Five Point Someone (Chapter 1 to 4)

Prologue 

I had never been inside an ambulance before. It was kind of creepy. Like a hospital was suddenly asked to pack up and move. Instruments, catheters, drips and a medicine box surrounded two beds. There was hardly any space for me and Ryan to stand even as Alok got to sprawl out. I guess with thirteen fractures you kind of deserve a bed. The sheets were originally white, which was hard to tell now as Alok's blood covered every square inch of them. Alok lay there unrecognizable, his eyeballs rolled up and his tongue collapsed outside his mouth like an old man without dentures. Four front teeth gone, the doctor later told us.

His limbs were motionless, just like his father’s right side, the right knee bent in a way that would make you think Alok was boneless. He was still, and if I had to bet my money, I'd have said he was dead.

"If Alok makes it through this, I will write a book about our crazy days. I really will," I swore. It is the kind of absurd promise you make to yourself when you are seriously messed up in the head and you haven't slept for fifty hours straight. . . 

1 

Bare Beginnings 

BEFORE I REALLY BEGIN THIS BOOK, LET ME FIRST TELL you what this book is not. It is not a guide on how to live through college. On the contrary, it is probably an example of how screwed up your college years can get if you don't think straight. But then this is my take on it, you're free to agree or disagree. I expect Ryan and Alok, psychos both of them, will probably kill me after this but I don't really care. I mean, if they wanted their version out there, they could have written one themselves. But Alok cannot write for nuts, and Ryan, even though he could really do whatever he wants, is too lazy to put his bum to the chair and type. So stuff it boys—it is my story, I am the one writing it and I get to tell it the way I want it. 

Also, let me tell you one more thing this book is certainly not. This book will not help you get into IIT. I think half the trees in the world are felled to make up the IIT entrance exam guides. Most of them are crap, but they might help you more than this one will.

Ryan, Alok and I are probably the last people on earth you want to ask about getting into IIT. All we would say as advice is, if you can lock yourself in a room with books for two years and throw away the key, you can probably make it here. And if your high school days were half as miserable as mine, disappearing behind a pile of books will not seem like such a bad idea. My last two years in school were living hell, and unless you captained the basketball team or played the electric guitar since age six, probably yours were too. But I don't really want to get into all that.

I think I have made my disclaimers, and it is time for me to commence. 

Well, I have to start somewhere, and what better than the day I joined the Indian Institute of Technology and met Ryan and Alok for the first time; we had adjacent rooms on the second floor of the Kumaon hostel. As per tradition, seniors rounded us up on the balcony for ragging at midnight. I was still rubbing my eyes as the three of us stood to attention and three seniors faced us. A senior named Anurag leaned against a wall. Another senior, to my nervous eye, looked like a demon from cheap mythological TV shows—six feet tall, over a hundred kilos, dark, hairy, and huge teeth that were ten years late meeting an orthodontist. Although he inspired terror, he spoke little and was busy providing background for the boss, Baku, a lungi-clad human toothpick, and just as smelly is my guess.

"You bloody freshers, dozing away eh? Rascals, who will give an introduction?" he screamed.

"I am Hari Kumar sir. Mechanical Engineering student, All India Rank 526." I was nothing if not honest under pressure.

"I am Alok Gupta sir. Mechanical Engineering, Rank 453," Alok said as I looked at him for the first time. He was my height, five feet five inches—in short, very short—and had these thick, chunky glasses on. His portly frame was covered in neatly ironed white kurta-pajamas.

"Ryan Oberoi, Mechanical Engineering, Rank 91, sir," Ryan said in a deep husky voice and all eyes swung to him.

Ryan Oberoi, I repeated his name again mentally. Now here was a guy you don't see in IIT too often; tall, with spare height, purposefully lean and unfairly handsome. A loose gray T-shirt proclaimed 'GAP’ in big blue letters on his chest and shiny black shorts reached his knees. Relatives abroad for sure, I thought. Nobody wears GAP to bed otherwise.

"You bastards," Baku was shrieking, "Off with your clothes."

"Aw Baku, let us talk to them a bit first," protested Anurag, leaning against the wall, sucking a cigarette butt.

"No talking!" Baku said, one scrawny hand up. "No talking, just remove those damn clothes."

Another demon grinned at us, slapping his bare stomach every few seconds. There seemed to be no choice so we surrendered every item of our clothing, shivering at the unholy glee in Baku's face as he walked by each of us, checking us out and grinning.

Nakedness made the difference between our bodies more stark as Alok and me drew figures on the floor with deeply embarrassed toes, trying to be casual about our twisted balloon figures. Ryan's body was flawless, man, he was a hunk; muscles that cut at the right places and a body frame that for once resembled the human body shown in biology books. You could describe his body as sculpture. Alok and I, on the other hand, weren't exactly what you'd call art.

Baku told Alok and me to step forward, so the seniors could have better view and a bigger laugh.

"Look at them, mothers fed them until they are ready to explode, little Farex babies," Baku cackled.

The demon joined him in laughter. Anurag smiled behind a burst of smoke as he extinguished another cigarette, creating his own special effects.

"Sir, please sir, let us go sir," Alok pleaded to Baku as he came closer.

"What? Let you go? We haven't even done anything yet to you beauties. C'mon bend down on all fours now, you two fatsos."

I looked at Alok's face. His eyes were invisible behind those thick, bulletproof spectacles, but going by his contorted face, I could tell he was as close to tears as I was.

"C'mon, do what he says," the demon admonished. He and Baku seemed to share a symbiotic relationship; Baku needed him for brute strength, while the servile demon needed him for directions.

Alok and I bent down on all fours. More laughter, this time from above our heads, ensued. The demon suggested racing both of us, his first original opinion in a while but Baku overrode him.

"No racing-vacing, I have a better idea. Just wait, I have to go to my room. And you naked cows, don't look up."

Baku raced up the corridor as we waited for twenty tense seconds, gazing at the floor. I glanced sideways and noticed a small water puddle adjacent to Alok's head, droplets falling from his eye.

Meanwhile, the demon made Ryan flex his muscles and make warrior poses. I am sure he looked photogenic, but didn't dare look up to verify.

Our ears picked up Baku's hurried steps as he returned.

"Look what I got," he said, holding up his hands.

"Baku, what the hell is that for...?" Anurag enquired as we turned our heads up.

In each of his hands, Baku held an empty Coke bottle. "Take a wild guess," he said as he clanged the bottles together, making suggestive gestures.

Face turning harder, arms still in modelling pose, Ryan spoke abruptly, "Sir, what exactly are you trying to do?"

"What, isn't it obvious? And who the hell are you to ask me?" choked Baku.

"Sir, stop," Ryan said, in a louder voice.

"Fuck off," Baku dismissed, disbelief writ large in his widened eyes at this blatant rebellion against his age-old authority.

As Baku put the bottles in position, Ryan abandoned his pin-up pose and jumped. Catching him unawares, he grabbed the two bottles and stamped hard on Baku's feet. Baku released his hands and the bottles were with Ryan, James Bond style.

We knew that stomp hurt since Baku's scream was ultrasonic.

"Get this bastard," Baku shrieked in agony.

The demon's IQ was clouded by the events but his ears registered the command for action and he had just collected himself in response when Ryan smashed the two Coke bottles on the balcony parapet. Each bottle now was butt-broken, and he waved the jagged ends in air.

