2 States The Story Of My Marriage (3 page)

at me. Despite her tears, she still looked pretty.

I looked at the blackboard. Yes, I did have a fondness for algebra. It’s nothing
to be ashamed of. Yet, this wasn’t the time. ‘No, I am not a big fan. Greek symbols

do take the fun out of any subject.’

‘Exactly, but these profs don’t think so. They will have these equations in the
test next week. I am going to flunk. And he is going to turn me into this specimen

of the educated but clueless Indian student. I bet I am the staff-room discussion

right now.’

‘They are all frustrated,’ I said. ‘we are half their age but will earn twice as them
in two years. Wouldn’t you hate an eleven-year-old if he earned double?’

She smiled.

‘You need to hang that dupatta out to dry,’ I said. She smiled some more.

We walked out of the class. We decided to skip lunch and have tea and

omelette at the roadside Rambhai outside campus.

‘He is going to screw me in microeconomics. He’s probably circled my name and

put a D in front of it already,’ she said, nestling the hot glass of tea in her dupatta
folds for insulation.

‘Don’t freak out. Listen, you can study with me. I don’t like these equations,

but I am good at them. That’s all we did at IIT for four years.’

She looked at me for a few seconds.

‘Hey, I have no interest in being number eleven. This is purely for study

reasons.’

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She laughed. ‘Actually, the score is thirteen now.’

‘IITians?’

‘No, this time form NIT. They are catching up.’

‘I know, we are losing our edge. Whatever, I don’t want to be number fourteen.

I thought I could teach you…..

She interrupted me, ‘I can’t learn economics from you. I am a university topper
in economics. You are an engineer.’

‘Then good luck,’ I said and stood up to pay.

‘I didn’t say that. I said you can’t teach me. But we can study together.’

I looked at her. She looked nice, and I couldn’t blame the thirteen guys for

trying.

‘My room at eight? Ever been to the girl’s dorm?’

‘There is a first time for everything,’ I said.

‘Cool, carry lots of books to make it clear what you are there for,’ Ananya

advised.

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3

I reached the girl’s dorm at 8 p.m. I carried the week’s case materials, the size of
six telephone directories. I knocked at her door.

‘One second, I am changing,’ her muffled scream came from inside.

After three hundred seconds, she opened the door. She wore a red and white

tracksuit. ‘Sorry,’ she said as she tied up her hair in a bun. ‘Come in. We’d better
start, there is so much to do.’

She gave me her study chair and sat on her bed. The rust-coloured bed-sheet

matched the exposed brick walls. She had made a notice board out of chart paper

and stuck family pictures all over.

‘See, that’s my family. That’s my dad. He is so cute,’ she said.

I looked carefully. A middle-aged man with neatly combed hair rationed his

grin. He wore a half-sleeve shirt with a dhoti in most of the pictures. He looked

like the neighbor who stops you from playing loud music. No, nothing cute about

him. I scanned the remaining pictures taken on festivals, weddings and birthdays.

In one, Ananya’s whole family stood to attention at the beach. You could almost

hear the national anthem.

‘That’s Marina Beach in Chennai. Do you know it is the second largest city

beach in the world?’

I saw her brother, around fourteen years of age. The oiled hair, geeky face and
spectacles made him look like an IITian embryo. His lack of interest in the world

expression told me he would make it.

‘And that’s mom?’ I quizzed. Ananya nodded.

Ananya’s brother and father still seemed mild compared to her mother. Even in

pictures she had a glum expression that made you wonder what did you do

wrong. She reminded me of the strictest teachers I ever had in school. I

immediately felt guilty about being in her daughter’s room. My hands tingled as I

almost expected her to jump out of the picture and slap me with a ruler.

‘Mom and I,’ Ananya said as she kneeled on the bed and sighed.

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‘What?’ I looked at a wedding picture of her relatives. Given the dusky

complexion, everyone’s teeth shone extra white. All old women wore as much

gold as their bodies could carry and silk saris shiny as road reflectors.

‘Nothing, I wish I got along better with her,’ Ananya said. ‘Hey, you have

pictures of your family?’

I shook my head. My family was too disorganized to ever pause and pose at

the right moment. I don’t think we even had a camera.

‘Who is there in your family?’ She sifted through the case materials to take out
the economics notes.

‘Mom, dad and me. That’s it,’ I said.

‘Tell me more. What do they do? Who are you close to?’

‘We met to study,’ I pointed out and pated the microeconomics booklet.

“Of course, we will. I only asked to make conversation. Don’t tell me if you

don’t want to,’ she said and batted her eyelids. How can such scary looking parents

create something so cute?

‘OK, I’ll answer. But after that, we study. No gossip for an hour,’ I warned.

‘Sure, I already have my book open,’ she said and sat on the bed cross-legged.

‘OK, my mother is a housewife. I am close to her, but not hugely close. That

reminds me, I have to call her. I’ll go to the STD booth later.’

‘And dad? I am super close to mine.’

‘Let’s study,’ I said and opened the books.

‘You aren’t close to your father?’

‘You want to flunk?’

‘Shsh,’ she agreed and covered her lips with a finger. We studied for the next

two hours in silence. She would look up sometimes and do pointless things like

changing her pillow cover or re-adjusting her study lamp. I ignored all that. I had

wasted enough of my initial years at IIT. Most likely due to a CAT computation

error, I had another chance at IIMA. I wanted to make it count.

‘Wow, you can really concentrate,’ she said after an hour. ‘it’s ten. STD calls
are cheap now.’

