Rediscovery of Kavya

For the next couple of days Vani did not turn up at the department and everybody, to my relief, assumed she was indeed not keeping well. However, I was not sure I had escaped unscathed and the thought kept nagging me like a shrew. Mohan kept on assuring me that nothing would come out of it, that Vani had come on the trip on her own volition and had everything that she did voluntarily. All the same, I wanted to make sure that I keep myself in a safe distance from Vani and for that I had to justify myself somehow. At first I thought of telling her that I was going steady with a girl from Belgaum, but then she would blame me even more, for keeping both the girls in the dark about my misdeeds. That too, only when she believed that there indeed was a girl in my life.

Why, I thought, I could show her a girl right in the university and say that I had fallen in love with her. But for that I had to find a girl who would be friendly enough with me in order to impress upon Vani. I was sitting right behind the girls in the classroom when these thoughts were crossing my mind. Yes, there was Saroja, but I somehow had a feeling that it would be unnecessarily hurting the feelings of Saroja because I was sure she would gladly accept if I proposed to her. I had gleaned from her ogles, sidelong glances, blushes and giggles that she had it for me, though it could well have been all in my imagination sprouting from my youthful arrogance.

Today Saroja however, was not present. Kalavati followed the professor as soon as he left the lecture hall; it was continuous effort on her part to impress upon the teachers that she was a very industrious, studious and sincere student that required her to visit the chambers of the teachers much too often with some problem or the other. Mohan had left for Gymkhana after the first lecture itself and Bhaskar had a brother visiting him the previous day and he had left for the Bus Station to see him off. All the boys had cleared the hall and I started singing “Khoobsoorat ho to ilzam-e-nazar le lena” a ghazal sung by Chandan Dass, set in Rag Hamsadhwani.

Suddenly I realized that I was not alone in the hall. Kavya was sitting with an open book on her laps but staring at me. Her eyes lit up when she realized that I had caught her gazing at me. With the brightest of her smiles she said, “You sing very well”

She wore a white salwar-kameez over which a crimson dupatta hung covering her shoulders and bosom. She’d big dark and dreamy eyes. For once I noticed that she had the fairest of complexion in our department. Unlike the other girls, she had parted her slightly wiry hair into two braids. Her forehead was wide and the bindi she wore on in was so small, it was hardly visible. The nose was narrow and straight and lips were full. One could easily have presumed that she was used to applying lipstick, for her lips had a natural shade of pink.

“How come I haven’t noticed that you are so attractive?” I said, but became apprehensive, expecting her to get angry.

She blushed and looked pleased but immediately took control of herself and said, “Is this line you always use?”

“I don’t remember to have said this to any girl in all my life. Believe me,” it was my turn to be embarrassed. I must have given that impression to all my classmates who had observed our group.

“You are interested in ghazals?” she changed the topic.

“A lot. And in music as well. Are you too?” I asked her.

She nodded, pulling her dupatta over her shoulders. “I have read Ghalib, ‘Jigar’ Morodabadi, Meer, and even Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’“ I tried to impress her, though I had read only fragments of the works of these poets. I made all efforts to pronounce those names properly.

“How can you read them? Are you familiar with the script?” she seemed genuinely interested.

“They are available in Devanagari script, with footnotes containing meanings of difficult words”

“Are they indeed? I would like to read one myself”

“I can get you one. I have got ‘Deewan-e-Ghalib”

“Thanks. Are you waiting for the optional class?”

“Yes, I am glad I am. Otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed you!”

She blushed again and started making scratching the ground with her toe. A peon entered the hall and informed that there would be no lectures in the afternoon as the teachers would be having some meeting. “Well, then there is no need for both of us to wait,” I said leaning on the desk, closer to her. She stood up with a start, gathered her purse and looked at me expecting that I would let her go. She couldn’t go from the other end of the desk as it was blocked by the wall. A mild perfume emanated from her which I recognized as that of a rose.

“I have to leave now or I will miss the bus,” she said imploring me to move away.

“Can I come along with you to the bus stop?” I asked, moving away from the desk. She didn’t reply but favoured me with a bright smile.

