Truly Madly Deeply (23 page)

Rahul did not reply. He was in the kitchen and brought out two steaming mugs of coffee.

“Nescafe?” Sahil asked him.

“Bru,” Rahul answered.

“Ah, I only have Nescafe, you shouldn't have bothered,” Sahil informed.

Rahul looked at him in a mildly threatening manner.

“Well… maybe I should try Bru sometimes. Experimentation is good, you know? Smells wonderful,” he said taking the mug from Rahul's hands.

Rahul sat down opposite to him on the bed, staring out of the window behind the bed.

“There was this news two days back, of a school in India where students were beaten black and blue by a teacher and one student reportedly, succumbed to his injuries and two were grievously injured,” Sahil said eyeing the newspaper again.

“Happens,” Rahul said after a pause, taking a small sip from
his mug.

“What do you mean? So they distribute corporal punishments to students like chocolates in India?” Sahil asked, raising his eyes.

Rahul shrugged.

“At mine, at the most they made you stand on the bench in the classroom with your hands up for the entire lecture or shooed you out of the class ... sometimes they made you turn yourself into a cock,” Rahul said softly.

“Into a what?”

“A cock.”

“But that's so disgusting...”

“Before your dirty mind gets ideas, I mean the hen's mate.”

“How can one turn himself into a cock? Were you at Potter's Hogwarts?”

“You can, if you squat on your knees and hold your ears with your hands criss-crossing from between your legs.”

Sahil placed the coffee mug on the table and climbed down
the bed.

“Like this?” he asked, squatting on the floor and holding his ears with opposite hands.

Rahul grunted.

“Now what?” Sahil asked, balancing his round frame.

“Now crow and lay an egg,” Rahul said, taking another sip.

“But cocks aren't supposed to lay eggs...” Sahil said, trying to untangle himself. “...they're supposed to fertilise them.”

“Then go find a hen,” Rahul said.

“But a cock does not enter a hen… it enters a pussy!” Sahil guffawed before losing his balance and falling on the floor.

***

“I was thinking of going shopping at Bell's corner or Franklin Mills. I have to buy a new pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Why don't you come along?” Sahil invited.

“The latter is good. My uncle had recommended it to me when I came, if I needed to get some good stuff. It's near the Liberty Bell Race track, isn't it?” Rahul looked up.

“Hey cool, you know a lot about this place and I was thinking of showing you around. Reckon, you roamed alone a lot. Anyways, Franklin Mills is not a bad suggestion. What say, we can grab lunch at Cafe Freedom and then head for a movie in the mall? I think they are showing the new Transformers movie,” Sahil rubbed his hands in glee.

“You should go with you mother,” Rahul said, picking up the
coffee mugs.

“My mother doesn't entertain my shopping and stuff. Don't worry, the treat is on me,” Sahil tried.

“No, you carry on,” Rahul said.

Sahil sighed. Suddenly, something clicked in his mind and he smiled to himself but quickly changed his expression lest Rahul's keen eye noticed him.

“I thought you won't disappoint me at least on my birthday,”
Sahil said getting up with a sad face and heading slowly towards the door.

“It's your birthday?” Rahul asked in a surprised tone.

“Of course, why would I come here at this time then?” Sahil sensed the opportunity. “But I guess you're not interested and I don't want to trouble you. I might as well hang out alone,” Sahil continued in mock dejection.

“Why? Where are your other friends?” Rahul questioned.

“Ah, all are busy as exams are approaching. They might come in the evening but not now when I need them,” Sahil said when he was almost upon the door.

“Give me two minutes to get ready,” Rahul said and walked towards his wardrobe but seeing stray papers lying inside, he remembered something.

“Sahil, have you completed the Chemistry assignment?”
Rahul turned.

“Yes,” Sahil answered. “Have you?”

Rahul nodded, “Could you show me the way it is to be arranged?” He brought out the papers that he had written the previous night.

“Sure buddy, get'em on,” Sahil said, walking back to the bed.

Rahul brought along the bunch of papers from the wardrobe. Sahil arranged the papers for him in less than two minutes and handed it back to him. Rahul kept it back from where he had brought it.

“Exams on our head. It's so nightmarish you know. I get bad dreams of failing in math,” Sahil confessed to him.

Rahul's lips curved slightly on hearing that.

“You find that funny?” Sahil asked him.

“It would be a lot easy if you look at Professor Jeanne's face instead of…” Rahul looked at him but did not complete his sentence.

“Well… good, at least you find this funny,” Sahil nodded.

“Hey, will you help me in math?” Sahil asked suddenly, remembering the way Rahul used to complete assignments for even the toughest of sums that used to bamboozle his senses.

Rahul nodded.

“Thanks, I owe you big for that,” Sahil said.

“Hmm... I'll get ready,” Rahul said and rummaged through
the wardrobe.

“So, what do you do the entire day lying in this ruin of a room?” Sahil asked him in good humour, seeing that Rahul was not going to talk anything interesting.

Rahul looked at the table near the bedpost while pulling a white shirt from the wardrobe.

“Oh, you listen to the radio? The entire day?” Sahil asked
in disbelief.

Rahul gave him the look again ‘Any problem?' it seemed to say.

“That's great! You should,” Sahil said.

Rahul grunted, pulling on the shirt.

“Yesterday, all the guys of the class almost rushed out, that is after you left early of course,” Sahil informed.

Rahul gave him a questioning look, wondering which surprise test he had missed.

