7 March 1999
Welcome back.
Today’s not a happy day.
It’s one of god’s cruel games, tempting me with happiness, luring me into a friendship and then splintering my heart. I know god well. He’s not kind and benevolent. He’s like us, capricious and evil and corrupted by power. How twisted do you have to be to invent birth and death? One moment you’re just nothingness, air, vacuum and poof . . . suddenly you’re a foetus trapped in a womb, a helpless baby, a confused toddler, an angst-ridden teenager, a depressed young person, a burdened middle-aged person and then you slowly rot to death. Great art never dies but he made us mortal. That’s if men are really god’s best creation. He loves to play around with us. That’s what he did with me. He reminded me of my place, telling me that no matter how hard I try he can fiddle with my fate.
Brahmi Sharma is in my class again.
I thought I had seen the last of her with the tenth standard coming to an end but there she was again. It had been thirty-three painful days since I last saw her. As I am often wont to do, during the first week I lied to myself that I hadn’t been looking for her face in others. This, despite the recurring dream I had of the two of us standing at the top of the Statesman House in Connaught Place in the dead of the night with our wrists slashed and fingers intertwined. The dream ended with us endlessly falling, endlessly smiling, endlessly in love.
The second week went by with me reaching and recoiling away from the phone like a drug addict wanting to call her, then not wanting to call her. The third week, and the most painful of all four weeks, was spent imagining an entire fictional relationship between Brahmi and me, at the end of which, we get to know each other so well that we are disgusted with what we have done and we part ways and promise to not see each other ever again. Comparatively, the fourth week was the easiest. I have never had a relationship or a break-up, and I have only seen it in the movies, but I know now how it feels. A bit like your heart’s being spit-roasted, turning slowly. On a pain scale of Mom’s food to Sami’s passing, it was tantalizingly close to the latter. Which makes me feel appalled at my softness and my gall to compare an imagined break-up with his death.
She came and sat next to me. ‘Welcome to the eleventh standard. You did well?’ she asked. Without waiting for my answer she got back to her crossword. She said a little later, ‘Mumma’s waiting for the results more than I am. Apart from you, there’s no one who can really score more than me so I wanted to know how you did.’
‘I might score more than you.’
‘No, you won’t.’
‘I might,’ I said.
‘Will you? How did your mathematics go? It wasn’t easy.’
‘Pretty good.’
‘Are you lying?’ she asked.
‘I am actually. I missed a two-mark question. You?’
‘I couldn’t do the last question. My steps were right, the answer’s not. So that’s four marks out of the window.’
‘My English went really well though,’ I said.
‘Mine was okay, too.’
‘I didn’t expect you in this class.’
‘Expect?’
‘I mean I am just surprised that you’re here,’ I said. ‘So engineering? That’s what you want to do?’
She laughed. ‘I hope so. Maybe. But my Taiji, aunt, will decide.’
‘Why not your Mumma?’
‘She doesn’t participate in these discussions.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘But she supports me all throughout and she tells me to listen to Taiji,’ she said and smiled goofily and truly for a change.
‘Are we going to sit together every day?’ I asked.
‘I think so,’ she said.
Then we both got back to reading our newspapers.
She said after a while, ‘If you don’t mind that is.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said almost too quickly.
‘I asked because you look away whenever I talk to you. So I thought maybe you’re not comfortable.’
‘I don’t look away. I can look right at you and talk. See?’
‘You’re looking away. Your eyes are flitting.’
‘You’re imagining things,’ I said.
‘Okay. Now you’re not looking away. So I can sit with you?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
While Brahmi Sharma struggled with the crossword I counted the little ridges on her wrists. Some were deep, straight and longish, others were lighter and half-hearted jabs. They looked like hieroglyphics, like tattoos of the brave.
‘Stop looking at my wrists. I fell down on knives,’ she said, mocking my interest, pulling her shirt sleeves over her wrists.
‘I know you did.’
‘None of the knives were sharp enough.’
‘Why weren’t they sharp?’
‘Mumma keeps them blunt. It’s because of her,’ she said and got back to her crossword.
She filled in three words. 17. Down—BLEED. 21. Across—GRIEF. 15. Across—I. She bleeds grief.
To keep myself from staring at her, I turned my attention towards the treaty between my country and Pakistan. For the rest of the day I tried to beat Brahmi unsuccessfully in all the classes. Unlike some stupid, cantankerous moron she had spent the days before the new session studying. During lunch I followed her as she left the class. Three turns in the basement and I lost her. It took me twenty minutes to find my way back to the class.
Later at home, Baba was in a sullen mood because of the nuclear treaty I was reading about in the morning.
‘We should have dropped a bomb while there was still time,’ said Baba, in his usual tone of toxic hatred.
Last year Baba had ordered a celebratory dinner from the Chinese restaurant when Atal Bihari Vajpayee had declared us a full-fledged nuclear state, with the capability of obliterating small countries with a mere press of a button. He called Atal Bihari a hero, a patriot, a guiding light for Hindutva in this country. The American chop suey was fabulous.
Baba had waved his fists in the air and said, ‘See! Did you see! Didn’t I tell you there is no one better than a staunch Hindu to lead the country? To finally make Pakistan pay for all their transgressions! What’s the use of an army if you don’t utilize them? Ha! It’s not a surprise they named the bombs Shakti to signify our goddesses. Raghu! Now see the fun! This country will change! No more of stupid appeasing politics! This is what we deserve! Our country! Jai Mata Di. Jai Shree Ram. Durga. Durga.’
Today, Baba sang a different tune. ‘How could a man, an orthodox Hindu, give in to a peace treaty?’ He went on to rave and rant about how he felt betrayed.
I listened till I lost interest.
I can’t write more today because I have to go prepare for tomorrow’s class. I can’t have her be better than me at everything.