As we walked towards the stairs, I could feel the eyes of some of our classmates lingering in the corridors on my back. Despite feeling a bit unsettled by that I also felt proud to be walking with her, but she looked embarrassed although I didn’t expect her to be, having grown up in Dharwad city as she was. She was at least four inches shorter than me and wasn’t wearing high heels. I tried to walk very close to her and a couple of times her shoulder brushed against my arm, sending me into a tizzy! Why am I feeling like this? I asked myself. She became conscious of proximity to me and moved a little away, sending a faint note of disappointment in me.

“You are a local girl. Aren’t you? Have you learnt music?” I asked to keep our conversation going.

“No, never had a chance. But I love music.”

“Right here in the university, you could have joined for a diploma course in music,” I suggested.

“I don’t have time for that. I am not living on the campus you know,” she said looking up towards me, “Moreover, I come from a traditional family and have to account for every minute I spend out of my house.”

“Strange, indeed very strange,” I said pouring sympathy into my voice.

“Perhaps it won’t seem so strange if you know that I am the first graduate in my family”

“Don’t have brothers?”

“Two of them. Both are into our family business. Very tough guys,” she replied. I felt she was avoiding looking into my eyes while saying so.

We crossed the large statue of Goddess Saraswati and came out of the huge door. The road that led to the bus stop from there was free of vehicles and had a beautiful garden adjoining it. The authorities were growing roses in the vast area fenced on all sides. The roses of different colours - yellow, white, pink, red, and even orange- were in full blossom. The hedges were covered with bougainvillea

of different varieties. Both of our clothes fluttered by the cool breeze and it was sheet delight to watch her try to control her dupatta. At the same time her hair too was waving and she had to brush them aside from covering her eyes.

“Isn’t this beautiful out here?” I too combed my hair with my fingers. She didn’t reply. I could understand that she had now become even more conscious of walking with me. She was looking all around and hurried towards the bus stop as though she would miss it though there was none parked there. But as soon as we reached the bus stop, a bus came to a screeching halt and she boarded it without bidding me farewell, not even looking at me. I stood there till the bus packed with passengers left and vanished from my sight, feeling cheated, and deeply hurt.

*** *** ***

Vijay Forewarns

When I reached my room I found that the door was not latched and I entered without making any noise. Vijay was asleep, snoring lightly. I felt like talking to him badly. As I shook him awake, he sat upright with a start, and on finding that it was me, relaxed, rubbed his eyes and stretched his limbs. “God, it is you! Where the hell had you been?” he asked.

“I will tell you everything. But first tell me why are you sleeping keeping the door open?” I asked him a question in reply. It was not that I was worried about keeping the door unbolted while sleeping, for I knew for sure there was hardly a thing to be stolen and whatever were stolen in the hostel were lifted through the window using a hook at night. I was embarrassed to face him, ridden with guilt as I was. He never kept any secrets from me and I had deceived him by concealing something I knew before I left for that unforgettable trip. Without knowing myself for sure, I had insinuated that I was going on a date and it indeed had turned out to be a date, nay, a honeymoon of sorts. I needed some time to organize my thoughts and decide what to tell him and how.

“I had been for jogging with Bhaskar and Suresh. When I came back, I was tired and drifted into sleep.”

“Surprise! Surprise! You guys have started jogging? That’s very nice! But don’t you feel you are too old for jogging? It’s enough if you just walk a couple miles!” I teased him.

“So you have joined the other buffoons who tease me on my age?” he said without minding my jive and got up from the bed. I lit a cigarette without offering him one, knowing well that he didn’t smoke. But he surprised me by asking for one.

“Mama, while I was away, you have grown up!” I teased him, lighting his cigarette. He inhaled and coughed; his eyes were filled with water.

“My dear brother, I used to smoke earlier. You keep forgetting that I have been the headmaster of the school in which you are a student,” he tried to joke.

“Yes, it shows!” I snapped.

“I’ve found out that cigarettes help in concentrating on what I read,” he tried to explain. I nodded without agreeing with him.

