Will She Be Mine (2 page)

The movies were a good way to live a virtual life, away from the pressures of boring assignments, tough exams and horrible grades. It was the time to freak out. In those days, this large lecture theater L-7 served the dual purpose of a classroom as well as auditorium. There were several other lecture rooms starting from L-1 which were quite big too, but none came close to L-7 in size. Apparently, many years later a much needed auditorium was actually built at this academic institute.

At college I naturally liked most things other than studies. I joined the photography club where I learned to wash film negatives in a darkroom and print photos, picked up lawn tennis, played table tennis, frolicked in the joy of spending late hours in the hostel canteens with friends- often up to 2 or 3 AM in the mornings- discussing philosophy, material goals and the yearnings of teens with the like minded, and occasionally also traveled over weekends to meet my grandparents in a nearby city called Lucknow when not visiting my parents in Delhi.

Lucknow was less than sixty miles away from Kanpur and involved a rickety bus ride of two hours or a journey of over an hour by train. I usually preferred Fridays once a month for my travel and boarded the evening train which ferried office goers between Kanpur and Lucknow.

Gradually, I started looking forward to the late night canteen sessions in the hostel. We called them
bullah
sessions, where restless souls gabbed away with dreamy eyes for hours on topics passionately close to their hearts- girls, grades, creative urges, money, fame, or anything else riding the current wave.

What was irreconcilable was the passion with which my friends switched mental gears and tore into their lecture notes and textbooks after returning to their hostel rooms. I never understood how they could rapidly abandon, so dispassionately, the lingering taste of our wonderful discussions. I could never be like them. The canteen discussions would continue playing on my mind, more graphically than ever in the solitude of my room. I often took them to bed and sometimes into my dreams as well! Everything usually left a deep imprint on my psyche, including the pondies- as porn magazines were called by the boys- which frequently did rounds of the boys’ hostels. I was sometimes also blessed with uncensored dreams of the stuff I encountered while flipping through the pages of the adult magazines.

But most of the time I liked to sit back on my bed and think about my interactions with Shalini or how she had looked at me on a particular day and whether there was any deeper significance to her stare. It was a pleasure to let my mind run wild to the days of my past, right back into my schooldays.

Back then, in my school days of courtship with her, one could call me a mixed breed for I had many tastes but not the time or energy to pursue or do justice to any single one profitably. During my high school years till class 12
^th
, I’d developed a fascination for oil painting, writing lyrics, and even composing some drab musical tunes which fell dismally short of my goal of aping my idol, R. D. Burman, besides looking up homeopathic remedies for ailments or studying religious scriptures once in a while. Ironically, formal higher education later tried breeding me into an engineer by profession. But for me there were enough reasons to think of myself as the century's undiscovered wonder boy.

I daydreamed of achieving fame and glory someday in the not-so-distant future- without thought as to how I’d do it- and imagined how impressed my girl would be by any such rise in my stature. I often lay down in bed and thought about the brief chats I used to have with her and wondered if she thought about me too...

“Shalini, have you heard of Leonardo Da Vinci?” I remembered asking her on one occasion while solving a mathematics problem for her.

She nodded, waiting for me to go on.

“He was a genius from Italy, known as a Renaissance polymath?”

“What’s that?”

“He was a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, and scientist- practically everything one can think of. A mathematician, engineer, inventor, botanist, and writer too.”

“Wow.”

“It’s rare to find such a creative combination in one single person,” I said with pride, happy to share my stock of knowledge. She seemed impressed. “He was mainly renowned as a painter though.”

She nodded, picking up her book, without asking why I was telling her all this. Before she could flip it open, I quickly spoke up.

“I wish I was living in his time, painting by his side.” It was a broad hint to discuss my interest in painting, before moving on to my other interests- in music, writing, medicine and spirituality- and effectively show her how I was a polymath kind of person myself, hopefully with fame to follow me soon as well.

