12 July 1999
The summer vacations ended today and I was back in school, sitting next to Brahmi, taking mental images of her to make up for all the time I had not seen her.
‘Are my pimples bleeding?’ asked Brahmi, dabbing her face with a tissue.
‘Why would you say that?’
‘Because you’re staring,’ she said.
‘I . . .’
All I wanted to do was to shrink in size, crawl into her lap, and cry my heart out, and also slip in a little confession of my love while I was at it. Instead when she asked me what I had been doing in the last one month, I told her and Sahil that we had taken a little holiday.
‘Tell me later,’ she whispered, catching my lie.
I got out my newspaper and started reading it. INDIA WINS BACK TIGER HILL FROM PAKISTAN. Deaths avenged, enemies vanquished, a nation saved. What could this victory mean to anyone? It’s a piece of land, a pile of rocks, stained with the blood and guts of innocent soldiers, an obsession of politicians. What’s the meaning of such all-consuming love and hatred? Of land and of people? And what kind of people? What kind of society? One that turns Maa–Baba into people I can barely recognize?
Sahil has shifted from the last desk to the one behind Brahmi and mine. On his previous seat now sits a new boy whom Amarjeet ma’am introduced as Rishab Batra, a transfer from G.D. Parekar School, a school for children who can’t live without central air conditioning. The class was asked to introduce itself to him. We did so, like nursery students, standing up one by one and telling him our names.
When Sahil’s turn came, he stood up and acted like a class clown should, ‘Hi. I’m Sahil Ahuja. G.D. Parekar is a much better school, isn’t it?’
‘Of course it is,’ said Rishab.
‘Then why are you here?’ asked Sahil.
The class giggled and Amarjeet ma’am shushed them.
Rishab Batra smiled and said, ‘I was asked to leave.’
‘For having too many girlfriends?’ asked Sahil and the class laughed.
Rishab smiled. He was handsome, like boyish handsome, like a movie star, and I saw Brahmi also looking at him like that. It shrank my heart. He looked like the kind of boy who would hold a girl’s hand and tell her she is beautiful the first time he meets her and make her fall in love with him.
‘I used to drive to school and might have influenced a few classmates to drive their parents’ car to school as well. The parents complained and here I am,’ said Rishab, continuing to smile.
‘Which car do you drive?’ asked Sahil.
‘Sahil! One more word and you’re out of the class!’ shouted ma’am.
‘It’s either a Peugeot or the Lancer,’ said Rishab. ‘I like the Lancer.’
‘We can be friends if you teach me how to drive.’
The class laughed and Sahil was thrown out of the class. It was now that I looked at Rishab again closely to ascertain if he was a threat to my embryonic, one-sided love story with Brahmi. Rishab Batra wore a watch with a metallic band, his hair was a well-made puff and his posture was that of a rich, spoilt kid. By the time school ended, Sahil and Rishab were laughing and backslapping each other like long-lost friends, which irritated me to no end. Rishab shifted to the second bench and laughed at everything the three of us had to say. Sahil was disappointed that Rishab didn’t have and never had had a girlfriend, didn’t smoke, hadn’t ever been to a club, hadn’t stayed overnights at a friend’s place, hadn’t travelled abroad or had a passport even, or banged his car into a hawker, all things Sahil expected rich kids to do.
It was clear our group had swelled to four people, which was exactly what I was wary about. There was only a minuscule possibility that Rishab, or even Sahil, could ever affect me—they didn’t have the power to—but after Maa–Baba’s swift and cruel change in behaviour I couldn’t really trust anyone, not even myself. Because wasn’t I in all my wisdom obsessing over what might happen to Maa–Baba if I die? How swiftly had I changed from a benevolent son to a love-struck boy who only wanted one more day, and then one more day with Brahmi.
We didn’t take the school bus or a Blueline home. Rishab insisted that his driver drop us home, and Brahmi insisted that she be dropped off near my house.
‘So where were you all these days? We missed you,’ she said as we waved Rishab and Sahil goodbye.
I wanted to ask her if we included Sahil or the biology teacher, or was it just her, too embarrassed to accept that it was only she who’d missed me?
As I narrated the sequence of events that had transpired at home, how my parents refused to let me out of their sight, lest I turned out like Dada, in the past few days, I felt sorry for myself. Surprisingly, there was no shock on Brahmi’s face.
‘They sound just like my Tauji–Taiji.’
‘Do they talk like that to you? Don’t your Mumma–Papa say anything?’
‘They are elder by ten years and my Mumma–Papa are the quiet, peace-loving sort. They stay away from arguments.’
‘But these aren’t arguments. It’s just them spewing venom all the time. It’s so hard to take the constant abuses and the disturbing things they say about Dada and Boudi.’
‘But Raghu, you shouldn’t have hidden anything from them. That was on you,’ she said slowly.
‘So what? As if you haven’t ever lied to your Maa–Baba.’
‘I have never lied to my Mumma. That’s the point of having parents, Raghu. They are the only people who will forgive you for everything,’ she said.
‘For everything? Even the boys you loved and these cut marks on your wrists?’ I asked.
‘They know about everything. They don’t judge me. Mumma holds my hand every time I do something and talks to me about what’s going on with me.’
‘Hmm. I am surprised they don’t slap you for it.’
‘Raghu, I won’t hear a word against my parents,’ she said.
‘Fine, I’m sorry. Unfortunately I do have to rely on lies. There’s sometimes no way out of it,’ I said.
We were close to my house.
‘I should go now,’ she said. ‘Who’s that girl, by the way? She has been looking at us for a while.’
I turned to where she pointed. On the balcony, Richa had been staring at us. She saw me and disappeared inside the house.
‘A neighbour.’
‘I will see you tomorrow?’ she said.
‘Brahmi? There’s something I wanted to ask you.’
‘What?’
‘What do your parents do?’
‘Is that important for you to know?’
‘Me? Not really,’ I said and realized how stupid it must have sounded. ‘Maa asked me a few days ago. Never mind. I will see you tomorrow.’
‘They are both engineers,’ she said.
Today was a quieter day. I wasn’t cursed and neither were Dada and Boudi. They maintained a steely silence and apart from being chided for leaving the light on in the bathroom, no words were exchanged between Maa–Baba and me.