Revolution 2020 (25 page)

‘Manoj, sir,’
he said.

‘Where are you
from?’ I said.

‘Sarnath,
sir,’ he said.

‘Parents work
there?’ I said.

‘We have land,
sir. My father is a farmer.’

I immediately
softened. ‘You don’t want to be a farmer?’

He didn’t
answer, afraid of how he might be judged by the response. I
understood.

‘Any problems
at Ganga'I'ech?' I said.

‘No, sir,’
he said nervously.

‘Don’t
feel shy, tell me,’ I said.

‘Too much
English, sir,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand it
well.’

‘Learn it. The
world wont let you live otherwise. Okay?’ I said.

He nodded.

I turned to the
professor. ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ I said.

The professor
smiled. He reminded me of Mr Pulley in Kota.

                                                        ♦

A dozen documents
awaited my attention when I returned from my rounds. My phone beeped.

Aarti had sent a
message: Saw R2020?

Yes, I texted back.

What do you think?
she wanted to know.

I didn’t
respond. I started going through the documents. My phone beeped
again.

She had texted: ?

Good luck for the
revolution, I said.

Thanks, came her
reply.

I wondered if that
meant the end of conversation.

You are welcome, I
said anyway.

Good to know, she
said.

What? I said.

That I am still
welcome, she said.

I didn’t know
what to say to that. Girls can come up with the simplest of messages
that have the most complex meanings.

I typed out another
message: I am sorry about that evening. I was pondering whether to
send it when my phone beeped again.

Sorry about that
evening, her message said.

I gasped at the
coincidence. I deleted what I had composed and typed again. It's
fine. I shouldn't have crossed the line.

I had a reply within
seconds: Don't worry about it.

Perplexed, I kept my
phone away.

What
exactly
did
she
mean?
Why
can
’
t
girls
be
direct?
Don
’
t
worry
about
it?
Is
she
just
being
formal?
Or
did
she
mean
it
is
okay
I
kissed
her,
and
that
I
need
not
worry
about
it
ever
again?
Most
important,
had
we
closed
the
chapter
or
opened
a
new
one?

I wanted to ask her
all these questions but did not have the guts.

I didn’t want
to keep things hanging either. One kiss, and her silence thereafter,
had devastated me. I didn’t want to kiss her just once. I
wanted to kiss her a million times, or however many times it was
possible for a person to kiss another person in a lifetime. I did not
want to talk to her in cryptic messages. I wanted to have her by my
side all the time.

I didn’t give
a fuck about Raghav anymore. He had anyway become borderline cuckoo,
with his pink newspaper. Aarti deserved better, and who could be
better than me? Our college would make a crore this year. Raghav
would never see a crore of his own in his entire fucked-up honest
revolutionary life. These intense thoughts darted about in my head
like little birds let loose from their cage.

‘Enough is
enough,’ I spoke out loud and forced myself to pick up the
phone.

‘I LOVE YOU,’
I typed and kept my thumb on the send button.

But I deleted the
text. I replaced it with a softer ‘I MiSS YOU’, but
erased that as well.

I went back to my
files but found it hard to read even one sentence. I closed my eyes.
Immediately, I remembered the warmth of her body when I had held her,
the locks of her hair that brushed against my face in the breeze, and
relived the moment when I had kissed her.

My phone rang. She
had called me. A part of me didn’t want to, but I picked it up
in one ring.

‘Hi!’
she said.

‘Aarti!’

‘Yeah?’
she said.

‘I crossed the
line that day,’ I said.

‘Don’t
keep saying that.’

‘Is it okay,
really?’ I said.

‘Really. How
did you like the paper? Be honest.’

I was shocked at how
effortlessly she switched the topic.

‘Kayasth
Brahmin grooms on one page, mega-revolution on the other. Isn’t
it strange?’

‘I told you.
That’s how the paper becomes viable,’ she said.

‘What do the
readers feel about that?’ I said.

‘The response
is mind-blowing. Raghav’s ex-boss from
Dainik
had c ...
called to congratulate him,’ she stammered in her excitement.