"Come, you bastards," Ryan swore, his face scarlet like a watermelon slice. Baku and the demon retreated a few paces. Anurag, who had been smouldering in the backdrop, snapped to attention. "Hey, cool it everyone here. How did this happen? What is your name—Ryan, take it easy man. This is just fun."

"It's not fun for me," growled Ryan, "Just get the hell out of here."

Alok and I looked at each other. I was hoping Ryan knew what he was doing. I mean sure, he was saving our ass from a Coke bottle, but broken Coke bottles could be a lot worse.

"Listen yaar," Anurag started as Ryan cut him short.

"Just get lost," Ryan shouted so hard that Baku seemed to blow away just from the impact. Actually, he was shuffling backward slowly and steadily till he was almost flying in his haste to get away, the demon following suit. Anurag stood there gaping al Ryan for a while and then looked at us.

"Tell him to control himself. Or one day he will take you guys down too," Anurag said.

Alok and I got up and wore our clothes. "Thanks Ryan, I was really scared," Alok said, as he removed his spectacles to wipe snot and tears, face to face with his hero at last.

There is a reason why they say men should not cry, they just look so, like, ugly. Alok's spectacles were sad enough, but his baby-wet blubbery eyes were enough to depress you into suicide.

"Yes, thanks Ryan, some risk you took there. That Baku guy is sick. Though you think they would have done anything?" I said, striving for a cool I did not feel.

"Who knows? Maybe not," Ryan rotated a shoulder, "But you can never tell when guys get into mob mentality. Trust me, I have lived in enough boarding schools."

Ryan's heroics were enough to make us all bond faster than Fevicol. Besides, we were hostelite neighbours and in the same engineering department. They say you should not get into a relationship with people you sleep with on the first date. Well, though we hadn't slept together, we had seen each other naked at primary meet, so perhaps we should have refrained from striking up a friendship. But our troika was kind of inevitable. 

"M-A-C-H-I-N-E," the blackboard proclaimed in big bold letters.

As we entered the amphitheatre-shaped lecture room, we grabbed a pile of handouts each. The instructor sat next to the blackboard like a bloated beetle, watching us settle down, waiting for the huddled murmurs to cease.

He appeared around forty years of age, with gray hair incandescent from three tablespoons of coconut oil, wore an un-tucked light blue shirt and had positioned three pens in his front pocket, along with chalks, like an array of bullets.

"Welcome everyone.  I am Professor Dubey, Mechanical Engineering department . . . so, first day in college. Do you feel special?" he said in a monotone.

The class remained silent. We were busy scanning our handouts and feeling like a herd.

The course was Manufacturing Processes, often shortened to ManPro for easier pronunciation. The handouts consisted of the course outline. Contents covered the basic techniques of manufacturing—such as welding, machining, casting, bending and shaping. Along with the outline, the handout contained the grading pattern of the course.

Majors—40%

Minors— 20%

Practicals—20%

Assignments (6-8) and Surprise Quizzes (3-4) —20%

Prof Dubey noticed the limp response to his greeting and made his voice more exuberant. "Look at the handout later. Don't worry, you will get enough of these, one for every course. Put them aside now," he said as he stood up and walked toward the blackboard.

He took out a chalk from his pocket with a flourish celluloid-terrorists reserved for hand- grenades and underlined the word 'machine' approximately six times. Then he turned to us. "Machine, the basic reason for existence of any mechanical engineer. Everything you learn finds application in machines. Now, can anyone tell me what a machine is?"

The class fell even more silent. That's the first lesson: various degrees of silence.

"Anyone?" the professor asked again as he started walking through the rows of students. As the students on the aisles felt even more stalked and avoided eye contact, I turned around to study my new classmates. There must have been seventy of us in this class, three hundred of us in a batch. I noticed a boy in front of me staring at the instructor intently, his head moving to and fro, mouth ajar; a timid sort, whom Baku could polish off for snack any given day.

"You," Prof Dubey chose me as his first casualty.

It was the first time the condition struck me, where tongue cleaves unto dental roof, body freezes, blood vessels rupture and sweat bursts out in buckets.

"You, I am talking to you," the professor clarified.

"Hari, Hari . ." somebody  inside me called but could only get my answering machine. I could have attempted an answer, or at least a silly 'I don't know' but it was as if my mouth was AWOL.

"Strange," surmised Prof Dubey dubiously as he moved to another student.

"You in the check shirt. What do you think?"

Check Shirt had hitherto been pretending to take notes to escape the professor's glance. "Sir, Machine sir . . . is a device . . . like big parts . . . sir like big gears and all . . . "

"What?" Prof Dubey's disgust fell like spit on Check Shirt. "See, the standard just keeps falling every year. Our admission criteria are just not strict enough." He shook his oiled skull, the one that contained all the information in this planet, including the definition of machines.

"Yeah, right. Busted my butt for two years for this damn place. One in hundred is not good enough for them," Ryan whispered to me.

"Shshh," ordered Prof Dubey, looking at the three of us, "anyway, the definition of a machine is simple. It is anything that reduces human effort. Anything. So, see the world around you and it is full of machines."

Anything that reduces human effort, I repeated in my head. Well, that sounded simple enough.

"So, from huge steel mills, to simple brooms, man has invented so much to reduce human effort," the professor continued, as he noticed the class was mesmerized by his simple clarification.

"Airplane?" said one student in the front row.

"Machine," instructor said.

"Stapler," suggested another.

"Machine."

It really was amazing. A spoon, car, blender, knife, chair—students threw examples at the professor and there was only one answer—machine.

"Fall in love with the world around you," Prof Dubey smiled for the first time, "for you will become the masters of machines."

A feeling of collective joy darted through the class for having managed to convert Prof Dubey’s sour expression into smiles.

"Sir, what about a gym machine, like a bench press or something?" Ryan interrupted the bonhomie.

"What about it?" Prof Dubey stopped beaming.

"That doesn't reduce human effort. In fact, it increases it."

The class fell silent again.

"Well, I mean . . ." Prof Dubey said as he scouted for arguments.

Boy, did Ryan really have a point?

"Perhaps it is too simple a definition then?" Ryan said in a pseudo-helpful voice.

"What are you trying to do?" the professor asked tight-lipped as he came close to us again, "Are you saying that I am wrong?"

"No sir, I'm just . . ."

"Watch it son. In my class, just watch it," was all Prof Dubey said as he moved to the front.

"Okay, enough fun. Now, let us focus on ManPro," he said as he rubbed off the word 'machine' from the blackboard and the six underlines below it, "my course is very important. I am sure many professors will tell you about their courses. But I care about ManPro. So, don't miss class, finish your assignments and be prepared, a surprise quiz can drop horn the sky at any time."

He went on to tackle casting, one of the oldest methods of working with metal. After an hour on how iron melts and foundry workers pour it into sand moulds, he ended the session.

"That is it for today. Best of luck once again for your stay here. Remember, as your head of department Prof Cherian says, the tough workload is by design, to keep you on your toes.  And respect the grading system. You get bad grades, and I assure you—you get no job, no school and no future. If you do well, the world is your oyster. So, don't slip, not even once, or there will be no oyster, just slush."

A shiver ran through all of us as with that quote the professor slammed the duster on the desk and walked away in a cloud of chalk. 