“Well, what’s your story? You’ve been away for three days. So was Mohan. Even Nirupama and Vani had gone missing. I already know part of the story,” he said looking into my eyes.

“Ah! Anybody can put two and two together and arrive at a wrong conclusion!”

“True, but there was no chance of arriving at a wrong conclusion in this case! But in this case two and two were definitely put together!” I couldn’t but smile at his attempt at making a pun.

“Mama, I didn’t know where I was going the day Mohan asked me to meet him at the bus stop. Nor did I know that the girls were coming too. It was totally unexpected. First they said we’d been invited by Saroja to her house. We did go to her house. But later they took me to Jog Falls,” I tried to give him a watered down version, “That’s why I couldn’t tell you where I was going.”

“You need not be apologetic Harsha. But tell me in detail what happened. I am really curious to know.”

Now I knew that he couldn’t be so easily satisfied, that I could not stave him off lightly, that he could easily make out what I wouldn’t tell him and above all Mohan was going to tell everybody anyway. When Mohan gave his version, which he usually did when he was high on liquor, it would all be a mixture of facts and fiction, colourful and humourous. It was better that I told about me myself rather than letting Mohan do it. I narrated every detail to Vijay taking care to skip erotic and sensual portions, which he would anyway imagine the way he liked.  He heard everything with utmost interest and rapt attention, asking questions wherever he required clarifications or more details and seemed to enjoy every bit of it.

“What do you say? In all this I was an unwilling partner and I want to take it off my mind as soon as possible,” I said at the end.

He threw the butt of the cigarette out of the window and smiled, “Harsha, you have played into her hands”

“Whose hands?”

“Dear, you may be well aware that the girls in the ladies’ hostel often used to discuss about you and you are generally considered not easily accessible. Vani boasted always that you are one of her closest friends and had challenged a couple of girls that she would conquer you, vanquish you and make you dance to her tune, or to use her own words, “to take you in” in just under a week.”

“What? I can’t believe girls would talk like this. Where did you hear this?”

“Wrong question. Instead the question should have been ‘why didn’t you warn me’”

“That would have followed. But who told you this?”

“I heard it from a girl from my place, who stays in the same hostel. I didn’t tell it to you for I didn’t myself believe it and I thought it was just a gossip, worthless and trifle.’”

“Would you believe that the girls can talk about the boys the way you describe Vani talking about me?”

“Maybe all girls won’t talk. But I am talking about Vani and the likes of her” I could feel the contempt in his tone.

“Alright. It means I have made a fool of myself. Doesn’t it?”

“It also means she was right about her prowess.”

“You know, there is an old saying that whether the thorn touches the flower or the flower touches the thorn, only the flower is going to be torn.”

“As long as she is a flower and you are a thorn, it doesn’t matter,” he said feelingly, “but if it turns out to be the other way round…” He deliberately left the sentence incomplete.

He was suggesting that she may turn out to be a thorn in my side. It may sound absurd to those of the present generation, born and brought up in the age of hundreds of TV channels, mobile and internet; but during those times when traditions had not diluted and the values had not eroded, whether they were right or wrong, mattered a lot. They were deeply ingrained in the whole generation of youths like me. We could be easily branded as male chauvinist pigs. In my case it wasn’t exactly a battle between tradition and modernity, but a deeply emotional matter concerning all the dreams that lived in my young heart and oozed from my eyes.

“It may not turn out to be as bad as you make it to be,” I said, trying to brush aside his portentous statement.

“I sincerely hope so, dear. I do sincerely hope so!” he replied grimly.

*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*

Coming back...

I am suddenly catapulted to the present as the waiter clears the plate deliberately making noise as if to remind me that I had already paid the bill and I must make space for others. I look around and find that there are still a very few customers. I call the waiter back and order another drink. He seems to be used to customers like me for he gives a bored expression trying to avoid looking at me and turns away to bring my order shouting something at a fellow waiter.

As I lift my cell phone to know the time, it starts ringing. I press answer and say ‘Harsha’ instead of ‘hello’.

