiles were exchanged. I might be in the wrong but that did nothing to blanch the fury that ran through my veins like molten lava. The sadness of my love story ending before it had even started was manifesting itself in anger.
During the lunch break, Rishab and Sahil, who talked to and laughed with Brahmi, were at the basketball court playing football with a Cosco cricket ball. I followed them and volunteered for the opposite team. Brahmi watched from the sidelines, frowning, hurt flowing in abundance from her eyes. The match started and an inhuman strength grew within me, it churned in my stomach and flew through my limbs, and I ran and shoved and bumped and kicked and jumped like a Russian soldier on steroids. Gasps surrounded me as half a dozen players suffered injuries and humiliation, including Rishab and Sahil. None of the boys cowed down to my domination because like Brahmi there were other girls watching the proceedings. The only plausible reason for my behaviour was some ancient genes controlling mating practices among gorillas kicking into action within me—beat your fellow mates to get the girl.
Five minutes from the lunch-break bell, the other team took me out in a well-planned and perfectly executed manoeuvre. A shove and a trip, a sharp nudge and a punch, and I was on the ground, bleeding from my mouth and my head. Two of the boys from my team took me to the medical room, ignoring my protests. I walked past my three ex-friends, head held high, lips pursed, blood dripping from my head.
Later I was told that my team, short by three boys, lost by two goals.
The rebukes from the medical teacher and the spilt blood drained the anger from me. I was mended and bandaged and was free to go. The painkiller made my brain swim, my limbs numb and my tongue loose. Floating in my head and stumbling through reality, I left the medical room.
Outside, Sahil, Rishab and Brahmi were waiting for me. Brahmi dismissed Rishab and Sahil like lowly courtiers.
They nodded at me and left. Brahmi patted the concrete stairs she was sitting on. I went over and sat next to her.
‘That was a stupid stunt,’ she said.
‘It seemed like a fun game to me.’
‘You didn’t have to lie to me. Why did you?’
Lup-dup. My little frog heart beat again. Lup-dup. A little blip on the heart monitor. I wouldn’t have said what I did but I had no control over my tongue. The chemicals from the painkiller gave me an unforeseen courage to accept the consequences of what I was about to say.
‘I didn’t know Sahil well. I had heard frightening things about him and when the two of you started getting close I was terrified. I have grown to be possessive of you even though I have no business to. It was a misstep trying to control what you feel. I felt helpless and angry. There was nothing between Arundhati and me, or for that matter anyone else. You’re the first girl I have grown to like.’ I said without stopping for breath.
‘You should have told me that.’
I stared at my fingers which could have been any number from ten to fourteen, too scared to look up.
‘But don’t worry, I won’t talk to you from now on. I’m sorry for what I did on the field today. I wanted to hurt Sahil and Rishab,’ I said.
‘And you did,’ said Brahmi. I felt her hand hover near my head. She adjusted the bandage. ‘So you like me?’
My voice failed me for a bit. The words came out in a stutter. Is the painkiller wearing off? Her smile only made it worse. I said, ‘I have never had a girl for a friend so . . . also, you’re so much like me. So I think I just . . . I don’t know. I spoilt everything, didn’t I?’
‘You were right about something. You’re just like me.’
‘Am I?’
‘Richa could reach out to me easily because that day wasn’t the first day I was near your house. I have been there before, multiple times, just like you have been to mine.’
‘But . . . but—’
‘It shouldn’t be surprising to you since I know you have done the same. But if you want to know why I was there, I’ll tell you that I wanted to see Mina. It assuaged some of my guilt over losing Adolf. After a few days I realized I was looking at you, not Mina.’
‘Why would you look at me, Brahmi?’
‘Why would you look at me, Raghu?’
LUP-DUP.
‘I have talked to my Mumma too about you.’
LUP-DUP.
‘Did you tell her I scored as much as you did in the boards? Because you should tell her I scored as much as you did.’
‘I might have missed that,’ she said.