2 

Terminator 

THEY SAY TIME FLIES WHEN YOU ARE HAVING FUN. IN THE first semester alone, with six courses, four of them with practical classes, time dragged so slow and comatose, fun was conspicuous by its absence. Every day, from eight to five, we were locked in the eight-storey insti-building with lectures, tutorials and labs. The next few hours of the evening were spent in the library or in our rooms as we prepared reports and finished assignments. And this did not even include the tests! Each subject had two minor tests, one major and three surprise quizzes; seven tests for six courses meant forty-two tests per semester, mathematically speaking. Luckily, the professors spared us surprise quizzes in the first month, citing ragging season and the settling-in period of course; but the ragging season ended soon and it meant a quiz could happen any time. In every class we had to look out for instructor’s subtle hints about a possible quiz in the next class.

Meanwhile, I got better acquainted with Ryan and Alok. Ryan's dad had this handicraft business that was essentially a sweatshop for potters that made vases for the European market. Ryan's father and mother were both intimately involved in the business and their regular travel meant Ryan stayed in boarding school, a plush colonial one in hill-town Mussoorie.

Alok's family, I guess, was of limited means, which is just a polite way of saying he was poor. His mother was the only earning member, and last I heard, schoolteachers didn't exactly hit dirt on pay- day. Besides, half her salary regularly went to support her husband's medical treatment. At the same time, Alok’s elder sister was getting near what he mournfully called 'marriageable age', another cause of major worry for his household. Going by Alok’s looks I guess she wasn’t breathtakingly beautiful either.

I also got familiar with Kumaon and other wing-mates. I won’t go into all of them, but in one corner there was Sukhwinder or the 'Happy Surd' since his face broke into sunny smiles at proximity with anything remotely human. Next to him was the studious Venkat, who coated his windows with thick black paper and stayed locked inside alone. There was ‘Itchy’ Rajesh whose hands were always scratching some part of his body, sometimes in objectionable places. On the other side of the hallway were seniors’ rooms, including Baku, Anurag and other animals.

Ryan, Alok and I often studied together in the evenings. One month into the first semester, we were sitting in my room chasing a quanto-physics assignment deadline.

“Damn," Ryan said as he got up his easy chair to stretch his spectacular spine. "What a crazy week; classes, assignments, more classes, assignments and not to mention the coming-attraction quizzes. You call this a life?"

Alok sat on the study desk, focused on the physics assignment, head bent down and sideways, just two inches above his sheet. He always writes this way, head near the sheet, pen pressed tight between his fingers, his white worksheets reflected on his thick glasses.

“Wha . . .” Alok looked up, sounding retarded.

"I said you call this a life?" Ryan asked, this time looking at me.

I was sitting on the bed cross-legged, attempting the assignment on a drawing board. I needed a break, so I put my pen down.

"Call it what you want,” I said, words stifled by a Titanic yawn, "but that is not going to change

it."

"I think this is jail. It really is. Damn jail,” Ryan said, hitting the peeling wall with a fist.

"Maybe you're forgetting that you're in IIT, the best college in the country," Alok said, cracking knuckles.

"So? You put students in jail?" Ryan asked, hands on hips.

"No. But you expect a certain standard," Alok said, putting his hand up to indicate height.

"This is high standard? Working away like moronic drones until midnight. ManPro yesterday, ApMech day before, Quanto today . . . it never ends,” Ryan grumbled. "I need a break, man. Anyone for a movie?"

“And what about the assignment?" Alok blinked.

"Priya has Terminator on," Ryan beguiled.

"Then when will we sleep?” Alok said.

“You are one real muggu eh?” Ryan said indulgently to him.

"I'll go," I said, keeping my drawing board aside, "come Alok, we'll do it later."

"It will get late, man," Alok warned half-heartedly. 

I stood up and took his pen, put it into his geometry box. Yes, Alok had a geometry box, like he was about twelve years old.

"Come get up," I said when I noticed two paintbrushes in his box.  "Hey, what are the paintbrushes for?" 

“Nothing," Alok mumbled.

I lifted the brushes, painting imaginary arcs in air. "Then why do you have them? To give colour to your circuit diagrams?" I laughed at my own joke, waving the brushes in the air. "Or to express your soul in the ManPro class? To draw Prof Dubey's frowny face?"

"No. Actually, they are my father’s. He was an artist, but he's paralyzed now."

There are times in life you wish dinosaurs weren’t extinct and could be whistled to come and gulp you down. I went motionless, fingers in mid-air.

Ryan saw my face and pressed his teeth together to be simultaneously tch-tch sympathetic to Alok and stop laughing at me. "Really Alok? That's really sad. I'm sorry man," he said, putting his hand around Alok’s shoulder. The bastard, scoring over me for no fault of mine.

“It’s okay. It was a long while ago. We are used to him like that now," Alok said, finally getting up for the movie while I was still hoping I'd evaporate.

When we walked out, Ryan was with Alok, me trailing six steps behind.

“Well, I have lived in boarding school all my life, so I can't really understand. But it must be pretty difficult for you. I mean how did you manage?" Ryan Continued.

"Barely managed actually. My mother is a biology teacher. That was the only income. Elder sister is still in college.”

I nodded my head, trying desperately to evince how empathetic to his cause I was, too.

"How do you think I got into IIT? I was taking care of him for the past two years," Alok said.

“Really?'' I said, finally getting my chance to get into the conversation.

“Yes, every day after school I was nursing him and reading my books.”

Ryan had a scooter, which made it easy for us to get to Priya. It was illegal for three people to ride together in a triple sandwich, but cops rarely demanded more than twenty bucks if they stopped you. Chances of getting caught were less than one in ten, so Ryan said it was still cheap on a probability weighted basis.

Priya cinema at night was a completely different world from our quiet campus. Families, couples and groups of young people lined up to catch the hit movie of the season. We bought front row tickets, as Alok did not want to spend too much. Personally, I think he was just too blind to sit far away. In any case, the movie was science fiction, winch I should have guessed given Ryan's choice; he always picked sci-fi movies. I hate sci-fi movies, but who asks me? This one had time travel, human robots, laser guns, the works, presented in an unfunny way. In ten minutes, the obscenely muscular hero's heroics looked too silly to even smirk at, and I was yawning uncontrollably.

"Wow!" Ryan said, bringing his hand to his face as the villain launched a torpedo from his backpack.

''What the hell do you see in these movies?" I whispered, just to jack his trip.

"Man, look at all those gadgets."

"But they're all fake. It is fiction."

"Yes, but we could have them one day."

"Time travel? You really think we could have time travel?" Ryan’s ridiculous when he gets excited.

"Hush, it's hard enough to understand the accent guys," Alok objected.

When we returned to Kumaon at midnight, our asses were set on fire, I mean not literally, but everyone from Venkat to Sukhwinder were running around with notepads and textbooks.

"Surprise quiz. Strong rumour of one in ApMech," Happy Surd explained as he furiously riffled through his notes, for once not electrified at our company.

ApMech was Applied Mechanics, and apparently, some student in Nilgiri hostel had visited the professor's office in the evening to submit a late assignment. The professor had sinisterly advised to "keep revising your notes", waggling left eyebrow at the same time. Enough to ring the alarm as news travelled through the campus like wildfire.

"Damn. Now we have to study for ApMech. It will take hours," Alok said morosely.

"And we have the Quanto assignment to finish as well," I reminded.

Everyone gathered in my room to study. It was at two in the morning that Alok spoke. "This whole movie thing was a dumb idea, I told you."

"How was I to know? Anyway, why are you taking arbit tension?" Ryan took offence.

