We had practised for less than ten minutes when she got a stomach
cramp. She held her stomach and gestured to stop the game.
‘I'm not fully okay after the viral attack,’ she said.
She walked off the court and sank to the ground. She buried her
face in her hands.
‘I need to rest. And I’m a little cold in these.’ She pointed to her
extra-small red shorts.They barely covered her upper thighs.
‘You should have told me. We need not have played today,’ I said.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. She removed her hands from her face and
smiled at me.
It had been a week since my panel recommended taking Riya to
my room again.‘Make Bihar proud, else you don’t matter’ is what they
had repeated to me all week. Today, I had the chance.
‘Hey, you want to rest in my room?’ I said.
‘Sneak in?’
I played it cool.‘Yeah.You rest.Take a nap. I can study, or will even
leave the room if you want me to.’
‘You don’t have to leave your own room.’ She stood up.
She had said I didn’t have to leave. It meant she had agreed to
come to Rudra. Girls never tell you anything straight out anyway.You
have to interpolate and extrapolate their responses to figure out what’s
on their mind.
*
I smuggled her in again. As I shut the door of my room, I knew
my moment of truth had come. Make Bihar proud, make yourself
count, I repeated in my head.
Riya sat on the bed, legs extended straight.
‘Lie down,’ I said.
‘I’m not that sick, just need to rest,’ Riya said and smiled. ‘I see
you’ve cleaned up your room.’
‘Well, it’s still not as fancy as yours.’
‘It’s a room in my father’s house. How I wish I could stay in a
hostel like you.’
‘Hey, would you like to change?’ I said, switching topics. ‘You said
you were cold.’
She had a change of clothes in her rucksack.
‘Where?’ she said. ‘I can’t use the bathroom here.’
‘You could change here.’
‘Ha ha, nice try, mister.’
‘I meant I could leave the room.’
‘Oh, really? Such a gentleman.’
I had learnt to ignore her sarcasm. I shrugged.
‘I’m fine in these,’ she said.
'I'm not,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘Those shorts. They distract me.’
‘These red shorts?’
‘Well, the legs, to be precise. The legs the shorts are unable to
hide.’
Riya laughed. She took a bedsheet and covered herself.
‘Here. Better, mister? Now what? You want to study?’
Damn, I had lost my view.
‘Yeah.You’ll. rest?’
‘Yes,’ Riya said and sniggered.
‘What?’
‘Like that’s going to happen.’
‘Of course it is,’ I said and turned away from her. I sat on the chair,
switched on the table lamp and opened my sociology textbook.
Riya sat on the bed. She seemed amused and somewhat stumped at
me letting her be. A few minutes later, she lay down on the bed. ‘What
are you studying?’ she said, her eyes closed.
‘Social uprisings in the early twentieth century.’
‘How are your grades?’
‘Not bad, but I’m no topper.’
I went back to my book.
‘What do you want to do after graduation?’ she said. Girls cannot
stand being ignored, that too for a textbook.
‘I’ve told you fifty times. Work in Delhi for a few years and then
go back to Dumraon.’
‘Hmm,’ she said, her eyes still closed. She sounded like the nosey
uncles who ask you questions only to dismiss your answers with a
‘hmm’.
‘Let me study, Riya. You also rest.’
I didn’t have a strategy, but I did have an intuition on how to
proceed. Don't act too interested at first; she will just launch into a
lecture.
My curt responses puzzled her. I shut her up whenever she tried
small talk. Finally, she grew quiet.
'I'm tired,’ I said, after half an hour of silence.
'I'm sleeping. Don’t disturb,’ she said. It was her turn to act pricey.
'I also want to sleep.’
‘Stay there. I’m a patient. The patient is resting,’ she said,
suppressing a smile.
I shut my textbook. I went to the side of the bed and sat down.
‘Riya?’ I said, my voice soft.
She didn’t respond, as if asleep. I lifted the quilt covering her. Her
tiny shorts had bunched up even further. I couldn’t help but stare at
her legs. She pulled the quilt hack over her as a reflex. A girl knows
she is being stared at, even in her sleep. I lay down next to her. I took
care to have the least amount of body contact. I shared some of the
quilt and shut my eyes.
We lay still for two minutes. She turned to her side, Her nose
poked into my right shoulder. Her hand touched my elbow. Even with
my eyes closed, I felt her warmth next to me. I turned to face her,
pretending to be asleep. Casually, I placed my left arm on her. She
didn’t protest. My left hand touched her long hair. Her nose was now
buried in my chest and I could feel her gentle breath on me. I slid my
hand down her back and moved her closer towards me.
She continued to sleep, or continued to pretend to sleep.
I placed my leg over hers, my boldest move yet. The smooth bare
skin of her leg touched mine. Electric sparks shot through me. I
resisted the urge to kiss her. I let my hand slide further down her back.
As I reached her lower back, her voice startled me.
‘Mr Jha,’ she said.
‘Yes, Miss Somani.’
‘This is not called sleeping,’
‘You can sleep.’
‘Oh, really? How do you expect me to with you all over me?’
I laughed. I brought her closer and lifted her face. I tried to kiss
her but she turned away.
‘Control yourself, Madhav,’ she said.
She tried to extricate herself. I didn’t let go.
‘Why?’ I said.
‘That is what we agreed to.’
‘But why?’
‘Just. Oh my God, I just felt your... Madhav, let me go.’
‘Riya, come on.’
‘Can you just let me go? You are hurting me.’
I let her go. She slid to the edge of the bed, away from me.
‘I want you.’
‘No.’
‘Please let me.’
‘No.’
‘You have to.’
‘What do you mean I have to?’ she said.
She sat up on the bed. She glared at me, her posture stiff.
However, I was too consumed with my own feelings to cave in at this
point. I had waited and played the patience game for too long. I
expected her to yield to me now.