“I know you are somewhere in Hubli. Aren’t you?” I hear the familiar voice of Pavan. How does he know that I am here? I am puzzled but regret that I cannot lie to him. He is sure to have called Bhaskar, who knew that Nirupama was coming to meet me. Bhaskar has always had this weakness of telling others that he is the securest repository of secrets but always letting all the secrets out, more often than not after adding sufficient masala of his own.

“Yes. I was about to call you. Are you free?”

“Always free for you. Where are you?”

I give him my location. “That’s very good. I am hardly half a kilometer from the hotel. Wait for me,” he says before disconnecting.

Yes, those were the three days that made me what I am today I almost say it aloud but feeling embarrassed I look around to see if anyone is watching me talk to myself. I find nobody is looking. Why anyone would care? I start brooding again. Not all the three days, but the moment when I exploded was what made me what I am today. Could it have been different? Only if I had refused to follow Mohan, only if I had a stronger will to say no, only if… It released the Satan in me, or did it? Greed, lust, wrath, ego, envy were all inherent in my personality, however suppressed by the veneer of values and culture they might have been. In fact I could find these very things in Mohan, Bhaskar, Pavan and a host other friends that I made during my stay on the campus, the only difference being I was more conscious of these qualities, or rather vices as I was wont to ascribe them. But I was still neither better nor more mature than the members of the group into which I was drawn, like a shred of straw is into the vortex of a typhoon.

The last night of the tour was the breaking point in my story, thereafter something changed so fundamentally deep inside me, that even today I am unable to comprehend what it was.

The waiter comes and places my drink on the table. I remember that Pavan is coming and I will have to drink with him too. So I must slow down. I decide against taking a swish and start looking at the entrance. He arrives on a bike, spots me immediately even before he parks it and waves enthusiastically at me. I try to remember how he looked during the campus days and find it too difficult. He must have gained at least a dozen kilos of weight, mostly in the form of fat deposited on his paunch that now protruded pushing his trousers down. He still wears dark glasses that used to be fashionable back then, but now he wears then only while riding his bike. He looks around the whole place before entering, like a college student entering a bar stealthily. It irritates me every time my friends do this, as if they were committing a crime entering the premises where liquor or non vegetarian food is served, though those they are trying to avoid would be in some other bar going through the same ritual!

I wanted to be left alone today but it was not to be so. Instead of coming straight to me, Pavan goes to the washroom. I know this too is a ritual with him. He would take at least quarter of an hour to have a leak, wash his hands thoroughly, then wash his face, wipe it clean with his handkerchief, neatly fold and keep it back in his trouser pocket and draw a comb… and so on!

Unable to resist the temptation to take a swig of my drink, I pour soda water into the whiskey and take a big sip. It indeed was my lowest point, I remember those moments when I lowered my guard and became what I am today…

The Third Room-mate

“Who were those guys?” I inquired the moment we reached the first floor.

“They were our super-seniors in the college. Tough guys. The dark one who talked to you is Sadanand Mane. He has finished his master’s in Sociology and now he is doing MSW. The tall fellow has finished his M.Lib. Another persons who looks like a wrestler is Javed; he has left his job as a security officer in some private industry and is now doing MSW.” Mohan said.

“It is not ragging what they are doing today. It is their routine. Every now and then, they entertain themselves like this. Last week, after midnight, they were knocking the doors of all rooms. If the light were on, they would scold the person for unnecessarily burning the electricity. If it were off, they would accuse the tenants of being lazy. ‘Have you come here to sleep, you creep?’ they would shout. ‘You better study, sonny, your parents are toiling like donkeys in the farms to keep you here and you are dreaming of pussies in your warm bed?’ They kept doing this for quite a while.” Bhaskar added.

“What if somebody complains to the Warden?” I regretted the moment I asked it. It was very naïve of me. “Bhaskar laughed before saying, “ Nothing happens man. It won’t help. They are more close to the Warden than all others. The Warden would want to keep them in good humour as long as he can. After all these are all minor irritants to the university authorities, so long as they are restricted to the hostel.”

“Ok. Let us call it a day,” Vijay suggested. We all agreed and said good night to each other. Vijay and I walked towards our wing.