"It is not arbit. It's relative grading here, so if we don't study and others do, we are screwed," Alok said, stressing the last word so hard even Ryan was startled.

Just then, a mouse darted out from under my bed.

"Did you see that?" Ryan said, eager to change the topic. He removed his slippers, hoping to take aim and strike the rodent down. However, the rodent had other ideas on his own demise and dived diplomatically back under the bed.

"Yes, there are these creepy mice in my room. Little bastards," I said, almost affectionately.

"You want me to kill them for you?" Ryan offered.

"It's not that easy. They are too smart and quick," I said.

"Challenge?" Ryan said.

"I beg you brothel-borns, not now. Can we please study?" Alok said, literally folding his hands. The guy is too dramatic.

Ryan eased back into the chair and wore his footwear. He opened the ApMech book and exhaled deep through his mouth.

"Yes sir, let us mug and cram. Otherwise, how will we become great engineers of this great country," Ryan mock-sighed.

"Shut up," Alok said, his face already immersed in his workbook.

Ryan did shut up after that, even though he kept bending to look under the bed from time to time. I was sure he wanted to get at least one mouse, but the little creatures smartly maintained a low profile. We finished our Quanto assignment in an hour and then revised the ApMech notes until five, by which time Ryan was snoring soundly, I was struggling to stay awake and even Alok's eyes had started watering. We still had around a third of the course left, but it was necessary to catch some sleep. Besides, the quiz was only a rumour, we did not know if it would actually materialize.

But rumours, especially ugly ones, have a way of coming true. Thirty minutes into the ApMech class, Prof Sen locked the door and opened his black briefcase. "Time for some fun. Here is a quickie quiz of multiple choice questions," he said.

Prof Sen passed the handouts to the front row students, who in turn cascaded them backward. Everyone in class knew about the rumour, and the quiz was as much a surprise snow in Siberia. I took the question sheet and glanced over the questions. Most of them were from recent lectures, the part of the course we could not revise.

"Crap. We never got to the lectures for question five onward," I whispered to Alok.

"We are screwed. Let's get screwed in silence at least," he said as he placed his head in his 'study' position, left cheek almost touching the answer sheet.

We never discussed the quiz upon our return to Kumaon that day. Other students were talking animatedly about some questions being out of course. Obviously, we never finished the course, so we did not know better. We did not have to wait for results too long either. Prof Sen distributed the answer sheets in class two days later.

"Five? I got a five out of twenty," I said to Alok, who sat next to me in class.

"I got seven. Damn it, seven," Alok said.

"I have three. How about that?  One, two, three," Ryan said, counting on his fingers.

Prof Sen wrote the customary summary scores on the blackboard. 

Average:  11/20

High:  17/20

Low:  3/20 

He kept those written for a few minutes, before proceeding with his lecture on cantilever beams.

“I have the lowest. Did you see that?” Ryan whispered to me, unmoved by cantilever beams. It was hard to figure out what he was feeling at this point. Even though he was trying to stay calm and expressionless, I could tell he was having trouble digesting his result. He re-read his quiz, it did not change the score.

Alok was in a different orbit. His face looked like it had on ragging day. He viewed the answer sheet like he had the coke bottle, an expression of anxiety mixed with sadness. It’s in these moments that Alok is most vulnerable, you nudge him just a little bit and you know he'd cry. But For now, the quiz results were a repulsive enough sight.

I saw my own answer sheet. The instructor had written my score in big but careless letters, like graffiti written with contempt. Now I am no Einstein or anything, but this never happened to me in school. My score was five on twenty, or twenty-five per cent. I had never in my life scored less than three times as much. Ouch, the first quiz in IIT hurt.

But take Ryan’s scores. I wondered if it had been worth it for him to even study last night. I was two points ahead of him, or wait a minute, sixty-six per cent ahead of him, that made me feel better. Thank god for relative misery!

Alok had the highest percentage amongst the three of us, but I could tell he did not find solace in our misery. He saw his score, and he saw the average on board. I saw his face, twisting every time he saw his wrong answers.

We kept our answer sheets, the proof of our underperformance, in our bags and strolled back to Kumaon. We met at dinner in the mess. The food was insipid as usual, and Alok wrinkled his pug nose as he dispiritedly plopped a thick blob of green substance mess-workers called bhindi masala into his

plate. He slammed two rotis on his stainless steel plate and ignored the rest of the semi-solid substances like dal, raita and pulao. Ryan and I took everything; though everything tasted the same, we could at least have some variety of colors on our plate.

Alok finally brought up the topic of the quiz at the dinner table.

“So, now you don't have anything to say?”

Ryan and I looked at each other.

“Say what?” I said.

"That how crap this is," Alok said.

"'The food?" I said, fully aware Alok meant otherwise.

“No damn it!  Not the damn food,”  Alok said. “The ApMech quiz." His expression changed from the usual tragic one to a livelier angry one. I found that expression marginally more pleasant to look at and easier to deal with.

“What about the quiz? We’re screwed. What is to discuss in that?” Ryan simplified.

“Oh really. We are screwed, no damn doubt in that," Alok said.

I think Alok picks up a word and uses it too much, which ruins the effect. There were too many 'damns' in his dialogue.

"Then drop it. Anyway, you got the highest amongst us. So, be happy."

"Happy? Yes, I am happy. The average is eleven, and someone got seventeen. And here I am, at damn seven. Yes, I am happy my damn Terminator ass," Alok scoffed.

I told you, Alok ruins the effect. I wanted to tell him that he should stop 'damn' right now but something told me he would not appreciate the subtleties of cursing right now.

“What? What did you just say?" Ryan said, keeping his spoon down on the plate, "Did you say Terminator?"

"Yes. It was a stupid idea. Your stupid damn idea," Alok said.

Ryan froze. He looked at Alok as if he was speaking in foreign tongue. Then he turned toward me. "You heard what he said? Hari, yon heard? This is unbelievable man."

I had heard Alok, nothing being the matter with my eardrums but I wasn't paying attention to anything apart from keeping count of the 'damns.'

''Hari, you think I screwed up the quiz?" Ryan asked slowly.

I looked at Alok's and Ryan's faces in quick succession. "Ryan, you got three. You still need me to tell you that you screwed up?” I counter-questioned, mediating on something I did not understand yet.

"No. I mean Alok is saying I screwed up the quiz for both of you because I took you to the movie. You think so or . . .?”

"That is not what I said . . ." Alok interrupted even as Ryan raised his hand to indicate silence.

I understood Ryan's question now, hut I did not know how to answer it, without taking sides.

"But how does that . . ."

“No, Hari tell me. Is that what you expect your best friends to say?" Ryan asked.

“It is not important. And besides, you did not drag us forcibly to see that crap movie,” I said, reminding myself to never see sci-fi again.

Ryan was satisfied with the answer. He relaxed his raised hand and smiled. "See, there you go."

"But Alok is right too. We should have a limit on the fun factor. You can't screw with the system too much, it comes back to screw you — the quiz is an example."

“Thank you sir," Alok said, "That is exactly what I am saying.”

Cool, I had managed to come out clean in this one. Sometimes, if you just paraphrase everyone's arguments, you get to be the good guy.  

