Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition

‘Doctors want more business these days, what else?’ he said.

  ‘Should we ask Ghanshyam taya-ji to give us whatever he wants for the land?’ I said.

  ‘No use. He won’t listen. Anyway, what will I do with an operation at this age?

  ‘You never listen, Baba.’ I shook my head and switched off the light.

  ‘It isn’t the end of the world, Gopal. It isn’t.’ She reached out for my hand. ‘Say something.’

  Aarti had invited me home on the day of the AIEEE results. She had an Internet connection and, despite my insisting otherwise, didn’t want me to see the results all on my own.

  I remember everything about that moment. The red and black embroidered tablecloth on the computer table, the noisy fan above, the various government trophies that belonged to her father, the black colour of the laptop, and the screen that showed my rank.

  ‘44,342,’ it said irrevocably next to my roll number.

  After one whole year of cramming courses that I hated, staying in a dusty city all alone, and putting my father irretrievably in debt, I had only reconfirmed – I am a failure.

  I didn’t react. I didn’t cry, I didn’t feel anger, fear, frustration, anything. I remember Aarti hovering around, talking to me. However, I couldn’t really comprehend her words.

  I stood up like a zombie.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Aarti shook me. She, me, the PC, the world, everything seemed to be in slow motion. ‘What about JEE?’ she was saying.

  ‘Will be worse. My paper did not go well.’

  She fell silent. What could she have said, anyway?

  ‘I have to go,’ I said.

  ‘Where will you go?’ she said, asking me the most important question. Yes, where could I go? Home? And tell Baba he had wasted all his borrowed money on me.

  ‘I’ll come home with you. I can talk to Baba.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said.

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I hurried out of her house.

  ‘Where had you gone?’ Baba said as he opened the door.

  I went straight to my room. Baba followed me.

  ‘You don’t want to see your AIEEE result?’ he said.

  I kept quiet.

  ‘You said it comes out today.’

  I didn’t respond.

  ‘Why aren’t you speaking?’

  I looked into Baba’s anxious eyes.

  ‘I have bad news,’ I said.

  Baba spoke in a hushed voice. ‘What?’

  ‘The worst has happened.’

  ‘What?’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘When are the AIEEE results out?’

  ‘They are out,’ I said and walked into the living room.

  ‘And?’ Baba followed me and stood right in front of me.

  I turned my gaze down. Baba waited for a few seconds.

  Slap! I felt my right cheek sting. For his age and strength, my father could strike quite a blow. He had hit me for the first time in more than ten years. I deserved it.

  ‘How?’ Baba said. ‘You did nothing in Kota, right? Nothing.’

  Tears filled my eyes and my ears buzzed. I wanted to tell him that I spent nights doing assignments, sat through classes all day, improved my percentile. I had had a decent chance to make it. A few marks are all it takes to fall behind ten thousand ranks.

  I didn’t say anything. I cried like a child, as if my remorse would make him feel better.

  ‘How do we return the money?’ Baba said, turning to practical matters faster than I thought.

  I had improved my rank, I wanted to tell him. The teachers at Career Path had told me I had potential. Yes, I did get distracted for a little while, and maybe that was why I hadn’t made it. Anyway, not everyone in Kota had made it. Most students of Career Path had not made it. In fact, Vineet, the boy from Varanasi who went before me to Kota, hadn’t made it either. But all I showed Baba was my sullen face.

  ‘What are you thinking? Do you have any shame?’ he said and went into a coughing fit. His body shook, he found it hard to balance.

  ‘Sit down, Baba,’ I said as I moved forward to hold him. His body felt warm.

  ‘Don’t come near me.’ He pushed me away.

  ‘You have fever,’ I said.

  ‘Guess who gave it?’ he said.

  I didn’t know what to say or do. I didn’t even find myself worthy enough to fetch his medicines from the other room. I had to let him be. When you screw up someone’s life, the least you can do is leave the person alone.

