Revolution 2020 (5 page)

‘You won’t
have enough food for yourself,’ I said.

‘It’s
okay. I am dieting. I don’t want to be fat,’ Aarti said.

Seven Years Later

Walk me home first.
Then go to the cricket ground,’ Aarti said.

We were coming back
after an afternoon of boating on the Ganga. Aarti and I had been
doing this every week for the iast five years. Phoolchand bhai, a
boatman at Assi Ghat, let me borrow his boat. We walked down a bylane
narrow enough to jam a fat cow, and came out on the main road
adjacent to the ghats.

‘I’m
already late, Aarti. Raghav will scream at me.’

‘So let me
come with you. I don’t want to be bored at home,’ she

said.

‘No.’

‘Why?’
she blinked.

‘Too many
boys. Remember the whistles last time?’

‘I can handle
it,’ Aarti said. She brushed some strands of hair away from her
forehead.

I looked at her
beautiful face. ‘You have no idea what you do to them,’ I
said. You have no idea what you do to me, was what I actually wanted
to tell her.

Aarti’s looks
had always drawn appreciative comments from the school teachers.
However, two years ago when she turned fifteen, the whole school
started talking about her. Statements such as ‘the most
beautiful girl in Sunbeam School’, she should be an actress’,
or ‘she can apply for Miss India’ became increasingly
common. Some of it came from people trying to please her. After all,
a senior IAS officer father and a prominent ex-politician grandfather
meant people wanted to be in her good books.

But yes, Aarti did
make Varanasi skip a heartbeat.

Her entry into the
Sigra Stadium cricket ground would definitely disrupt the game.
Batsmen would miss the bail, fielders would miss catches and jobless
morons would whistle in the way they do to give UP a bad name.

‘I’ve
not met Raghav for so long,’ Aarti said. ‘Let’s go.
I will watch you play.’

‘You will meet
him at tuitions tomorrow,’ I said curtly. ‘Go home now.’

'You want me to walk
home alone?’

'Take a rickshaw,’
I said.

She grabbed my
wrist. ‘You are coming with me right now.’ She held my
hand and swung it back and forth as I walked her home.

I wanted to tell her
not to hold my hand anymore. It is fine at twelve, not at seventeen.
Even though I liked it more at seventeen than at twelve.

‘What?’
she said. ‘Why are you staring? I am only holding your hand so
that you don’t run away.’

I smiled. We walked
past the noisy shopping streets to the calmer Cantonment area. We
reached the bungalow of District Magistrate Pratap Brij Pradhan,
Aarti’s father.

The evening sky had
turned a deep orange. Raghav was sure to sulk, as it would be too
late to play. However, I could not refuse Aarti.

‘Thank you,’
Aarti said in a child-like voice. ‘Coming in?’

‘No, I am
already late,’ 1 said.

Our
eyes
met
I broke eye contact quickly. Best friends, that’s
all we were, I told myself.

Her hair blew in the
breeze and wisps of black gently stroked her

face.

‘I should cut
my hair, so hard to maintain,’ Aarti said.

‘Don’t,’
I said firmly.

Tm keeping it long
only for you. Bye!’ she said. I wondered if she had also
started to feei differently about me. But I didn’t know how to
ask.

‘See you at
tuitions,’ I said, walking away.

‘Raghav
Kashyap,’ the teacher called out and held up an answer-sheet.
Raghav, Aarti and I had joined JSR coaching classes in Durgakund to
prepare for the engineering entrance exams. JSR, named after its
three founders - Mr Jha, Mr Singh and Mr Rai - conducted frequent
mock-tests for AIEEE (All India Engineering Entrance Exam) and the
IIT JEE (Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Exam). The
AIEEE attracted ten lakh students annually for thirty thousand seats
in the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) across the country.
Every engineering aspirant took these exams. I didn’t
particularly want to become an engineer. Baba wished to see me as
one, and that was why I went to JSR.

Raghav walked past
the forty students in the crammed classroom to collect his
answer-sheet.

‘Sixty-six out
of eighty. Well done, Raghav,’ the teacher said.

‘IIT
material,’ a boy whispered as Raghav walked past. ‘He is
a topper from Sunbeam.’

I could totally see
Raghav follow in the footsteps of his IITian father, an engineer in
BHEL. I scored fifty out of eighty, a borderline performance, good
enough to become the twelfth man on a cricket team, but not quite
player material.