I wanted to knock at the door of our room, but Vijay just pushed it. The door was open. Our third roommate was fast asleep.

I was awoken next morning by some strange sounds mixed with those of the opening and closing of the windows with a bang. I got up and sat on the bed. Vijay was not there in the room. The third roommate stood by the window, and was spitting out. There was only a towel wrapped around his waist. He was a short, lean fellow of a complexion that could be said to be a shade lighter than dark. He had already bathed, but still looked as if he had bathed a month ago. Above that he was trying to bring up the phlegm by making sounds that one makes when about to puke. Abominating. I thought. I also felt he was overdoing it deliberately. There are some people whom you begin to hate on first sight, just as you may like, or fall in love at first sight. He obviously belonged to the second category. Although he saw me getting up and sitting on the bed, he did not even smile at me. He totally ignored my presence and went about his business as if nobody was witnessing him. He continued puking and sitting through the window for some time and later went out of the room with just the old towel hanging around his waist. What the hell! I couldn’t help getting angry.

The door opened and Vijay entered saying “Good Morning partner” with a smile. I felt better that at least Vijay was there with me in the room. How can you stay in any place with oddly behaving strangers? “There is a queue for hot water. You better come along. I will show you my bucket in the queue,” he said. “Thanks man. Yesterday, we should have first purchased the bucket and the mug in the market.” I said gathering my clothes and toothbrush.

There was queue not only for hot water, but also for getting into bathroom. There were about 6 bathrooms for each wing and the same number of toilet blocks. A huge water heater was installed in the bathing block and we were supposed to fill our buckets from the tap jetting out of the water heater one by one. There were only a couple of buckets ahead of mine. The guys in the bathrooms were singing loudly, yelling would be more appropriate. One guy stood before the large mirror making faces and examining every inch of his face, while simultaneously scratching his groins shamelessly. Oh my! I was going to have to live with all these people! I left out a deep sigh.

When I got back to my room, Vijay was already dressed in a full-sleeved shirt of cream colour, tucked into a dark pants. Our third roommate entered along with another boy, a frail, dark fellow wearing a Kurta over his pants. He ignored both of us, again went to the window, pushed it open with a thud, and “yaa..aak..thoo!” he spat. There was frown on Vijay’s face and I too scowled. But there was a satirical grin on the faces of our third roommate and his friend.

I dressed silently and wore my shoes before spraying brut to my armpits and collars. The third roommate made a crooked nose as if he smelled something fetid. Vijay and I collected our keys before leaving the room.

“What is the problem with him? Who is he?” I asked Vijay.

“His name is Jogesh Gaudar. He is from history department. I don’t know what is wrong with him. But it seems he is a nasty fellow.”

“He is so frail and effete that he can’t even stand a simple punch. He will have to be carried straight to the hospital. But the way he behaves, I would love to kick the shit out of him.” I said, as if I were used to bullying, by punching and kicking people.

“I know you would, but it is better if you wouldn’t”

After some thinking, I added, “May be he doesn’t want a third person in the room. May be he is resenting my coming.”

“No, I don’t think so. His behaviour has been the same even before you came.”

“How can you tolerate the bastard?” I asked with some rage.

“Can’t help. I just ignore him. I have been spending much of my time outside my room” Vijay was calm.

We reached the hostel canteen. It was a rectangular hall huge in proportions. The portion at the end was converted into kitchen with a counter. The smell of Poori-bhaji, fried rice, upama and tea wafted in the air. Mohan and Bhaskar were sitting at the table near the counter. There was someone else with him. In fact, two were there. One was a guy of medium height and average looks. His eyes displayed a perpetual feeling of eagerness and humility. Another person was tall and well built, somewhat on the side of being obese. He had cheeks that were well filled in.

As we approached the counter, Mohan raised his right hand to greet us. We paid to the proprietor for the plastic tokens, after producing which we got our plates filled with upama and a cup of tea each. We joined Mohan and others at their table. “This is Virupakshappa and this is Suresh Hiremath,” Bhaskar introduced the other guys. “ They are also from our department,” he added. I introduced myself to them, without shaking hands since my hands were not free. Vijay already knew them.