‘Why would you not tell her that?’
‘It’s entirely my decision,’ she said.
‘And what is your decision?’
‘Raghu. If we are to decide to like each other more than we like others then there is a minefield of ground rules to follow.’
‘I will never lie again.’
‘That’s the least of our worries, don’t you think? What if tomorrow I wake up to an assembly announcement of your suicide? What will it do to me?’ asked Brahmi.
‘Do you get these dreams too?’ She didn’t answer. I continued, ‘But I will have you know that I haven’t felt suicidal for a very long time. The little voice inside of me has quietened. So much so that I feel almost selfish for having moved on from Sami’s death,’ I said.
‘Raghu.’
‘Let’s decide we won’t do it then? Let’s promise to live. Let’s save each other,’ I said.
‘This is exactly what I am afraid of, Raghu. I can’t promise you that and you can’t promise me that even. You know nothing about me.’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
‘I don’t know how to,’ she said.
‘You parents clearly know, why can’t I?’
‘Because you can’t,’ she said.
‘So us liking each other is off the table? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘It’s not off the table. But I don’t want to be a reason for more sorrow.’
‘How’s that even possible?’
‘Didn’t you think that about your parents?’ she asked. ‘But fine.’
‘Fine, what?’
‘Let’s decide to like each other. I have a question though,’ she said. ‘Are we using the word “like” because love is too scary to use?’
‘I love you.’
I heard my heart stop and jerk back to life as if jolted with a thunderbolt.
‘I love you too.’
‘Can I know all your stories now?’ I said.
‘Was all this a trap to juice me out of my stories?’
I shook my head.
She laughed, and that was the most beautiful thing.
‘I can tell you about this one,’ she said pointing to a jab rather than a slit. ‘By god, how stupid was I two years ago?’
I had to concur after she told me why she had jabbed her wrist with a compass. A couple of boys had drawn a lewd picture of hers, Xeroxed it and stuck it on noticeboards as revenge for her before-time submission of an assignment. I wanted names, addresses and a handgun to hunt the boys down, paint the world red with their blood. Later we decided to say the words, I, love, and you in different combinations and wondered how if only spoken in the correct order these innocuous words turn powerful and all-consuming. We backed it up with physiological evidence when she placed her hand on my chest and felt it thump. We decided we would give each other three short missed calls in the evening just in case we missed hearing it from each other.
We bunked the last period and went to the planetarium. The universe witnessed our first date.
24 July 1999
My somewhat stellar mood of the past four days was reduced to ashes when I found Dada waiting for me outside the school. I followed Dada to the hired taxi. Zubeida was waiting in the car and smiled widely on seeing
me. I could have smiled back at her since now I know the wondrous world of being in love—the missed calls, the stolen glances and the electric awareness of an accidental touch. But I didn’t because Dada’s abandonment and Maa–Baba’s misplaced anger towards me still rankled deep. I noticed Dada’s facial hair growth—an ominous small tuft was growing on his chin and fired my first salvo.
‘You’re growing your beard. What name have you chosen? Aslam?’ I asked him.
‘Raghu, let that be the last time you mock her faith,’ Dada spoke gruffly.
‘Let him,’ said Zubeida. ‘I’m sure he’s going through a lot. It’s okay for him to vent.’
‘By venting, do you mean I can tell him that he has destroyed our family and left me behind to deal with the consequences? If only you had tried harder to convince them, Dada, I wouldn’t be in this shit.’
‘How am I supposed to try when they refuse to talk to me? It’s they who need to accept that the situation is not going to change. That’s the idea behind marriage.’
‘Had you not told me I wouldn’t have known, Dada. Thank you for your limitless wisdom.’
‘Raghu, I didn’t come here to fight. Zubeida and I got something for you and I wanted to give it you. That’s all,’ said Dada.
‘I don’t want anything from you.’
Zubeida Boudi took out a slim rectangular box from a huge polybag and gave it to me.