“You do come up with weird ideas, RK,” was her rejoinder, discouraging further discussion on the topic. “Don’t ever talk of going back into the past.”

I felt at a loss for words. How had I offended her? It was the last thing I’d imagined to do with my harmless comment. “I only meant that I’ve many of the same interests,” I explained timidly. “So-”

“Don’t misunderstand me, RK, but I’ve no interest in historical characters or history.”

“Well, I’ve no interest in history either,” I said hurriedly. “We’re on the same page regarding that. I was just trying to say I’ve many of the same interests.”

“I’m sure you have.” That was a rather unromantic way of looking at my rich skill-set. “I’ve an exam tomorrow,” she added ominously. “If you’re busy, I can go back home and try to manage things by myself.”

“No, no, Shalini, I’m not busy at all. I can never be busy for you.”

She looked at me with innocent eyes as if to ask if I was sure. I wanted to draw her close and kiss her. Who wanted to discuss history or my skills if she agreed to look at me like that every time we were together?

Her disinterest wasn’t difficult to fathom. Being a practical person, she tended to discard unproductive topics. Perhaps, by my very nature, I was too circumspect, approaching my goal in a roundabout way. Instead of telling her directly about the skills and qualities I possessed, I tried giving hints each time which she refused to take. I needed to develop more direct, effective ways of getting noticed, not just by her, but by others too. All my qualities were of no use if I remained unknown to the world. I was determined to not go by unnoticed like so many others.

While on the topic, I remembered with pride that once I had got an offer to paint for a foreign embassy in New Delhi. My parents were getting a couple of my oil paintings bound in gorgeous frames at a shop where an embassy official happened to catch a glimpse of my masterpieces. He asked them if I might agree to paint some of the walls at his embassy! I was away at college at the time, but when I later heard about the official's offer from my parents, I felt happy and flattered.

You’d have guessed by now that I was never interested in studies, despite getting an opportunity to study at a premier engineering college like MSIT. So it might come as a surprise that my disinclination for higher studies stood on an edifice of excellent academic abilities demonstrated throughout my middle and high school years. I mostly obtained first rank in academics at elementary school, and later in senior school too, right through class 12. Not that I was intelligent or full of initiative. Just that- out of habit- I meticulously avoided doing things in a manner that would give others an opportunity to point fingers at me. So I did things assiduously, to the point of being extremely disciplined and conscious lest I got ridiculed. I applied this principle to my studies as well as sports. Somehow, the attitude helped me excel.

It wasn’t at night alone that I dreamed of Shalini. I dreamed about her during the lectures in daytime too, barely noticing my professors prance about on the podium explaining deep concepts. My sinking grades amply reflected my lack of attention span during the lectures and tutorial sessions.

I sometimes wondered how I’d live without her, if I ever had to. I remembered the recent past when I was in class 12, ready to pass out of senior school with a heart full of love for her. She was in class 10 at that time, not too young either. I occasionally wondered about the cold shoulder treatment she habitually gave me. Was a tenth grader really all that young to have adult feelings? If I could appreciate the curves in her figure two years back when I was myself a young lad in class 10, why didn't she suspect anything of what went on in my mind and try to reciprocate when she herself reached class 10? I’d heard girls matured faster than boys. I could always help her if she faltered in her expressions, but she never showed any initiative.

The lack of responsiveness from her side left me with an uncomfortable feeling. I didn't like dwelling on the possibility that she didn't think of me romantically at all. Or worst still, she thought of someone else!

When I passed out of senior school, she was still struggling to cut through the boring academic quagmire of her 10
^th
class board exams, with a couple more years of school life left. It would turn out to be a long wait. I’d require all my patience, I decided, because after school she’d enroll in a college and waste another three precious years, before I could hope to come close to realizing my dream of matrimony with her.