Virupakshappa was the taller one. He was from Raichur, but he had finished his graduation in one of the reputed colleges of Dharwad. Suresh was from some village near Ranebennur, and had studied in Ranebennur. He had taken a break for a couple of years to work with his father and elder brothers, helping them run a canteen in Haveri. They were roommates and their room was immediately next to that of Mohan and Bhaskar.

Bhaskar had finished his breakfast and had somehow gotten hold of a newspaper. He was reading it with rapt attention and at the same time taking sips of tea. Mohan saw that Vijay and I were fully dressed, ready to go the university, and commented, “Why are you ready so early? We have a class at 11.”

“We have nothing better to do. So we just got out” said Vijay.

“In fact, we are escaping from the vulgar behaviour of our third roommate.” I said.

“What is wrong with his behaviour?” Mohan asked.

Vijay was unwilling to reveal anything and wanted me too to clam up. But now that I had opened the matter, he had to join me in describing how Jogesh had been irritating us.

After breakfast, we went to Mohan’s room and lighted cigarettes. Vijay, Virupakshappa, and Suresh did not smoke. They had all become close to each other and addressing each other in singular. However, all of them addressed me in plural and I too kept addressing them in plural. In English we do not have any such difference. Only you start addressing the other person with first name if he is close to you. I had, somehow, always resented somebody addressing me by my first name, or talking to me in singular. I had only two friends back in Belgaum who could talk to me in intimate terms, because they had been my classmates in the junior college. It never occurred to me that I had a difficulty in socialising, nor did I ever even consider it a problem.

It is indeed very difficult to say, when this hubristic attitude affected me. At times I felt that it was a classic case of superiority complex with deep roots in the awareness of some foibles in me. But I would not, nay, could not confess to it and try to change it. It must have set in when I joined the junior college, where I soon discovered that I was far too much grown up to be in the company of the boys. I had read so much already while in the junior college, while other boys could not even write a sentence in their own mother-tongue, without any mistakes, either spelling or grammatical.

I was the only one to have opted for arts courses despite having scored seventy plus in the matriculation examinations. It was totally against the trend. Everyone wanted to join the science courses with an aim to become either a doctor or an engineer. Luckily unlike the other parents who were pressurizing their children into becoming doctors or engineers, my parents trusted my abilities and endorsed the choice I had made. I would never do anything, which I was not sure to do properly and more importantly, do it better than others. I knew that I would have made a very bad doctor, or a very bad engineer. Even if I did succeed, I would be nothing above mediocrity. I was interested in language, literature, history, music, geography and philosophy. I was to discover later, that I liked political science better and could excel in it.

By the time I joined the degree college, the fact that a degree in arts is hardly sufficient to get me a proper job had dawned upon me. But it was the pursuit of knowledge, hunger for reading more and more, desire to stand out of the crowd, propelled me into the whirlpool of beliefs, inhibitions, predilections, ideologies and ideals. I was abnormal, though I thought at the time, that I was above normal, the normal being the pursuit of material happiness.

When all other boys were indulging in earthly enjoyments like wearing fine, trendy clothes, racing on bikes, pursuing girls, going to tours and picnics, I had denied my self all mundane pleasures. I felt this hedonistic life style was not worth pursuing. Allthesame, though I could not even confess it to myself, I did have the feeling of jealousy. While I pitied their ignorance, looked at their lethargy and mediocrity with disdain, I also felt left out…far behind, sometimes. The intellectual eagerness that was intrinsic to my nature, my industry, integrity and intelligence caught the eyes of my teachers, but the other students, with a very few exceptions, were blissful, joyous, and unmindful of their future. Today is what we have, who has seen tomorrow? And anyway, who cares? This was the outlook prevalent. Why did I need to be an exception? True that I liked the appreciation that was bestowed on me by the teachers, parents and relatives. Sometimes, even by a few classmates. But I was not in the mainstream. I wanted to be in the mainstream. At least now!

Stop all self-adulation. Be gregarious. Belong to a group. I kept telling myself.