  ‘I have gone through it all. You must be so fucked,’ Vineet said to me.

  We sat on the steps of Assi Ghat, close to the pier. I had arranged a secret meeting with Vineet. I did not know him too well. I had only exchanged some emails with him before I left for Kota. But he seemed an ideal companion right now. Yes, Aarti kept in touch, asking me about my well-being and even going on boat rides with me. Yet, I had nothing to say to her. I thought about jumping into the Ganga and ending my life. Raghav was someone I avoided automatically now. I did not want reassurance from an IT-BHU guy, especially someone who did not even seem to care about his degree.

  Vineet, an ordinary guy like me, was someone I felt comfortable with. He had joined a private engineering college. ‘So I can tell people I am doing BTech,’ Vineet said and laughed. ‘Just avoid the college name. Anyway, it is unknown to most people.’

  I collected a few pebbles from the ghat steps and sent them skipping on the holy river.

  ‘You will be fine, dude,’ Vineet said. ‘Never completely fine, but at least better than right now.’

  ‘How did you choose among the private colleges?’ I said. There were dozens of them, with new ones opening every week.

  ‘I went to a career fair. I asked around. RSTC seemed slightly better than others. I don’t think there’s much difference.’

  ‘What’s RSTC?’ I said.

  ‘Riddhi Siddhi Technical College. The owners have a sari business with the same name.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, trying to make a connection between saris and education.

  ‘Quite a backward name, no? So we say RSTC, sounds cooler.’ Vineet grinned.

  ‘Do you get a job afterwards?’

  ‘If you are lucky. Sixty per cent placements. Not bad.’

  ‘Forty per cent students don’t get placed?’ I said, shocked. This could be worse than Kota, to finish your degree and get nothing at the end of it.

  ‘The stats are improving every year. Plus, you can manage some job. There are call centres, credit card sales. Be open-minded and things work out.’

  ‘Finish engineering and join a call centre?’

  ‘Dude, don’t be so shocked. We, like millions of other students, are the losers in the Great Indian Education Race. Be happy with whatever you get. Of course, if your parents are rich, do an MBA after BTech. Another shot at a job.’

  ‘And if not?’ I said.

  Vineet said nothing. Exasperated, I threw all the pebbles into the Ganga. Like low-ranked students, the stones sank and disappeared without a trace.

  ‘Hey, don’t be mad at me. I didn’t make the system.’ Vineet patted my shoulder. ‘The longer you sit idle, the worse you will feel. The dream is over. Join a college, any college, at least you will be with other students.’

  ‘Other losers,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t look down upon your own kind,’ Vineet said.

  He had a point. ‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘How much does your BTech cost?’

  ‘One lakh a year for four years, including hostel.’

  ‘Fuck,’ I said. ‘That’s many years of salary a job would pay, if there is a job at the end of it.’

  ‘I know. But your parents pay the fee. And they get to brag to everyone their son is becoming an engineer. You are free for the next four years. Think about it, not a bad trade.’

  ‘We have no money,’ I said flatly.

  Vineet stood up. ‘That, my friend, is going to be an issue.’
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  ‘Leaving?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, campus is twenty kilometres out of Varanasi. Cheer up. You have seen life at its most fucked-up stage. It only gets better from here.’

  I stood up and brushed the dust off my trousers. I dreaded going home. Baba had not spoken to me for three days.

  We walked through the narrow Vishwanath Gali to reach the Gadholia main road.

  ‘There’s a career fair at Dr Sampooranand Sports Stadium in two weeks,’ Vineet said. ‘Go, maybe you will find cheaper colleges.’

  ‘There is no money. We are neck-deep in debt,’ I said.

  ‘Well, no harm in paying a visit. You can get a discount, especially from the new ones, if you have a decent AIEEE rank.’

  I walked back home. The one-hour walk in the fresh air made me feel better temporarily. I should not talk to Baba about expensive private colleges, I thought. Maybe I should talk to him about me making money in a job rather than spending more. First, I would have to end his sulking though.