“A new girl has taken admission in the tenth grade, mid-sem. I wonder how they allowed her but when I saw her I was happy that they allowed her,” Sahil said with a dreamy look.

Rahul looked at the clock that adorned the wall near the door.

“Colins' daughter, you know, pretty as hell. She used to be in Ireland earlier. You know Colins, don't you?” Sahil asked him.

Rahul narrowed his eyes trying to recollect that name while pulling his blue jeans over his waist.

“He's the grocer half a mile down south of here. His daughter doesn't in the least look like him and neither like his wife. My bet is she must be from his first wife whom he left back in Ireland to settle here with the current hag. Some were almost saying how a thing as dreadful as Colins could produce something so beautiful… hahaha,” Sahil laughed.

Rahul showed no interest. Apparently, Sahil was talking about the owner of a small store he had visited a couple of times to buy cigarette packets.

“That girl Rosie who had the hots for you, remember?” Sahil asked.

Rahul gave no look of remembrance.

“Well, she's currently settled with that burly Joe. I saw them making out in his car parked at the back of the school,” Sahil informed.

Rahul laughed inside, the same girl had come to him and had asked him to come over her place in the evening. Rahul had just looked in her eyes until it had unsettled her and she had walked off calling him a ‘weirdo'.

“That gorilla had a committed girl, you know? Kathleen, from
the ninth grade. She was like into him, like totally crazy and in walked the bitch and the ape dumped Kathleen for her. Ha, imagine!” Sahil sighed.

Rahul looked at him. Something stirred in the vast reservoirs of
his past.

“She was like broken, they say. But she has a friend named Nick in the neighbourhood. She hangs out with him. She'll get over it eventually... I hope. Imagine walking in at your boyfriend's place to find another girl seated on his lap, ha! Ridiculous, you will say, I know but that's what happened and…”

Rahul did not hear further. He felt his mind go hazy, a picture trying to form, a puzzle rearranging itself.

“Hey, you all right?” Sahil looked at him with wide eyes.

Rahul nodded after a brief while. He had stopped trying to push in the belt and was staring into the ceiling.

“I have some important work to do, I'll catch you later,” Rahul said, almost pushing Sahil out.

“What the hell! What got into you all of a sudden? We're supposed to visit Franklin Mall,” Sahil reminded.

“Nothing happened. I just remembered some important work, that's all,” Rahul said, pulling him towards the door.

“Some favourite radio program or something? Some chick on Power 99 that you want to listen to, eh?” Sahil asked, annoyed.

Rahul looked at him quietly in response.

“Isn't it rude? You make plans with me and then you ditch me,” Sahil complained.

“We'll go some other time and even if I didn't come, you're going to carry on alone, so go ahead,” Rahul said gruffly.

“That's not fair, you're doing this on my birthday but still buddy, I'll go alone,” Sahil said.

Rahul groaned.

“Ok, that's not going to work this time, I know. God knows, what happened! I'll come tomorrow, we have got to do math. Don't forget. Bye,” Sahil waved from outside the door as Rahul subtly pushed him off.

‘Imagine walking in your boyfriend's place to find another girl seated on his lap, ha!'

Sahil's words echoed in his mind and with each successive echo, the window in his mind opened up, the haze lifted ever so slowly that the air of recollection drifted in. He felt giddy and had to lie down completely on the bed to steady himself before the fog lifted. The memory of the events that changed his life forever overtook him.

“I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of golden sand

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep – while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?”

-A Dream withing a Dream, Edgar Allen Poe.

It was a week now and Rahul sensed a ray of hope in his love life as Seema's reactions to him completely changed. She herself came to meet him a couple of times during the break but for short periods. It brought to him the old joy of seeing her again. They would not get time to talk much with each other but no one was complaining. It was as if the passion was reignited.

Rahul wanted to clear all the past misconceptions but was waiting for the appropriate time. Such elaborate relationship talks could not have been done in the ten minutes they found with each other, surrounded by noisy, meddling classmates. She had asked him not to call at her place as her mother was keeping a strict eye on her activities and he kept that in mind.

One of those days Seema bumped into him near the third-floor staircase, he held her hand and pulled her back so that they would not be in the eye contact of anyone who passed by.

“Seema, I just wanted to say sorry for…” he started.

“Shhh!” she kept a finger over his lips. “Forget it all,” was all she said, looking into his eyes.

“We should discuss…” he began again.

“There's nothing to be discussed, your sorry was enough for me. I don't need to know why and what and bring all those things to my mind again. Just don't repeat it, that's all,” she said softly.

Rahul wanted to say more but his mind was working only on the words that escaped her mouth. He kept gazing at her innocence until she blushed and ran away, turning to look at him one final time before she disappeared into her class. He felt a sweetly poisoned arrow, pierce his heart again and again when she did that.

***

“So you and Seema are on again?” one of Rahul's classmates asked him the next day in the school compound while they were going down for physical training.

“Huh?” Rahul looked at him. The guy was Praveen, a part of the rival group and his sudden interest in Rahul's life did not
help matters.

“Why do you need to know?” Rahul asked, arrogantly.

“Just…” he said before trotting ahead, “…got my answer,” he completed to himself, before winking at a tall spectacled boy standing in the corner, watching the proceedings.

The next day, Seema asked Rahul to wait for her after school in the class itself. The corridor and classrooms were deserted and Seema came as soon as her classmates took leave. She looked at him for a while before speaking.