‘Open it. Zubeida Boudi bought it for you.’
I ripped the box open. It was a brand-new PowerBook.
‘I don’t want it,’ I said, my voice betraying the import of my words. Inside the box was another little box. They were CDs of five games. Race, Arcade, Combat and two more. ‘Why are you giving me this?’
‘There’s something we need to tell you,’ said Zubeida.
‘Zubeida is pregnant,’ said Dada.
‘She’s having a baby?’
‘We are having a baby. That’s what being pregnant means,’ said Dada.
‘I can’t believe it, Dada.’
‘What is so hard to believe?’ asked Dada, smiling.
‘You don’t look happy,’ said Zubeida.
‘But the astrologer—’
‘What astrologer?’
‘Maa–Baba consulted one. He told them your marriage wouldn’t last long and that there would be a problem with your child if you choose to have one. He or she wouldn’t survive the first two years. They asked me to tell you to hold off having the child. They are planning to do a havan at the house to make things all right.’
‘Oh, fuck off!’ snapped Dada. ‘Did they? You can’t be serious? God!’
‘What do you mean make things all right?’ he asked after a pause.
‘Dada, you know. To make the Gangulys whole again? For your marriage problem to go away. They—’
A look of horror passed over his face.
‘They will be praying for my marriage to break?’ fumed Dada. He paced around the car, holding his head. His face flushed red. ‘You go home and tell him, tell Baba that he’s dead to me now. Tell him that he has nothing to do with me any more. You know what . . . You know what . . . tell him that I will convert! I will fucking convert to Islam and then I will see how his ridiculous religion with a thousand gods and contradictory logic and stupid rituals touch me or my wife! TELL HIM THAT, OKAY! ASK HIM TO DO AS MANY PUJAS HE WANTS TO DO. ASK HIM—’
Dada’s voice broke and tears splashed out of his eyes. I rubbed Dada’s back. He coughed and phlegm splattered outside from his nose. He used my handkerchief. The words dried up between us. He leant away from me as if I would infect him with Maa–Baba’s insidious plans against his wife.
‘I’m sorry, Dada. I’m sorry, Boudi.’
Boudi patted my back. ‘It’s not your fault.’ She looked at Dada and said, ‘Don’t worry. My Allah will protect me.’
It seemed funny at the moment. Gods being summoned like Power Rangers.
They left soon after. But on my way home, the PowerBook kept getting heavier for me to carry. It was as if the guilt of betraying Maa–Baba even further seeped into the box and morphed into lead. I called Sahil from a PCO. He couldn’t believe his luck—and neither could I—when I told him I would give him the PowerBook and the CDs for safekeeping. We met outside his house and he asked me if he could use it and was grinning when I told him he could. I told him it’s not his, and he would only keep it if Brahmi refuses.
Maybe Sahil is playing with it as I write this.
I have chosen not to tell Maa–Baba of Boudi’s pregnancy right now. Today I’m going to revel in the imagined future of a little kid calling me Kaku and seeing me as his or her hero. And since we are going that way, he/she’s going to call Brahmi Kaki, and he/she’s going to love spending time with us rather than his/her stupid, stuck-up parents.
In my imagined future, Dada and Boudi are scraping past their expenses while Brahmi and I are the power couple but with a lot of time on our hands to live a fulfilling life.
Today’s not the day to tell Maa–Baba.
25 July 1999
Rishab and Brahmi lost their minds when I told them about Boudi’s pregnancy. Sahil was less enthusiastic.
‘They are potty-producing machines. I see no reason why anyone would go through nine months of pregnancy and three years of potty-training a half-wit when you can easily adopt a trained one,’ said Sahil.
‘Hey! My uncle’s a big doctor,’ butted in Rishab. ‘He handles deliveries of even film stars. If you need any help, just tell me. I will set you up.’