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‘Oh yes, I better go,’ I said.

‘I’ll come with you. I’ll call home too,’ she said and skipped off the bed to wear
her slippers.

‘Seri, seri, seri Amma…..Seri!’ she said, each seri increasing in pitch, volume and

frustration. She had called home. Many students had lined up to make cheap calls

at the STD booth, a five-minute walk from campus. Most carried their

microeconomics notes. I helped Ananya with small change after her call.

‘Is he dating her?’ I overheard a student whisper to another.

‘I don’t think so, she treats him like a brother,’ his friend guffawed.

I ignored the comment and went into the booth.

‘Every girl wants an IIT brother, big help in quant subjects,’ the first student
said as several people around them laughed.

I controlled my urge to snap back at them and dialed home.

‘Hello?’ my father’s voice came after four rings.

I kept silent. The meter started to click.

‘Hello? Hello?’ my father continued to speak.

I kept the phone down. The printer churned out the bill.

‘Missed connection, you have to pay,’ the shopkeeper said.

I nodded and dialed again. This time my mother picked up.

‘Mom,’ I screamed. ‘I told you to be near the phone after ten.’

‘I’m sorry. I was in the kitchen. He wanted to talk to you, so he picked up. Say
hello to him first and then ask him for me.’

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‘I’m not interested.’

‘OK, leave that. How are you doing? How is the place?’

‘It’s fine. But they make you cram even more than in the previous college.’

‘How is the food?’

‘Terrible. I am in a hostel. What do you expect?’

‘I’m going to send some pickle.’

‘The city has good restaurants.’

‘They have chicken?’ she asked, her voice worried as if she had asked about

basic amenities like power and water.

‘In a few places.’

‘FMS was good enough. I don’t know why you had to leave Delhi.’

‘Mom, I am not going to make my career choices based on the availability of

chicken,’ I said and looked at the meter. I had spent eighteen bucks. “I’ll hang up

now.’

‘Tell me something more no. did you make any friends?’

‘Not really, sort of….’ I looked at Ananya’s face outside the booth. She looked
at me and smiled.

‘Who? What’s their name?’

‘An…Anant.’

‘Punjabi?’

‘Mom!’

‘I’m sorry. I just thought you could have a friend who likes the same food. Its
OK. We are very modern. Don’t you know?’

‘Yeah right. I’ll catch you later. I have a test tomorrow.’

‘Oh, really? Pray before the exam, OK?’

‘Sure, let me finish studying first.’

I hung up and paid twenty-five bucks.

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‘Why did you hang up the first time? Your dad picked, right?’ Ananya asked as

we walked back.

I stopped in my tracks. ‘How do you know?’

‘I guessed. I do it with mom when I’m angry with her. We don’t hang up; we

just stay on the line and keep silent.’

‘And pay?’

‘Yes. Pretty expensive way to let each other know we are upset. Only

sometimes though.’

‘I never speak to my father,’ I said.

‘Why?’ Ananya looked at me.

‘Long story. Not for tonight. Or any night. I’d like to keep it to myself.’

‘Sure,’ she said.

We walked for a moment in silence before she spoke again. ‘So your parents

have big expectations from you? Which job are you going to take? Finance?

Marketing? IT?’

‘Neither of those,’ I said. ‘Though i will take up a job for the money first.’

‘So what do you want to be? Like really?’ She looked right into my eyes.

I couldn’t lie. ‘I want to be a writer?’ I said.

I expected her to flip out and laugh. But she didn’t. She nodded and continued

to walk. ‘What kind of writer?’ she said.

‘Someone who tells stories that are fun but bring about change too. The pen’s

mightier than the sword, one of the first proverbs we learnt, isn’t it?’

She nodded.

‘Sounds ridiculous?’

‘No, not really,’ she said.

‘How about you? What do you want to be?’

She laughed. ‘Well, I don’t know. My mother already feels I’m too ambitious

and independent. So I am trying not to think too far. As of now, I just want to do

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OK in my quiz and make my mother happy. Both are incredibly difficult though,’

she said.

We reached her room and practised numerical for the next two hours.

‘I am so glad you are here. I’d never be able to crack these,’ she said after I
solved a tricky one for her.

‘You are not using me, are you?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Like you are friends with me because I am from IIT? So I can help you with the
quant subjects.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ she looked shocked.

‘I don’t want to be the IIT brother,’ I said.

‘What? Whatever that is, you are not. We are friends, right?’

She extended her hand. I looked into her eyes. No, those eyes couldn’t use

anyone.

‘Good night,’ I said and shook her hand.

‘Hey Krish,’ she said as I turned to leave.

‘What?’

‘The stuff you said, about being a writer who brings about change. It is really
cool. I mean it,’ she said.

I smiled.

‘Good night,’ she said and shut her door. A few sleepless girls wandered in the
dorm with their notes. They gave me suspicious looks.

‘I only came to study,’ I said and walked out of the dorm fast. I don’t know why I

felt the need to give an explanation.

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4

She came out of the research assistant’s room with her microeconomics quiz

results. She walked past the queued up students toward me. By this time,

everyone on campus knew of her friendship, or as someone would say,

siblingship, with me. She wore denim shorts and a pink T-shirt, drawing extra

long glances from the boys from engineering colleges.

‘B-plus, people say it is a good grade,’ she said, holding up her answer sheet.

‘Your shorts are too short,’ I said.

‘Show me your grade,’ she said, snatching my paper. ‘A minus, wow, you