Six months later
After my break-up, or half-break-up, with Riya, my personality
changed. People in college started to call me SSS, or the Silent Saint of
Stephen’s. I attended every class and sat in the front row. I took notes
like a court stenographer. I never asked the professor any questions. I
would sit with my friends in the residences but not contribute to the
conversation. Initially, they tried to cheer me up. They gave me copies
of Playboy and arranged booze parties to help me get over Riya.
However, just like their earlier advice, their break-up cures were
useless too. The only thing that helped somewhat was basketball.
Every time I thought of her, I hit the court. Three hours of dribbling
and shooting temporarily cured my heartache, if only because it left me
physically exhausted. Frankly, I went to the courts in the hope she
would come to practice. She never did. Perhaps her father had built
her a court in the backyard of 100, Aurangzeb Road.
Sometimes I lurked in the college corridors, waiting for her class to
end. I stood far away and avoided eye contact. I would watch her
come out of class, only to disappear into a crowd of friends. Once she
did see me. She didn’t smile or turn away. She didn’t even look angry.
She didn’t react at all. It killed me. If she had come forward and
slapped me or yelled, I would have been okay. However, she looked
right through me, as if I didn’t exist.
Nights hit me the hardest. I couldn’t sleep. I lay on the same bed
where I had messed it up with her.The same place where I had spoken
like a Bhojpuri movie villain. I wished I had a time machine to undo
my actions. I didn’t want a time machine to predict the stock market or
buy property cheap. I only wanted it to un-say that sentence. I had said
it in a combined state of horniness, bravado and stupidity. Well, it is
also the state in which men are most of the time.
I tossed and turned. I couldn’t sleep. I bounced my basketball on
the room’s wall back and forth until the student in the adjacent room
shouted curses. I studied my course books to distract myself. I found
books in the library on psychology, relationships and love. Through
these I tried to figure out women. Either the English was too tough or
the books gave contradictory ideas. I ended up being more confused
than ever. Women like to nurture and have long-term relationships,
one study said. However, I had wanted exactly that. So why did the
study fail to explain this? Anything I read about women in newspapers
I connected with Riya. If an actress gave an interview saying she was
moody, I nodded and felt that, yes, even Riya was moody.
I had to get this girl out of my head. I couldn’t.
A few months later it was my birthday. I sat with my friends in the
cafeteria. As luck would have it, Riya entered at the same time with her
friends. My friends wanted to see if she would wish me.They started
singing, 'Happy birthday to you.Madhav’, even as I cut a mince cutlet.
The girls noticed but ignored us. Riya didn’t even flinch. My heart
crumbled like the mince cutlet.
‘You’re lucky. It’s best such an insensitive girl is out of your life,’
Raman said.
One afternoon, after college ended, I was sitting outside on the
main lawn. Students turned their gaze to the main gate as a car entered
the college.
It was a beautiful car. It looked expensive even from twenty metres
away.
‘It’s a Bentley. Costs over two crores,’ a boy sitting close to me told
his friend. A young man stepped out of the car. He wore shades. He
walked as if he owned the college.
Riya Somani emerged from the main building and walked towards
the Bentley. I stood up and walked towards the driveway. I ensured I
could not be seen; not that anyone was interested in me.
The man’s face seemed familiar. Riya went up to him. They
hugged. I noticed the man was an inch shorter than Riya.
Rohan Chandak, the name popped into my head. What’s this
asshole doing here? It's amazing how quickly the mind switches from
figuring out a situation to commenting on it.
I had no idea why Rohan had come to college. Maybe he wanted to
buy the building and turn it into a hotel. Well, that seemed unlikely as
he didn’t enter the building. Both of them got into the Bendey and it
drove off, with Riya s BMW tailing Rohan’s car. The students in the
lawns released collective oohs and aahs.
‘I also want a loaded boyfriend,’ I heard a girl near me say.
‘Is he her boyfriend?’ I asked her. I shouldn’t have but I did. Like
I’d proved earlier, my impulse control is rather weak.
‘How do I know?’ she said and walked away.
I could still smell the burning fumes from Rohan’s Bentley long
after he had left. Or maybe it was my burning insides.