‘What is your problem?' I said.
‘What is your problem? I’m not a release for your horniness.’
‘I didn’t say you were.’
‘So why can’t you just stick to what we discussed? Nothing
physical. Just close friends.’
‘That doesn’t work.’
‘Fine, maybe we can’t even be friends.’
I couldn’t answer her. I had run out of strategies and clever
responses. She stepped off the bed, straightened her clothes and
picked up her rucksack to leave.
Anger mixed with desire. I grabbed her hand.
‘You can’t just play with me. I’m not your toy.’
‘Toy?’
‘You are using me. Until another guy comes along.’
‘Whatever.You are trying to use me. Ruining a perfect friendship.
Bye.’
I pulled her close to me. She sat on the bed again, right next to me.
‘It isn’t a perfect friendship. I am not fully satisfied.’
She didn’t like my answer.
I bent forward to kiss her. She moved her face again.
‘Only once.’
‘No.’
‘Please.’
‘I said no,’ she said, her voice firm.
‘I’m at my limit, Riya.’ I grabbed her shoulders.
‘Madhav, I haven’t seen this side of you. You are using physical
force on me.’
‘I want to say something.’
‘What?’
‘Deti hai to de, varna kat le.’
‘What?’
I had said it in coarse Bhojpuri-accented Hindi. I had said: ‘make
love to me, or leave’. Actually, that sounds respectable. If I had to
make an honest translation, I would say: ‘fuck me, or fuck off’. Hell,
even that sounds way better than how I said it.
I don’t know what came over me that day. Maybe I just couldn’t
wait anymore. Perhaps I felt insecure and scared. Most likely I am a
crass Bihari from Dumraon whose true animal nature had come out. I
realized I had spoken filth. I tried to take it back.
‘What the hell did you just say?’
‘Nothing. Listen, I just.
I released my grip. Before I could collect my thoughts, Riya
Somani had collected her belongings and left.
*
She refused to take my calls. She didn’t reply to any of my twentyseven
messages. I waited for her at the college entrance every
morning.
She stepped out of her BMW, ignored me and waiked quickly into
her classroom.
During breaks she surrounded herself with her girlfriends.When I
approached her in the cafeteria, she took out her phone and pretended
to be on a call ‘That was a bit much,’ Shailesh said. I had told my
friends about the debacle in my room.They had listened with much
interest, hoping for a story with titillating action. Instead, they heard of
a total fiasco, When I repeated the ‘deti hai...’ line I had said to Riya,
even my thick-skinned friends cringed. We spoke filth sometimes but
nobody would ever talk like that to a girl. I, the idiot, had spoken like
that to the woman I loved, worshipped, adored and respected more
than anyone else on earth.
‘Fix this disaster, rather than focusing on intimacy right now,’ Ashu
had said, his tone irritated.
Weil, I had tried to fix it. Riya just wouldn’t meet me. Helpless, I
had no option but to stalk her. I had to talk to her alone. I swore to
myself not to say a word of Hindi, lest it come out crudely again.
I did find her alone, finally. She sat in the library, immersed in her
textbook, poring over the history of European literature. She wore a
red-and-white salwar-kameez with black earrings, ‘Riya,’ I whispered.
She stood up to change her seat.
‘Two minutes, I beg you,’ i said.
She ignored me. She moved to another table full of students. I
couldn’t talk to her thete.
‘I’m waiting outside,’ I said.Ten students looked up at me, startled.
Riya continued to read the same page.
I waited outside the library for two and a half hours When she
came out, she saw me and walked in the other direction.
‘Two minutes,’ I said as I ran up to her.
‘I don’t want to talk to you, at all. Understand?’
‘I’ll keep following you. Might as well talk.'
She glared at me and stood still, her hands balling into fists.
‘Your time has started,’ she said.
‘Listen, I am really, really sorry,’
She crossed her arms, textbook still in hand.
‘Don’t waste your time. Sorry is not going to work.’
‘I didn’t mean it,’
‘Why did you say it? Do you knew how it made me feel?’ She
stared into my eyes. I looked away. Tin a reserved person, Madhav, I
have issues opening up to people. I trusted you. And you...’ She bit
her lower lip.
‘I just...’
‘Just what? The stuff you said. I may not speak much Hindi, but I
do understand it, Madhav,’ she said and turned her face sideways.Then
she said as if to herself, ‘My friends had warned me about you.’
‘I just love you, Riya.’
‘Yeah, right. Indeed a classy way to show love.’
‘I said it in anger.’
‘Let me be clear. I have never, ever been spoken to in such a cheap
manner in my life. I let you into my world. We had something
together.’
‘We do.’
‘No, we don’t. If you could speak to me like that, I wonder how
you think of me in your mind.’
‘I wanted to be close to you. Never let you go.’
‘You said “deti hai to de, varna kat le”. Does that sound like being
close?’
‘It’s my useless friends, they provoked me. They said, sleep with
her or else she’ll never be yours.’
‘You discussed this with your friends first?’
‘Not everything but...'
‘But stuff like “let me go fuck her today”.’
Before I could respond she raised a hand to silence me.‘I’m going
to say something now. Listen carefully. Okay?’ she said, her voice
shaky as she tried to maintain her composure.
‘Sure.’
‘One, don’t ever try to talk to me. Two, we are not friends
anymore. I have promised my triends and myself I will choose my
friends carefully. Three, stop hounding me, it’s disturbing. I don’t
want to tell my parents or the college authorities.’
‘Riya...’
'Please go now,' she said and folded her hands, as if pleading with
me.
I took one last look at her-her beautiful but angry and sad face, the
long hair I had stroked, the lips I had kissed once - and turned around.
I heard the sound of her footsteps get fainter as she walked away.
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