‘Well, what do
I know about newspapers? If people from
Dainik
like it, it is
probably good,’ I said flatly.

‘You have seen
nothing yet. Raghav is working on some big stories’

‘Great’
I said, my tone bland.

‘Sorry, I
didn’t mean to talk only about him. Just thrilled about the
first issue. I put a few copies in the hotel lobby too,’ she
confessed with a giggle.

‘I am sure the
tourists will love to see how fucked-up our country is,’ I
said.

‘Or they may
like the
matrimonial's,
’
Aarti
pointed
out. That evening by the river seemed to be a distant memory for her.
How
can
girls
pretend
that
nothing
happened?
Do
they
erase
stuff
from
their
brains,
brush
it
aside,
or
are
they
just
good
actors
?

‘Aarti,’
I said.

‘What?’

‘What if I...’
I said and paused.

‘What if I
what?’ she said.

She had put it out
there. I could either chicken out and say lame crap like ‘What
if I said you are amazing,’ like I had over the years. Or, I
could be a man and say what I really wanted to,, even if it meant she
may never talk to me again. For once, I chose the latter option.

‘What would
you do if I kissed you again?’

‘Gopal!’
she said, her voice hushed.

‘Don’t
sound so surprised. We did kiss, remember?’

‘I don’t
know what happened,’ she said. How could she not know what had
occurred?

‘Don’t
avoid the question,’ I said.

‘What?’
Aarti said, a rare hesitation in her voice.

‘What would
you do if I kissed you again?’ I repeated.

‘I don’t
know,’ she said.

She hadn’t
said yes. However, she hadn’t hung up the phone in disgust
either.

‘I might,’
I said.

‘Don’t!’

‘I just
might.’

‘Can we talk
about something else?’ she said.

‘Are we
meeting?’ I said.

‘Where?’
she said. Again, no yes or no. She didn’t even say when. She
simply asked the location. It meant she wanted to meet me. Even after
I had warned her that I wanted to kiss her, she wanted to meet me. A
dozen smileys filled up my head.

‘I’ll
pick you up at work. What time do you get done?’

‘Six. Not
today though. Raghav has some friends over. First issue and

all.’

‘Party?’

‘Kind of. A
low-key affair. Raghav doesn’t have money to party. Everything
has gone into the paper.’

‘You want me
to give some money?’ I said, enjoying every syllable of my
sentence.

‘Stop it,
Gopal. So, tomorrow at six?’

‘I will call
you,’ I said.

‘Oh, okay.
Where are we going?’ she said.

‘Somewhere
private,’ I said.

She paused for a
second.

‘Where we can
talk,’ I added.

‘Let me know
then.’

You are in 2105, Mr
Mishra’

I had booked a room
at Ramada for five thousand a night.

‘Any help with
your luggage, sir?’ the lady at the reception asked me.

1 only have this,’
I said, pointing to my rucksack.

The receptionist
smiled at me. She walked with me to the centre of the lobby and to
the guest relations desk.

‘This is
Aarti,’ the receptionist said, ‘and she will guide you to
your room.’

Aarti looked up from
her computer. Her jaw dropped.

‘Hello,’
I said as nonchalantly as possible.

‘Oh, hi... I
mean, good evening,’ she said, flustered.

‘Aarti, this
is Mr Gopal Mishra, director of GangaTech. He is in 2105. Please
escort him to his room.’

‘Sure, sure,’
Aarti said, still in shock.

She stood up. We
walked towards the elevator. A housekeeping staff member entered the
elevator with us. We couldn’t talk. She only spoke in the
second floor corridor.

‘Gopal, what
are you doing here?’ she whispered. She continued to walk two
steps ahead of me.

I had my story
ready. I couldn’t tell Aarti I had booked a room just for us.

‘We had a
senior guest faculty coming from London.’

‘So?’

‘He cancelled
last minute. We had already paid for the room. So I thought, why not
enjoy the hospitality of Ramada?’

‘What? You
should have told me. I could have got you a refund.’