*
I had to talk to Riya. I decided to do it during Harmony, the annual
cultural festival of St. Stephen’s. It would be my final attempt to
rescue our friendship. The festival had various cultural competitions
such as choreography, music, debates and treasure hunts. Students,
including the day-skis, stayed in the college until late at night. Riya had
already won the music competition in the solo English vocals category.
She was also taking part in Western choreography.
I took my place in the audience early, sitting in the front row facing
the makeshift choreography stage on the front lawns. Boys from all
over Delhi University had gatecrashed.They sat at the right vantage
points to ogle at the St. Stephen’s chicks. Some of these boys
resembled men back home. They spoke loudly in Hindi. They whistled
every time a pretty girl came on stage. Stephanians, of course, hated all
this. We were way too dignified to express our lecherous feelings in
such a public manner. We ogled nonetheless, but in a dignified way.
A dozen girls wearing pink tights and silver-grey tops came on
stage. Riya, the tallest amongst them and the easiest to spot, stood in
the centre. Stage lights changed colours. A commentator spoke in a
husky self-important voice. He spoke about evolution and how all life
emanates from nature. It is stuff that sounds profound when you hear
it but is total bullshit when you look back and think about it.
Riya’s lean frame, athletic body and stunning looks meant most
men had their eyes on her. Of course, another girl with a massive bust
had her own set of fans.
As the commentator spoke his lines in a sexy voice, I rehearsed
mine in my head.
‘Riya, I think people deserve a second chance.’
Riya did cartwheels on stage with incredible grace. The crowd
burst into applause as she did a perfect cartwheel.
Inside my chest, my heart did the same.
‘Riya, not a day—not a day—passes when I don’t think of you,’ I
said to myself. I deleted it from my mental shortlist. It sounded too
keen. Girls are difficult. It is all about finding the right balance. You
can neither be too pushy, nor come across as too cool to care. I suck at
this fine balance.
In the last act, Riya took a handheld mic and sang the two closing
lines about nature and how we need to protect it. Her clear and tuneful
voice earned a round of spontaneous applause.
The show ended. The girls came forward to take a bow. The crowd
cheered. I slipped out and then sprinted to the classroom converted
into a green room. Finger-combing my hair, I knocked on the door.
A female student peeked out.
‘What?’
‘I need to talk to someone.’
‘Sorry, only girls allowed inside.’
‘Is Riya Somani there?’
‘She is changing,Wait.’
I had little choice. I sat on a ledge opposite the classroom. I waited
for thirty minutes. A group of girls came out, giggling for no particular
reason. Riya didn’t.
Forty-five minutes later, dressed in black jeans with silver buttons
and a tight black top, Riya stepped out. In a deliberate act, she took
brisk steps away from me.
‘Riya,’ I said.
She stopped. However, she didn’t turn towards me. Her hands
froze, as if uncomfortable.
‘Please,’ I said.
She semi-turned towards me.
‘Hi, Madhav.’
I stood squarely in front of her.
‘I want to talk. Five minutes,’ I said.
‘Anything important?’
'To me it is. Five minutes?’
'I'm listening.’
We stood in a dark corridor, facing each other stiffly, as it in
confrontation. It didn’t seem like the right place to talk. I saw her face.
She was still the most beautiful woman in the world to me. Even
though we were in the middle of what seemed like a world war, I
wanted to kiss her. That is how sick the male mind is. It can forget the
entire context of a situation and follow its own track.
'I said I’m listening,’ she said. I flushed out the sick thoughts front
my mind.
‘Not here. Somewhere private?’
‘Oh, really?’ she said.
I realized it had come out all wrong.
‘Sorry, not like that. Somewhere we can sit, face to face. And it
isn’t so dark.’
‘The cafe?’ she said.
‘Now? It’s packed with the DU crowd.You won’t get a table.’
‘Listen, I have plans. I have to go,’ she said.
‘Okay, the cafe then. Fine.’
We walked to the cafe. As expected, lines to enter extended all the
way outside.
‘It is crowded. Is it okay if we talk in my car?’ she said.
I looked at her. She seemed to have calmed down a little.
‘Yeah. The driver will be there, right?’
‘I’ll send him away. Actually, let’s go to the car. I need to give you
something, too.’
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