3 

Barefoot on Metal 

THE QUIZ MISHAP REINVIGORATED OUR COMMITMENT TO study for a while. Ryan was quieter when we studied in the rooms, controlling his urge to discuss emergency topics ranging from movies to food to new sci-fi movies, leading to more productive study sessions. Though our scores moved closer to class average, assignments can get dull as hell after a while, and you need a break. Ryan often dozed off between assignments, or stared unseeingly at the wall, whispering curses frequently every time he opened a new book.

"Okay then," he sighed one day, stapling his assignment. “I have finished today’s crap. You guys going to mug more or what?”

''Why are you always calling this crap?” Alok asked, perplexed.

''Take a wild guess,” Ryan said, tossing his assignment on the table like a used tissue.

"But why?" Alok said, “I mean, surely you studied a lot to get into IIT right?”

"Yes, but frankly, this place has let me down. This isn't exactly the cutting edge of science and technology as they describe themselves, is it?"

I closed my book to join in the conversation. "Boss, mugging is the price one pays to get the IIT tag. You mug, you pass and you get job. What let-down are you talking about?"

"That is the problem, there is this stupid system and there are stupid people like you."

I hate Ryan. When he is on his own trip, we all turn stupid.

"Continuous mugging, testing and assignments. Where is the time to try out new ideas? Just sit all day and get fat like Hari."

Ryan doesn't like mugging, therefore, I am stupid and fat. People like him think they are god's gifts to the world. What's worse, they are.

"I don't have any new ideas. And I am not that fat, am !?" I said turning to Alok. Looking at him I instantly felt better.

"Fatso, look into a mirror. You should do something about it."

"It is genetic, saw a TV documentary once," I defended weakly.

"Genetic, my ass. I can make you lose ten kilos like that." He snapped his fingers.

I did not know where Ryan was going with this, but it could not have been pleasant for me. Being fat was more appealing to me than running behind the insti bus or climbing the stairs of these buildings fifty times a day. "Ryan, forget about me. If you don't want to mug, should we go to the canteen for a parantha?"

"Boss, this is the problem — all food and no exercise. I’ve decided, Hari has to go on an exercise routine," Ryan said, jumping up.  "We start tomorrow morning then."

Ryan derided for other people. I don't know if it was his good looks or just his good-natured vanity that you didn't want to prick, but mostly he got away with it.

“Wait Ryan, what the..." I began.

"Actually, Alok you should come, too. Interested?”

"Go to hell," Alok muttered as he dived back into his books like a squirrel with a nut.

I thought about losing ten kilos. All my life people had called me Fat-Man, to the point where plumpness was part of my identity now. Of course, I hated that part of my identity and Ryan did seem to know what he was doing, and his own body was great. Heck, I thought, it was worth a try.

"What do I have to do?” I capitulated.

"Early morning jogs around the whole campus, around four kilometers."

“No way, I can’t even walk four kilometers," I dismissed. 

“You wimp, at least try. You'll feel great afterwards," Ryan said.

Sure enough, Ryan mercilessly kicked at my door at five a.m. sharp the next morning. I hate Ryan. Anyway, I opened the door and he stood there waiting lot me to change into T-shirt and shorts.

"Four kilometers?" I was drowsy and pitiful at the same time.

"Try, just try," Ryan enthused.

It was still dark outside when I left Kumaon. I was happy for that small mercy — no one would see an eighty-kilo globe-shaped creature bouncing along the road. To do the four-kilomerer route meant reaching the other end of campus, past the hostels, sports  grounds,  insti building and  the faculty housing. I thought I could cheat and cut corners, hut I wanted to give Ryan a chance, not that I hated him any less for it.

My entire body groaned as muscles I never knew existed made themselves known. In ten minutes, I was panting like a trekker on Mount Everest without oxygen, and in fifteen, I felt a heart attack corning on. I panted for a few minutes and started again till I passed the insti building and was in the faculty-housing colony.

Dawn broke, revealing manicured lawns and picture postcard bungalows of our tormentors in class. I passed Prof Dubey's house. It was hard to imagine this man out of class, living in a home, watching TV, peeing, eating at a dining table. By now, I was wet with sweat and my face beyond red, reaching rare shades of purple.

I stopped, huffing and puffing, when I went bump at the knees. Stumbling at the unexpected impact, I kind of whooshed forward, extending my hands just in time to save myself from a bad fall. I sat stunned on the road, recovering from the shock and breathlessness, and then turned around.

A red Maruti car was the culprit! I continued panting as I squinted my eyes to see the driver through the windscreen. Who was trying to kill me when I was already dying? I wondered, waiting for my breath to return to normal.

"I am so-so sorry," a female voice announced. A young girl, around my age, in a loose T-shirt and knee-length shorts, clothes that one usually wore at home. She skipped forward in a silly way, which was probably her attempt to run toward me. I noticed she was barefoot.

"I am so sorry. Are you all right?" she enquired, tucking her hair behind an ear.

I was not all right, and it was her damn fault. But when a young girl asks a guy if he is all right, he can never admit he is not.

"Yeah. I guess," I said, flexing my palms.

"Can I give you a lift?" she asked nervously, extending a hand to help me up.

I looked at her carefully as she came closer. Maybe I was seeing a female after a long time or something, but I thought she was really pretty. And the whole just-out-of-the-bed look blew me.

Only girls can look hot in their nightclothes: Alok, for instance, looks like a terminally ill patient in his torn vest and pajamas.

"I was actually jogging," I said, holding her hand and getting up as slowly as I could without being obvious. Who wants to abandon a pretty girl's hand? Anyway, I had to after I was standing up.

"Hi. I am Neha by the way. Listen, I am really sorry," she said, adjusting her hair again with the hand I had just held.

"Hi. I am Hari, still alive so it is okay," I grinned.

"Yeah, you see I am learning to drive," she said pointing to the ‘L' sign on the windscreen. That is understandable, I thought, you are allowed to hit people if you are learning to drive, especially if you are eye-candy.

Now to be very frank, I wasn't hurt or anything. For one thing, she was driving at like two kilometers an hour, and I think my adipose tissues absorb bumps better than most people's. Still, I wanted to milk this moment.

"You sure you don't need a lift? I feel really bad," she said, wringing her hands.

“Actually, I am sort of tempted to get a drop back to Kumaon," I said.

“Sure. Please come in," she said and chuckled, "if you trust driving, that is."

We got into the car. I saw her sit carefully in the driver's seat, as if she was running the starship Enterprise or something. Then she placed her bare foot on the accelerator. Now maybe it is because I am an engineer, but that was hot. Bare female skin on metal is enormously sexy. There was dark red nail polish on her toenails, with one or two toes encircled in weird squiggly silver ringlets that only girls can justify wearing. I just wanted to keep looking at her feet but she started to talk.

"Kumaon hostel, so a student, eh?" 

"Yes. First year, mechanical engineering." 

“Cool. So how are you finding it, college and everything? Fun?”

"Nothing much, just running around to keep up all the time.”

"So you have to study a lot? What do guys call it — mugging.”

"Yeah, we have to mug. Some damn profs get this vicious joy driving students nuts . . . ."

"My dad is a prof," Neha said.

“Really?" I said and almost jumped in my seat. I was lucky I did not fully express my insightful views on professors and I was hoping she was not Prof Dubey's daughter. 

"Yes, I live in faculty housing," she said. The car had passed the housing blocks now, and we were nearing the insti building.

“And that is my dad's office," she said, pointing to one of the dozens of rooms.

"Really?" I said again, my mind racing flashback to gauge if I had done anything that could get me into trouble. "What's his name?" I asked casually.