‘Forget it. I
have never stayed in a five-star hotel before. I’ll try it
out.’

We reached 2105. She
opened the room with the magnetic key card. She looked beautiful in
her uniform, a formal sari, with her hair - every strand of it -
locked in a bun.

I dumped my rucksack
on the bed.

‘You need help
with the features of the room?’ she said.

‘No,’ I
grinned. ‘Someone already showed me.’

‘You are
crazy, Gopal,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I better go.’

I sat on the
single-seater sofa in the room. ‘Stay,’ I said.

‘I can’t.
I am on duty.’

‘After six?
It’s five-thirty already,’ I said.

‘I can’t
be in a guest’s room!’

‘You know this
guest,’ I said. ‘Two minutes?’

She went to the door
and closed it as much as possible without locking it. She sat on a
chair by the desk and stared at me.

‘What?’
I said.

‘You didn’t
plan this?’ she said.

‘What plan?
The faculty cancelled’ I said.

‘What’s
the name of the faculty?’ she said.

‘Mr Allen,’
I said.

‘Oh, really?
Which college?’

‘He’s
from ...’ I said and hesitated.

‘See. Stop
fibbing,’ she said.

‘How will I
know the college? The dean would know. All I know is, we had a room,
and I took it.’

She shook her head.

‘Let’s
hang out here after you finish,’ I said.

‘How?’
she said. It’s not allowed.’

‘You only do
things you are allowed to?’ I said.

‘No,’
she said, ‘but...’

‘You don’t
have the guts,’ I said.

‘That’s
not the case,’ she said and stood up. ‘And you know it.’

‘Nobody will
find out,’ I said. ‘Finish work and come. We will eat
here. Leave in an hour or so.’

‘If room
service sees me?’ she said.

‘You hide in
the toilet when they come,’ I said.

‘That’s
weird,’ she said.

‘Okay, I will
order before you arrive. Sandwiches?’

She bit her lower
lip and mused over my suggestion for a few seconds. ‘Fine,’
she sighed. ‘But you have to check no staff is around when I
come or leave.’

‘Sure, I will
stand in the corridor. Will give you the green signal on the phone.’

She walked to me and
whacked me lightly on the side of my head. ‘The things you make
me do!’ she said and left the room.

♦

I ordered a club
sandwich, chocolate cake and a bottle of wine. I also took a shower,
using more shampoo and hot water than I normally do in a week. She
called me at 6:30 p.m. ‘Check the corridor.’

I came out of the
room. ‘It’s fine,’ I said into the phone, turning
my head left and right to scan the corridor.

Two minutes later,
we were both in the room with the door firmly locked. She had already
changed into a white button down shirt and jeans downstairs after her
shift.

‘You are
stupid, you know that, right?’ she said, plonking herself on
the bed and holding a hand dramatically to her chest. ‘My heart
is beating so fast!’

‘Relax,’
I said.

She laughed. ‘You
are lucky they haven’t installed corridor CCTVs yet. Can’t
pull this stunt after that.’

‘So, right
timing,’ I said. ‘Hungry?’

I opened the silver
cover on the sandwich plate.

‘Starving,'
she admitted.

I added some french
fries and salad to the sandwich. ‘Come, let’s eat.’

‘I am too
exhausted to move. I stood in heels for eight hours. Can I eat on the
bed?’

‘Sure,’
I said. I passed her the plate. I poured a glass of red wine.

‘You ordered a
full bottle of wine?’ she said.

I shrugged.

‘When did you
start drinking wine?’ she said.

‘Shukla-ji
made me try everything,’ I said.

‘You like
wine?’

‘I usually
have whisky. But I thought you might like wine.’

‘I do. But I
shouldn’t drink. This is my place of work.’

‘One glass
...’ I insisted.

She gave a brief nod
and took the glass.

‘Raghav
doesn’t drink much. He is such a bore sometimes,’ she
said and took a sip. ‘Nice. What is it?’

‘Jacobs Creek
from Australia,’ I said, emphasising the country of origin. It
had cost me two thousand bucks, but I didn’t mention the price.