‘Focus,
Gopal,’ the teacher said. ‘You need sixty-plus to be
safe.’

I nodded. I wanted
to get into a good engineering college. My father hadn’t heard
any good news in years.

‘Aarti
Pradhan!’ the teacher called out. The entire class turned to
look at the girl in the white salwar-kameez, who made the otherwise
drab coaching classes worthwhile.

Aarti took her
answer-sheet and giggled.

‘Twenty out of
eighty is funny?’ the teacher frowned.

Aarti covered her
mouth with her palm and walked back. She had no intention of becoming
an engineer. She had joined JSR because a) attending coaching classes
could supplement her class XII CBSE studies, b) I had also enrolled
so she would have company and c) the tuition centre never charged
her, given her father was about to become the District Magistrate, or
DM of the city.

Aarti’s father
had a relatively honest reputation. However, free tuitions came under
the ambit of acceptable favours.

I have not even
filled the AIEEE form,' Aarti whispered to me.

♦

‘My AIEEE rank
is going to be horrible’ I said to Raghav as I stirred my
lemonade.

We had come to the
German Bakery near Narad Ghat, a touristy firang joint where white
people felt safe from germs and the touts roaming around Varanasi.
People sat on beds with wooden trays to eat firang food like
sandwiches and pancakes. Two malnourished, old men played the sitar
in one corner to give the Varanasi effect, as white people found it a
cultural experience.

I never thought much
of the place. However, Aarti liked it.

‘I like how
she has used a scarf to tie her hair,’ Aarti said, pointing at
a female tourist. She had obviously ignored my AIEEE concerns.

‘Ten more
marks and you will be fine. Relax,’ Raghav said.

‘One lakh
students stand between me and those ten marks,’ I said.

‘Don’t
think about the others. Focus on yourself,’ he said.

I nodded slowly.
Easy to give advice when you are the topper. I imagined myself in a
sea, along with lakhs of other low-rankers, kicking and screaming to
breathe. The waters closed over us, making us irrelevant to the
Indian education system. Three weeks and the AIEEE tsunami would
arrive.

Aarti snapped her
fingers in front of my face. ‘Wake up, dreamer, you will be
fine,’ she said.

‘You are
skipping it?’ Raghav turned to Aarti.

‘Yeah,’
she giggled. ‘
Main
Hoon
Na
is releasing that week. How can I miss a Shah Rukh film? They should
postpone AIEEE.’

‘Very funny’
I grimaced.

‘So you aren’t
becoming an engineer. What will you do in life?’ Raghav asked
Aarti.

‘Do I have to
do
something? I am an Indian woman. Can’t I get married,
stay home and cook? Or ask the servants to cook?’

She laughed and
Raghav joined her.

I didn’t find
this funny. 1 could not think beyond the teeming millions of wannabe
engineers who would wrestle me down in three weeks.

‘Why so
serious, Gopal-ji?  Im joking. You know I cant sit at home.’
Aarti tapped my shoulder.

‘Shut up,
Aarti,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I know you want to be an air
hostess’

‘Air hostess?
Wow!’ Raghav said.

‘That’s
not fair, Gopal!’ Aarti screamed. ‘You are telling the
world my secret.’

‘It’s
only me,’ Raghav said.

Aarti gave me a
dirty look.

‘Sorry,’
I said.

Aarti and I had a
deeper relationship. We saw Raghav as a friend, but not a close one.

‘You will make
a great air hostess,’ Raghav said, his tone flirtatious.

‘Yeah,
whatever,’ Aarti said. ‘Like dad is going to let me leave
Varanasi, ’[here are no airlines here. Only temples. Maybe I
can be a temple hostess. Sir, please take a seat on the floor.
Prayers will begin soon. Prasad will be served in your seats’

Raghav laughed
again, holding his muscular abdomen. I hate people who are naturally
gifted with a flat stomach.
Why
couldn
’
t
god
make
six-packs
a
default
standard
in
all
males?
Did
we
have
to
store
fat
in
the
silliest
places?

Raghav high-lived
Aarti. My ears went hot. 'The sitar players started an energetic
tune.

‘Aarti, what
nonsense you talk,’ I said, my voice loud. The foreigners
around us, here in a worldwide quest for peace, became alert.