"Prof Cherian. You probably don't know him, he won't take a course until your third year."

I shook my head. I had heard the name, but never seen Prof Cherian. Then I remembered our first class. "Is he the head of the Mechanical Engineering department?" I said, looking austerely away from her feet.

Sensing my anxiety, she patted my arm while shifting into third gear. "Yes, he is. But don't be tense, he is the prof, not me. So relax." She burst out laughing as if she knew of my fascination with her feet.

We chatted for a few more minutes along the insti-hostel road. She told me about her college, where she was studying fashion design. She had lived in this campus for over ten years and knew most of the professors.

She apologized again when we came near Kumaon, and asked if she could do anything for me.

"No, it is all fine really," I reassured her.

"Sure Hari? So will I see you again when you jog?"

"I guess," I said, dreading another round of Ryan's training.

"Great. Maybe sometime, I can drive you to the deer park outside campus, lots of joggers there. And you get excellent morning tea snacks there. I owe you a treat," she said.

I was nervous at meeting the daughter of my head of department again. But her offer, and mostly she herself, was too irresistible.

"That sounds great," I said leaping out of the car, "free food is always welcome. Keep bumping me."

She smiled, waved and the little red car disappeared from sight. Her image still floated in my head as I reached the Kumaon lawns, Ryan was already waiting there, doing push-ups or pull-downs or something. He had seen me get out of the car and demanded full explanation. I had to then repeat it to Alok. Though they exhibited appropriate excitement, asking me how she looked and everything, they also told me to stay away from her, given she was a prof's offspring.

But they had neither seen her nor talked to her. I was dying to meet her again, was waiting for the next time I bumped into her and could feast silly at the sight of those two bare-naked feet!  

4 

Line Drawing

 

BANG IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIRST SEMESTER CAME Ryan's scooter. His parents sent him a dollar cheque as a Christmas gift as everybody else around them was doing in Europe. Ryan was not a Christian and cared two hoots about Christmas, but loved the cheque and cashed it; voila scooter — a beautiful Kinetic Honda in gleaming metallic blue.

When Ryan got it to Kumaon, all the students gathered around it to pay homage, but only Alok and I got to park our butts on it. It was for two people, but Ryan carried both of us; we went to class, canteen and on rare occasions to movies like the Terminator zipping away on Ryan's Kinetic, letting the world watch us in envy and the scooter in probable pity, groaning as it was under our combined weight.

Meanwhile, classes got worse. The professors kept up the pressure and the overworked students worked even harder to beat the average, thereby pushing the average higher. We still studied together, but the resolve to concentrate was breaking down. We had managed to reach average grades in a few assignments, but in physics we had messed up. 

One night Alok got a call from home. His father had had a seizure or something and someone had to take him to the hospital pronto. Alok's mother had never done this alone and she sounded hysterical enough to warrant a trip for herself to the hospital.

There was a strong rumour of a physics quiz circulating but Alok had no choice. Ryan offered his scooter, which Alok couldn't drive for nuts. Hence Ryan had to go as well. I did not want to be alone, so I went along.

It was the first time I'd seen Alok's home. I told you he was kind of poor, I mean not World Bank ads type starving poor or anything, but his home had the barest minimum one would need for existence. There was light, but no lampshades, there was a living room, but no couches, there was a TV, but not a colour one. The living room was where lived Alok's father, entertaining himself with one of the two TV channels, close to unconscious by the time we reached. Alok's mother was already waiting, using her sari edge to wipe her tears.

"Alok, my son, look what happens when you are not here," she said in a pathetic voice that would make even Hitler cry. Man, I could totally see where Alok got his whining talent. Anyway, I hired an auto and Ryan and Alok lifted the patient into it. We then went to the hospital, checked him in and waited until a doctor, unfortunate enough to work in an overcrowded free government hospital, saw Alok's father. We returned to Kumaon at three in the morning exhausted and nauseated by hospital smells.

Of course, you can imagine what happened the next day, the physics quiz, that's what happened and we screwed up big time. We got like two on twenty or some such miserable score. Alok tried to ask the professor for a re-quiz, who stared back as if he had been asked for both his kidneys.

That physics quiz episode broke Alok a bit. Now he was less vigilant when Ryan distracted us from studies.

"You know guys, this whole IIT system is sick," Ryan declared.

"There he goes again," I rolled my eyes. We were in my room.

I expected Alok to ignore Ryan, but this time he led him on with a monosyllable. "Why?"

"Because, tell me, how many great engineers or scientists have come out of IIT?"

"What do you mean? Many CEOs and entrepreneurs have," I said, a mistake as Ryan had not finished yet.

"I mean this is supposed to be the best college in India, the best technology institute for a country of a billion. But has IIT ever invented anything? Or made any technical contribution to India?"

"Doesn't it contribute in making engineers?" Alok asked, snapping shut his book. I knew that with Alok not keeping us in check, we were not going to study any more that day. I suggested we go out to Sasi's for paranthas and skip the mess dinner. Everyone agreed.

Ryan continued to muse. "Over thirty years of IITs, yet, all it does is train some bright kids to work in multinationals. I mean look at MIT in the USA."

"This is not the USA," I said, signalling Sasi's minions to bring three plates of paranthas. "MITs have budgets of millions of dollars."

"And anyway, who cares, I want to get the degree and land a good job," Alok said.

Sasi's was a ramshackle, illegal roadside establishment right outside the IIT hostel gates. Using tents and stools, the alfresco dining menu included paranthas, lemonade and cigarettes. At two rupees each, the butter paranthas were a bargain, even by student standards. Proprietor Sasi knew the quality of food in the mess and did a voluminous business serving dozens of students each day from every hostel. We got three plates of paranthas, and the dollop of butter on top melted and produced a delicious aroma.

"See, it is not always the money," Ryan said, flicking ash. “So IITs cannot do space research, but we surely can make some cheaper products? And frankly, money is just an excuse. If there is value, the industry will pay for research even at IIT."

"So what the hell is wrong then?" I was irritated. I seriously wanted Ryan to shut up, now that the food was here. I mean, if he did not want to study, fine, but spare us the bloody lecture, it wreaks havoc on digestion.

"What is wrong is the system," Ryan denounced soundly, sounding like a local politician. Blame the whole damn system if you can't figure anything out.

But Ryan had more. "This system of relative grading and overburdening the students. I mean it kills the best fun years of your life. But it kills something else. Where is the room for original thought? Where is the time for creativity? It is not fair."

"What about it is not fair? It gets me work, that's all I care," Alok shrugged, taking a break from devouring his rations.

"Wow, that rhymes," I said.

"See your attitude is another problem. You won't get it, forget it," Ryan said.

"That rhymes too," I said and Alok and I broke into giggles. I knew I was annoying Ryan like hell, but I really wanted him to shut up or at least change the topic. That lazy bastard would find any reason to goof off.

"Screw you," Ryan gestured, diving back to his plate.

"Anyway," I said, "so what is the plan for the weekend?"

"Nothing, why?" Alok looked up.

"Well, we have the scooter now."

Ryan stayed silent.

"Hey, stop sulking like a woman." I nudged his elbow until he had to laugh.

"Yes, we can go, you dope. Connaught Place?"

"Why?" Alok repeated.

"Well, they have this cheap dhabha there with the best butter chicken and we can catch a good Hindi movie. And then maybe check out some girls in the market." Ryan's eyes were exaggeratedly lecherous.

