Someone Like You (8 page)

We load everything in the boot together and I try to hold back tears. I will miss home. The last three months have been amazing—doing nothing, lazing around with a
book as Mom shouted at me to learn to cook something, watching cricket matches on TV with Dad. Sometimes even discussing politics—something he is passionate about and I know nothing about.

‘Go check your room. See if you forgot something,’ Mom says, not looking at me. I am sure she is about to cry too.

‘No, Mom. I have checked. I have packed everything,’ I assure her.

‘Would it hurt to just check once more?’

‘Yes. I’m way too lazy.’

She glares at me angrily and goes to check for herself. It’s all an act. I know she wants to avoid spending too much time with me. We, the Singhs, are bad at farewells. When Simran had left for college in Delhi, literally a five-hour drive away, we had cried like someone had died. But we are not embarrassed by it, we love each other and we like to show it in the precious life that we have. I know of friends whose dads beat up their moms, or their sisters or them, and I feel lucky to have a family that is perfect. We might live in a house with rotten plumbing, and drive around in a fifteen-year-old car, but we care about each other and I am very proud of that.

Dad gets into the driver’s seat and I get into the back seat of the car. My phone is really irritating me now. I turn off the ringer and the vibration.

‘See? I told you,’ Mom says triumphantly as she locks the door and comes towards the car.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘You left your mobile’s charger. I asked you to check once again. What if I had not checked?’ Mom says. Don’t moms just love the I-told-you-so regime? I make a face at her as she takes the seat next to Dad.

‘Leave her alone. She’s leaving for such a long time,’ Dad comes to my rescue.

‘Yeah … I don’t know when I will see her again … When are your Puja vacations?’ Mom asks me.

‘I don’t know. I’ll have to check the schedule.’

‘Okay. Do that and let me know. I don’t like it here … without you. The house seems so empty … especially after Simran … I don’t know what I will do …’ her voice breaks and she turns her face away, towards the window.

And then start the tears. It’s going to be another tearful farewell.

The train journey is long and boring, and I spend most of my time tucked inside the blanket with earphones stuffed deep inside my ears. Suddenly, I don’t want to leave any more; I already miss my parents and my old room. The excitement of joining a new college has given way to anxiety, and the Akshat incident is still not behind me. I just close my eyes and hope the journey will be over soon.

I get off the train and look for a taxi outside the dusty railway station. Strangely enough, there are no taxi drivers clamouring to get my attention, like it usually happens at railway stations. I get myself a pre-paid slip for a taxi, read the number on the slip and look for the taxi.

‘Hey!’ a voice calls from behind.

I turn around to find a guy with cute Harry-Potter-style round spectacles walking towards me, struggling with the huge bags behind him. He is really lean and not actually short, but his face (
oh, his face!
) gives him a very innocent and child-like aura.

‘Excuse me?’ I ask. He looks lost and barely keeps from tripping over his suitcases.

Mom had asked me not to talk to any strangers but I’m sure she meant dangerous-looking ones. The guy in front of me looks like an eighth grader and is cute beyond measure.
He reminds me of my neighbour’s four-year-old son whom I used to cuddle to bits.

‘Are you going to ICE too?’ he asks. His voice matches his child-like face. I notice beads of sweat on his brow and that he is panting.

‘Yes, why? Are you going there too?’ I ask him. I resist an urge to ruffle his hair, which falls droopily on his forehead and partially covers his spectacles.

‘I am. I was wondering if we could share a taxi. I was standing right behind you in the queue,’ the kid explains to me, and I can barely suppress a laugh.

‘Sure,’ I say and the taxi driver loads up our suitcases and bags on the top of the cab and binds them with a rope. The kid gets a little paranoid about the bags falling down during the journey, but the driver assures him that they won’t. The college is barely a ten-minute drive away from the railway station and for the first five minutes, we don’t talk. The kid is too busy trying to catch his breath and I don’t want to put extra pressure on him.

‘Tanmay,’ he says and thrusts his hand out.

‘Niharika. Are you joining this year?’ I ask, even though it’s kind of obvious.

‘Yes, Electronics,’ he says.

‘Oh, really? I am in Electronics too!’ I say and he smiles.

We talk for a bit and we tell each other about our engineering preparations, and how and why we couldn’t get into IIT. That is one topic every engineering student can use as a conversation starter.
How and why I could or could not make it to the IITs.
Soon, we reach the college and ask for directions to the hostel. The boys’ hostel is closer to the main gate of the college and Tanmay gets off there. He tries to offer me money for the taxi we just shared, but I refuse, saying that we will meet again soon and he could treat me then.