I didn’t like
the we find each other's lame jokes funny vibe between Raghav and
Aarti.

Raghav sucked the
straw in his lemonade too hard. The drink came out through his nose.

‘Gross!’
Aarti said as both of them started a laugh-fest again.

I stood up.

‘What
happened?’ Raghav said.

^l
I
have to go. Baba is waiting,’ I said.

                                              
 ♦

The sound of Baba’s
coughing drowned out the sound of the doorbell the first couple of
times.

‘Sorry, I
couldn’t hear,’ he said, opening the door.

‘You okay?’
I asked.

‘Yes, it is
the usual. I’ve made dal and roti.’

‘That’s
the usual too.’

My father had turned
sixty last year. His non-stop coughing bouts made him look like an
eighty-year-old. The doctors had given up. We had no money for
surgery either. His school had fired him long ago. You can’t
conduct a fifty-minute class with ten respiratory breaks. He had a
pension that lasted us three weeks in a good month.

I ate in silence at
the wobbly dining table.

‘Entrance exam
..my father started and paused to cough five times, I understood his
drift.

‘I have
finished the AIEEE preparation,’ I said.

‘JEE?’
Baba said. It is harder to manage family expectations than prepare
for exams.

‘Don’t
have IIT hopes for me, Baba,’ I said. My father’s face
fell. ‘I will take the JEE. But, three thousand out of four
lakhs ... Imagine the odds’

‘You can do
it. You are bright,’ Baba said, paternal love obviously
overestimating progeny’s abilities.

I nodded. I had a
shot at AIEEE, none at JEE. That was how I looked at it. I wondered
if Baba realised that a rank would mean me leaving home. What if I
had to go to NIT Agartala? Or somewhere far south?

‘Engineering
is not everything, Baba,’ I said.

It secures your
life. Don’t fight now, right before the exams’

‘I’m not
fighting. I’m not.’

Post-dinner, Baba
lay down on his bed. I sat next to him and pressed his forehead. He
erupted into a coughing fit.

‘We should
consider the surgery,’ I said.

'For two lakhs?’
Baba said, lying back and shutting his eyes. I resumed the massage.

I kept quiet. I
didn’t want to bring up the touchy topic. We could have settled
the land issue ages ago. Court hearings still haunted us, the land
lay barren, and we had no money.

‘From where
will we get the money, tell?’ my father said. ‘You become
an engineer. Get a good job. Then we will do the surgery.’

I could not stay
quiet anymore. ‘Taya-ji offered ten lakhs. The money would have
doubled in the bank by now.’

Baba opened bis
eyes. ‘What about the land?’ he said.

‘What use is
the stupid land?’

‘Don’t
talk like that,’ he said, pushing my hand away. ‘A farmer
doesn’t insult his land. He doesn’t sell it either.’

I placed my hand
back on his forehead. ‘We are not farmers anymore, Baba. We
can’t use the land. Because your own brother ...’

‘Go. Go and
study, you have your exams coming up.’ Baba pointed to my room.

The landline rang at
midnight. I picked it up,

‘I’m
sleepy, Aarti,’ I said.

‘You don’t
sleep till one. Stop fibbing.’

‘What’s
up?’

‘Nothing,
(list felt like chatting.’

‘Chat with
someone else,’ I said.

‘Aha,’
she said. ‘1 know whals bothering you.’

‘Bye, Aarti,’
I said.

‘Hey, wait. I
found some of Raghav’s jokes funny. That’s all. You are
still my best friend.’

‘They weren’t
funny. And what’s this best friend business?’ I said.
‘We’ve been best friends for eight years, though you
still haven’t bought me a chocolate cake’

‘And Raghav?’

‘Raghav is
only a friend. I talk to him because you are close to him,’
Aarti said.

I kept silent.

‘Chill now,
Gopal. How’re things at home?' she said.

‘Screwed up as
always. How are you?’

‘I’m
fine. Dad insists I finish college before I try any of this air
hostess business. But you can even become one straight after class
XII;

‘Go to
college. He’s right,’ I said.

‘Which college
can I join with my marks? I am not smart like Raghav and you.’

‘Raghav is
smart, not me,’ I corrected her.

‘Why? Because
of the mock-test? You are so stupid,’ Aarti said.

‘You are
stupid.’