I remembered before I got admission into the engineering course at MSIT, my father sometimes encouraged me not to worry if I didn’t get an opportunity in life to study engineering. So long as I was able to give my best to whatever course of study I pursued after high school, I could still gain people's respect. That did it. I gave my own spin to his advice.

I decided I’d try to win over Shalini's respect and admiration by qualifying for admission to MSIT. Education at an MSIT was attractive to most and was the usual ambition for any girl her age, unless she was interested in studying medicine.

But she’d once told me she wasn’t interested in the medical profession. Obviously, that left engineering as the only other likely option, since in traditional middle class families in those days- and even now to an extent- it was usual to aspire for higher studies in either medicine or engineering. In that sense, an engineering degree at one of the five MSITs was the crest jewel of all engineering educations.

With that in mind I took the plunge and prepared for the Ma Saraswati Institute Entrance Exam for admission to the MSITs. I had to win. I’d realize years later that this was my first real
fight
, against my own lethargy, lack of self confidence and usually low motivation level. But even with such a low key mental makeup, I always had this streak of determination in me- that when I set my mind on something there was no stopping me.

Thus I sailed through the entrance exams and was selected to study at MSIT, albeit with a poor rank. That didn’t hurt me as much as the subsequent realization that despite so much hard labor on my part, Shalini wasn't really interested in engineering or even impressed by my efforts! MSIT was just another college where some queer people studied and she couldn't have cared less. She was more interested in pursuing commonplace commerce or economics whenever it was her turn to enter college…

Sighing I snapped back to the present and got up to drink water, looking at my watch by holding it against the light streaming in from the lamp post outside my dark hostel room. It was rather late but I couldn’t get to sleep, tormented by her thoughts. The rest of the hostel seemed dead asleep. It didn’t matter. I’d skip the first couple of lectures in the morning. It wasn’t the first time I’d be doing so. Contented, I went back to my thoughts of her.

I didn't blame her for not appreciating my selection to a grand college like MSIT. She was still too young, unaware of the worldly ways and academic centers of excellence- which was no cause for worry. Her future was safe, as I hoped to marry her and protect her.

Doubt assailed me momentarily. Would I ever become her husband? There were few signs in the present to indicate that. Was she really all that young or did she not care about me at all, about what I did in life and how I felt? I quickly brushed aside the dangerous thoughts and tried to catch some sleep, otherwise the next day I’d end up missing all the lectures till lunch.

I’d pinned too many hopes of my future life with her to consider other alternatives. I’d either live my life with her or die, I decided. There was simply no question of a third choice.

I often visited her house as a good neighbor during my breaks from college, much to my mother's dislike. In contrast, her mother loved my visits and treated me to delicacies whenever I dropped by, sometimes prepared specially for me.

I suspected she looked forward to my visits somewhat, though over the years her fondness for me soured drastically. Whenever I visited their house before I lost her favor, she’d try to garner all my attention. During my visits to meet them, more often than not Shalini would be busy with something in the kitchen or browsing television channels, while I’d fidget around, trying to deal with her mother or sister, all the while hoping to catch her attention somewhere along.

Usually I’d sit on a chair, trying to divide my attention between her mother, or sister, or the nonsense on TV, and the attractiveness of Shalini's figure as she sat down with a plate of snacks to watch a program.

I tried to strike small conversations, but she either ignored me or gave an absentminded nod once in a while, with a soft, heartwarming smile that always stole my heart, as she remained primarily absorbed in her television program. She apparently didn’t have difficulties with her studies anymore, though I offered my services on more occasion than one. I hoped her smile wasn’t the tolerant courtesy one usually reserved for a hired home tutor who’d been paid to drop by.

Her kid sister, Ragini, was more cooperative in comparison and invariably hijacked the interaction with me from her sister and mother. She’d seize my presence as an opportunity to bounce her singing skills off me. Engaging her in chatter was easier, though that wasn't the purpose of my visits. I suspected she too waited, like her mother, for my visits, for musical reasons of her own.