The campus is huge. As I look around, I feel a little lost. There are loads and loads of people moving around, and I am just one of them. Remember the times when you stand on a beach and look at the never-ending expanse of water that stretches in front of you? And you feel like the world is so very big and you are such an inconsequential part of it? Well, this was one of those times.

I enter the Administration Building and ask for the way to the hostel. The hostel warden, an old lady, takes down my details, checks the payment receipts, cites a few basic hostel rules, and hands over the key to me. It takes me three trips to get all my luggage to my room. Once I get everything there, I’m just too tired to do anything. But I’m too excited to relax either. The room is at a bare minimum, but thankfully, I had prepared myself for that. I arrange the lamps, the curtains and the bedsheets and the room starts to look a lot better than before.

It strikes me that
I’m finally in college
.

I look around the room—now much smaller after I unpacked my stuff. It’s not too small, actually. My room in Kota was way smaller, but then, I lived there alone. I have a roommate here. Which makes me think—where is she? Who is she? I hope she’s not too messy. I’ve never had much patience with dirty roommates and that was the reason I lived alone in Kota.

After admiring what I have done to the room, I lie down and fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. My last thought before sleeping is one of Simran and Akshat, and I find it hard to push it out of my head.

It’s already eight in the evening when I get up and hear frantic footsteps outside the corridor. It takes me a few minutes to get accustomed to the new surroundings. I recall the words
of the warden who had said that dinner would be served till eight thirty in the common mess. I get into half-decent clothes, splash my face with a little water and start to look for the common mess.

It’s a five-minute walk from the girls’ hostel and my stomach has started to growl. I have hardly eaten anything since the long and tortuous train journey and I need to eat. I find my way to the common mess and I can hear a clamouring noise from far away. I enter the mess to see table after table filled with students—mostly guys—eating and chatting rather loudly.

At one end of the room, I spot a long line of students with big, steel plates in their hands. I pick up one too and stand in the line. I wonder where the juniors are, since everyone seems to know each other. I start to feel a little lonely and curse my roommate—who hasn’t yet turned up—because had she been there, I wouldn’t have been alone at least.

The line moves at a snail’s pace and I have barely reached the salad counter when I hear a voice behind me.

‘This is like the worst day of the year. All these freshers with big stomachs lining up for hostel food. But at least the girls are better this time. Good for all the juniors who have found their way to this shithole,’ the voice says from behind. There is a certain careless disdain in the voice. I wonder if he’s talking about me because it sounds like he is right beside me. I raise the plate up to waist level and look at his reflection in it. I can’t make out much of him, just that he has slightly longish hair that curls at the ends.

He keeps talking and I no longer listen to what he is saying. I can feel him towering over me. For a moment, I feel like hitting him for objectifying women, but his demeanour is one of such nonchalance that I don’t think he would even care.

More people join in the conversation and they talk to him with a certain respect in their tones. Maybe a senior, I think to myself. This guy has hooked everyone’s attention as he goes about bashing the authorities, the hostels, the infrastructure and the like. It’s not out of frustration, neither does it sound like he is complaining. It’s very strange, because he doesn’t himself sound interested in what he is saying, but everyone else is.

Maybe, it’s the voice. It’s a little … a sort of … it’s very smooth, like satin, but with very rough edges to it. I can’t put it in words, but the carelessness and the friendly-yet-rude attitude in his voice—husky but not cracked—is alluring. It’s like music to my ears, like the kind not everyone can enjoy.

I’m totally and completely enchanted, even though I really want to hate him. He starts to talk about more girls and teachers and bashes them to the boisterous laughter of other students around him and I still find it hard to dislike him. My gaze is transfixed on whatever is visible of him. I stand here, spellbound and confused, wanting to see the face of the owner of the voice. But I also don’t want to turn around and make my interest—or whatever it is—obvious to him. Lost in my thoughts, I feel a warm breath on my neck, followed by a whisper in my ear, ‘The line has moved.’ It’s the same voice.

I stagger ahead, and I can still feel the warmth of his breath on my neck and hear the timbre of his voice in my head. I hear the rustle of feet on the concrete floor behind me and I wonder how far he is from me. I put dollops of rice and daal on my plate mindlessly, as my face flushes red and I breathe unevenly.

I take a deep breath, leave the line, and stride towards a seat in the corner of the mess, not looking back even once.