Rishab and Sahil engaged in a no-holds-barred argument about whether kids are a waste of time and resources. Brahmi and I excused ourselves since we were in love now and we could do that. The school has caught on to our relationship as well. Their reaction has mostly been of shock—since we are the only couple in our standard. The shock was tempered only because we are seen as two of a kind. Outcastes and weird, like our rules didn’t apply to them.
‘Are you excited?’ she asked.
‘I think I am.’
‘I am guessing you haven’t told your parents yet!’
‘No, I haven’t. I want to savour the news before they spoil it all. You should have seen how happy Dada and Boudi were.’
‘You’re calling her Boudi now?’
‘These days she seems more a part of my family than Maa–Baba do.’
‘I know it feels terrible when your own family treats you like this,’ she said. ‘My Tauji–Taiji . . .’ Her voice broke and failed her. A rarity.
‘What about them?’ I asked.
She looked at me, as if appraising whether she loved me enough to tell me. I conjured up the sincerest expression I could manage and told her she could trust me; what would be the point of being in love, otherwise?
‘Every time they hit me, I wonder if I too would grow up to be a person like them. Earlier I used to rationalize their violence, think that I deserved it somehow. Now I know I don’t. We are children and we deserve better.’
‘Your Mumma–Papa? Don’t they stop your Tauji-Taiji?’
‘They travel a lot. Being engineers, they keep busy. I’m glad you’re happy though,’ she said.
On our way back home, she asked me, ‘Can you come see me tonight?’
‘Where?’
‘Outside my window. If it’s not—’
‘Wait for me.’
‘I will.’
I waited for Maa–Baba to hit me with their routine taunts, discuss their misery and ruined life, and then slip into deep sleep worrying what the world thinks of them.
I stole from Baba’s wallet, sneaked out, took an auto to Brahmi’s house, and stood under the street light beneath her window. A little while later, the lights of her room went out. A candle flickered behind the frosted-glass window. The window opened with a groan and creak. She poured wax from the lit candle on to the ledge and fixed two more candles and lit them. The flames burnt yellow and blue and she smiled at me under their pale glow.
Sh
e mouthed, her eyes lowered in shame and shyness and things I have never associated with her, ‘Now what?’
On the pavement, I drew in bold letters with the chalk I had taken from school. ‘I see you.’
She let her fingers linger around the flame and smiled. She scribbled in the air—I see you. We spent the next hour writing messages to each other on the pavement and in thin air. Then she rested her chin on the ledge and I sat on the pavement and we stared at each other. The candles were about to blow out when she said—tomorrow. The flames died and it was dark again. The window closed.
I came back home looking forward to tomorrow.
27 July 1999
‘The later you tell them the worse it will be,’ Brahmi had told me, and so I didn’t think it wise to wait any longer. In the light of recent developments, there’s no one else I would trust more with my life decisions than Brahmi.
When I told Maa–Baba about Boudi’s pregnancy, Maa started to beat her chest, cry and laugh in a mad frenzy and Baba cursed Zubeida like the crazed kar sevaks who had brought down the masjid in ’92.
‘You shouldn’t have gone to the astrologer,’ I said. ‘If anything happens then—’
‘GO TO YOU ROOM, YOU RAT!’ shouted Baba.
I stood there, looking at him, in the eye, challenging him to make me budge. Which he responded to. He slapped me on my shoulder and bellowed his instruction again. Tears pooled in my eyes, my lips quivered but I didn’t take my disapproving eyes off him.
‘DIDN’T YOU HEAR ME?’ he shouted. He took my hand and shoved me inside my room, slamming the door on my face. Soon after that the bell rang and I peeped out of the balcony. It was Bhattacharya Uncle and Aunty. Maa–Baba lifted the embargo on the Gangulys’ relationships with the neighbours and let them in. After suitable condolences were offered, hearts were opened, and tea was drunk. Maa cried into Bhattacharya Aunty’s arms. Aunty said, ‘Of course that Muslim woman would do that. Ensnare him and then make sure he doesn’t leave. All the modesty is really a tool for seduction.’