"Sounds good," I said, the mention of girls making me think of Neha. I had not bumped into her again, maybe I should go jogging again.

"Alok, you'll come too, right? Or will you mug all day?"

"Uh . . there is this ApMech worksheet . . . anyway, screw it man . . . yes, I will come," Alok capitulated.

We did go to Connaught Place that weekend and had quite a blast. The movie was what every Hindi movie is like — regular boy meets girl, boy is poor and honest, girl's dad is rich and a crook. However, the heroine was new and eager to please the crowds so she bathed in the rain, played tennis in mini-skirts and wore sequined negligees to discos. Since all her hobbies involved wearing less or transparent clothing, the audience loved her. The girl's father damn near killed the boy who flirted with his hot daughter, but ultimately the hero's love and lust prevailed. The hero had no damn assignments to finish and no freaky profs breathing down his neck. I know, these Hindi movies are all crap, but they do kind of take your mind away from the crap of real life like nothing else.

After movie came lunch. The dhabha was great as Ryan is never wrong about these things. He ordered for everyone, which he always does. And he orders big — right from boneless butter chicken to daal to paranthas to raita. The spoilt brat even orders the overpriced Coke, I mean, which

student orders Coke in restaurants? Anyway, the meal was great, and an overactive desert-cooler sprayed water on our faces and kept the ambience cool.

Tearing his rotis like a famished Unicef kid, Alok got chatty. “This is too good man, the chicken is fundoo here." 

“So tell me, Fatso, did you have fun today or not?" Ryan asked.

“Uh-huh," said Alok, mouth too stuffed with food, but he meant yes. 

"Then tell me, why the hell do you want to kill yourself with books?"

“Aw, don't you guys start arguing again," I groaned. I had enjoyed my day so far and watching these jokers go at it is really not funny after a while.

“We are not arguing," Ryan said, in a tone that sounded like he was arguing with me now. He took a deep breath. "Okay, here is the thing. I have been thinking."

Oh please, spare us, I thought. But it was too late.

"Guys, these are the best years of our life. They really are. I mean, especially for someone like Alok."

"What, why specially me?" Alok was baffled, nibbling at a chilli from the salad bowl.

"It brings out the amino acids in your eyes," I joked, when he coughed at the tangy spiciness.

"Because," Ryan told Alok, "look at your life before this. I mean, I know you love your dad and everything. But like, you were just nursing him and studying for the past two years. And after college, you'll probably have to live with them again, right?"

"I'll take up a job in Delhi," Alok nodded, a bit more serious now, though his mind was still preoccupied with chicken breast.

"Exactly, so it is back to the same responsibility again. I mean, you will earn and everything, and maybe hire a servant. But still, would you be able to have this kind of fun?"

"I love my parents, Ryan, it is not a responsibility," Alok said and stopped eating. Boy, this must have affected him. Usually, the Fatso will not leave chicken for his life.

"Of course, you love them," Ryan waved a hand. "I mean, I can understand that even though I don't love my parents."

"What?" I said, though I had not wanted to be part of their argument.

"I said I don't love my parents. Is that a big deal?"

Alok raised his eyebrows at me. I mean, if Alok could love his dad, who if you think about it, is no more than a vegetable with vision, how could this brat not love his parents? And his parents were nice, I mean they gave him everything — the blue scooter, clothes from Gap and money for the damn colas at restaurants. His parents had worked their asses off all their lives, started selling flower

pots with two potters, and then moved all over India to make a name until two years ago when they went overseas. They weren't making any big money out there yet but wanted to keep sonny boy happy, this spoilt, pig-headed, marginally good-looking ass who did not love them! 

"Screw you," I blessed.

"Screw you! You don't even listen to me," Ryan said. 

Yeah right, that when I listened to this idiot all the time. 

“Why?" Alok said, getting back to his food. 

"I don't know why. I mean, I have been in boarding school when I was six. Of course, like every kid I hated it and cried when they left me. But then, it was at boarding school I got everything. I did well in studies, got noticed in sports, learnt how to have fun and live well and made my best friends. So, somewhere down the line, I don't miss them anymore. Just kind of outgrew them. Sure, we meet at vacation time and they send letters, cash, and everything but . . ." 

"But?"

“But I don't miss them," 

"So you don't think that is wrong?" Alok picked teeth. 

“Heck, no. I mean, for me my friends are everything, they are my family. Mom and Dad are nice, but I don't love them the way I love my friends. I mean, I don't love them, but I love my friends."

"So you love us then Ryan aah? I love you," Alok said in a falsetto; he was obviously satiated, his lighter mood a proof of his post-gluttony bonhomie.

"Up yours, Fatso, love you my ass,” Ryan said and some heads turned to look at us.

Ryan, however, came back to his earlier theory.

"Anyway, my point is, these are our best years. So either we can mug ourselves to death, or tell the system to stuff it."

"And how exactly do we tell the system to stuff it?" I enquired.

"I mean, not like stop mugging completely or something, but like, let us draw a line. We can study two-three hours a day, but do other stuff, say sports, have you guys ever played squash? Or taken part in events — debates, scrabble and stuff, an odd movie or something sometimes. We can do so much at the insti."

"Yeah, but very few people do it. And they are the ones with pretty bad GPAs," Alok said.

"See, I am not saying we stop mugging. We just draw the line. A day of classes, then three hours a day of studies and the rest is our time. Let's just try, just one semester. Isn't it fair? A kind of decentralization of education."

Alok and I looked at each other. Ryan had a point. If I never played squash in college, I'd probably never play it again. If I did not take part in Scrabble now, I'd never do it when I had a job.

"I can try," I said, mostly to agree with Ryan. He would not have stopped otherwise anyway.

"Three hours is not enough." Alok was doubtful.

"Okay, three and a half for our super-mugger," Ryan said, "Okay?"

Alok agreed, but his voice was so meek, it sounded like the chicken he just ate speaking from within.

Ryan was elated, and he drove us back to Kumaon at speeds that made the traffic police dizzy. No one stopped us, or rather, we didn't stop. I covered the number plate with my foot, so that cops could not take it down. After all, this was a celebration of drawing the line. 

Meanwhile, I ran into Neha at the campus bookstore. I had not met her since she had tried to kill me and it wasn't anyone's fault. Mostly that whole jogging plan was a bad idea. Even with the prospect of meeting Neha, I just could not wake up. I did try once again, but I was late and did not see her car. After that, all my motivation dropped and Ryan gave up on waking me up. He had to, cause I kind of threatened to withdraw from his draw-the-line study plan. So, what I'm trying to say is, when I saw Neha again, it was a nice surprise.

“Hi," I said, raising my hand to catch her attention.

She looked at me, and then kept looking, her face expressionless. She acted as if she did not recognize me. Then she went back to flipping pages of the notebooks she had just bought. Now that was hell, I mean, if you are in a public place and say 'hi’ to a girl, all beaming and everything and she's like ‘have we been introduced?'

The shopkeeper looked at me, as did a few other customers, and I felt like low-life though I gave it another try. I mean, just a few weeks ago she was all sympathetic and friendly, so maybe she just couldn't place me.

“Neha, it's me!  Remember the car accident in the morning?" I said.

“Excuse me,” she said huffily and departed.

This time the shopkeeper looked at me like I was a regular sex-offender. The girl bumped me and gave me a lift and all dammit, I wanted to scream, even as I bought my pencils and loose sheets. So I am not that attractive and that is reason enough not to recognize someone in public because I guess being friends with ugly people kind of rubs off badly on you. I had been some sort of a loser in school as well, so this was not a total shock. I mean what happened to me once in my school, I don't even want to get into all that but somehow, I felt strange. I don't know, Neha did not look like that kind of girl.

I walked out of the shop as quickly as possible to get away from the humiliation. I was feeling crap. I mean, she could have at least said "hi," I thought. I know I am fat and if I were a girl, I'd

probably not talk to me either. I was walking alone on a narrow path connecting the bookshop to the hostel, when someone tapped my shoulder. I turned around and guess who?

"Hi," said Neha.

Go to hell, was my instant mental reflex. But I turned to look at her and damn, she was pretty. And with that one tiny dimple on her right cheek flashing every time she smiled . . . Now try saying 'go to hell' to that!

"Hi. Neha, right?" I said, this time really careful and slow.

"Of course. Hey, I am really, really, really sorry, I could not reply to you properly there. There's a reason," she divulged.

Now, girls do this all the time, they think repeating an adjective makes it more effective; the three 'reallys' were supposed to constitute an apology.

"What reason?" I said.

"It is just that, I mean . . . can we just forget it?"

“No, tell me why?" I insisted.

“The shopkeeper there knows me and my dad for the last ten years and they talk regularly."

"So?"

“My dad is really strict about me talking to boys and he will totally flip out if he hears I am friends with a student." 

“Really? Just greeting someone?"

“He is like that. And campus rumours always get blown out of proportion. Please, I am sorry."

She was being a bit ridiculous, I thought, but I kind of knew where she was coming from. Some girls' dads are a bit touchy, and with over a thousand boys with their proportional quota of hormones on campus he would be worried. 

“Well, I can't see you then anyway, right?" 

“You can as long as it is out of campus."

“We live here!" 

“Yes, but there is a world outside. We can go to the Hauz Khas market. Do you feel like some ice- cream?" 

It is hard enough to say no to pretty girls or to ice-cream but when it's offered together, it is well nigh impossible. I said yes, and she instructed me to walk out the campus gate and walk two blocks to an ice-cream parlour. She would come there as well, but gave me a five-minute headstart, walking sedately behind me. 

It was completely weird to walk alone that way, and I kept thinking how stupid I'd look in the parlour if she did not show up. At least I'd have ice-cream, I thought. Food is almost as good as girls.

But Neha did show up and inside the Cadbury's ice-cream parlour she was a different person.

"So, Mr Jogger, did not see much of you after that day. Did I scare you off?" She began to giggle. Girls do this all the time, say something half-funny, and laugh at it themselves.

"No, it's just a pain to wake up."

"Well, I was kind of hoping to see you," she confessed. 

"Yeah, looked like it at the bookshop."

"I said I am sorry, Hari," she said, and touched my arm again like she had earlier. I kind of liked that, I mean, which guy wouldn't. You have this pretty girl all smiley and sorry and touching your arm; better than ice-cream I tell you.

There are two kinds of pretty girls in Delhi. One is the modern type, girls who cut their hair short, wear jeans or skirts, and tiny earrings. The second is the traditional type who wears salwar- kameez, multi-coloured bindi and large earrings. Neha was more the second type, and she wore a light-blue chikan suit with matching earrings. However, she was not a forced traditional type, like fat girls who have no choice but to wear Indian clothes. Neha was just fine, and actually way out of my league, with her long light brown hair, which she mostly left open, a curl catapulting carelessly on to her forehead. Her face was completely round, but not because she was fat or anything, just a natural cute shape. I just kept looking at her as my strawberry ice-cream melted.

"Friends?"

"I guess so. You know, when you ignored me there, I first thought it was because of the way I am."

"What way are you?"

"Never mind," I said.

I told Neha about our harebrained scholastic plan.

“Three hours? Pretty brave I must say. Guess you are underestimating the profs and their love for assignments," she said, scraping up whatever remained in her cup. 

I shrugged my shoulders.  "Anyway, you tell me about yourself. Learnt driving now?"

“Yes, I even got a licence," she chirped and opened her bag to show it to me. She started taking stuff out of her handbag and a million things came out — lipsticks, lip balms, creams, bindis, earrings, pens, mirrors, wet tissues and other stuff that one can live without. She found what she was looking for eventually.

“Wow. Neha Samir Cherian, female, 18 years," I read her name aloud.

“Hey, stop it. You are not supposed to notice ladies' ages." 

“That is for sixty-year-old women, you are young." I returned her licence. 

“Still, I like chivalrous men," she said, repacking her bag and the million belongings.

I did not know if it meant something. I mean, did she want me to know what kind of men she liked, or did she want me to be like the men she liked, or did she like me. Who knows? Figuring out women is harder than topping a ManPro quiz. 

“Samir, isn't that a guy's name?" 

“It is my brother's. I decided to keep it when I got this licence made."

“Really? What does your brother do?" 

“Not much," she shrugged. "He's dead."

Now this was unexpected. I mean, I just thought I'd tease her on a mannish middle name and everything but this was turning heavy. “Oh!” I said.

"It's fine, really, he died one year ago. We were just two years apart, so you can imagine how close I was to him."

I nodded my head. Her beautiful face was turning sad and I wished I could do something clownish to change subjects.

"How did it happen?" I asked, for it seemed the polite thing to do.

"A freak accident. He was crossing the rail-tracks and got hit by a train."

I wondered if I could take a chance and hold her arm like she had a few minutes ago. I mean, that is how shallow I was. She was all choked up and everything, but all I could think of was if I could make my move.

I shifted my hand closer, but she startled me by talking again. "Life goes on, you know. He was my only sibling, so that is kind of tough. But life goes on," she repeated, more to herself than to me.

I pulled my hand back. I sensed this was not the best moment.

"Ice-cream? C'mon let us do round two," she said brightly and went up to the counter without waiting for me. She returned with these two big sundaes, and she was smiling again.

"So he had a train accident? In Delhi?"

"Yes. You don't think that can happen?" she asked challengingly.

"No . . . . o."

"C'mon, tell me something cheerful about your hostel."

I told her about Ryan's scooter and how we over-speed on it and things. It was hardly interesting, but it changed the topic. We talked about other things until dusk and Neha's internal clock went off.

“Have to go," she jumped up. "Shall we walk back?" 

“Yeah. Separately though right?" I was catching on fast.

“Yes, sorry please," she said in a mock-baby tone that girls lapse into at the slightest provocation. 

I stood up, too.

“So, Hari?"

“So what?"

“Aren't you going to ask me out or what?"

That stumped me. I mean, of course I'd wanted to but thought she'd say no for sure and then I'd have felt crap all night. I would have been satisfied with the ice-cream and everything but this was kind of neat, and now I had no choice anyway.

“Huh? Sure. Neha, would you like to go out . . . with me?"

She had made it pretty safe for me, but I tell you, the first time you ask a girl for a date, it is like the hardest thing. Almost as stressful as vivas. 

“Yes, of course I will. Meet me at this parlour next Saturday, same time as today," 

I nodded.

“And next time, don't be this shy IIT boy, just ask." 

I smiled.

“So, what are you waiting for? Leave now." 

A demure five minutes ahead of her, I pleasantly dwelt on the mechanics of the female mind, waddling back into hostel.