  I went to his room. He was lying in bed.

  ‘I want to get a job, Baba. Let me make some money before I decide about college.’

  He didn’t say a word. I continued, ‘I understand you are upset. It is justified. There is a Café Coffee Day opening in Sigra. It is a high-class coffee chain. They want staff. Class XII-pass can apply.’

  I only heard the slow whirr of the fan in response.

  ‘I’ve applied. I won’t be working in a coffee shop forever. But they pay five thousand a month. Not bad, right?’

  Baba kept quiet.

  ‘If you remain quiet, I will assume you are okay with it.’

  Baba continued to mope silently despite my provocative comment. I wanted him to scold, yell, anything, and end this silence.

  I leaned over him. ‘Baba, don’t punish me like this,’ I said. I held his arm to shake him. It felt limp and cold. ‘Baba?’ I said again. His body felt stiff.

  ‘Baba?’ I said again. It finally dawned on me: I had become an orphan.

  14

  Ease of cremation is one solid advantage of being in Varanasi. The death industry drives the city. The electric crematorium at Harishchandra Ghat and the original, and still revered, Manikarnika Ghat burn nearly forty-five thousand bodies a year, or more than a hundred corpses a day. Only little children and people bitten by cobras are not cremated; their bodies are often dumped straight into the river. ‘Kasyam maranam mukti,’ goes the Sanskrit saying, which means dying in Kashi leads to liberation. Hindus believe that if they die here, there is an automatic upgrade to heaven, no matter what the sin committed on earth. It is amazing how god provides this wild-card entry at death, which in turn allows my city to earn a living.

  Specialist one-stop shops provide you everything from firewood to priests and urns to ensure that the dead person departs with dignity. Touts on Manikarnika Ghat lure foreigners to come watch the funeral pyres and take pictures for a fee, thereby creating an additional source of revenue. Varanasi is probably the only city on earth where Death is a tourist attraction.

  But for all my city’s expertise in death, I had personally never dealt with a dead body in my entire life, let alone that of my father. I did not know how to react to Baba’s still body. I did not, or rather could not, cry. I don’t know why. Perhaps because I was too stunned, and emotionally drained out. Perhaps I had few emotions left after mourning my second entrance-exam disaster. Perhaps I had too much work related to the funeral. Or perhaps it was because I thought I had killed him.

  I had to organise a cremation, then a couple of pujas. I didn’t know who to invite. My father had very few friends. I called some of his old students who had kept in touch. I informed Dubey uncle, our lawyer, more for practical reasons than anything else. The lawyer told Ghanshyam taya-ji. My uncle had sucked my father’s blood all his life. However, his family now offered unlimited sympathy. I found his wife, Neeta tayi-ji, at my doorstep. She saw me, extended her arms and broke down.

  ‘It’s okay, tayi-ji,’ I said, extracting myself from the bosom hug. ‘You need not have come.’

  ‘What are you saying? Husband’s younger brother is like a son,’ she said.

  Of course, she did not mention the land she stole from her ‘son’.

  ‘When is the puja?’ she asked me.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘I have to get the cremation done first.’

  ‘Who is doing that?’ she said.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘Do you have the money to do a cremation at Manikarnika?’ she said.

  I shook my head. ‘The electric one at Harishchandra Ghat is cheaper,’ I said.

  ‘What electric? It is broken most of the time, anyway. We have to do a proper one. What are we here for?’

  Soon, Ghanshyam taya-ji arrived with the rest of his brood. He had two sons and two daughters, all dressed in rich clothes. I didn’t look like their relative at all. After my uncle arrived, they took over the cremation. They called more kith and kin. They arranged for a priest, who offered a ten-thousand-rupee package for the cremation. My uncle bargained him down to seven. It felt macabre to bargain for a funeral, but someone had to do it. My uncle paid the priest in crisp five-hundred-rupee notes.

  Twenty-four hours later I lit my father’s firewood-covered body at Manikarnika Ghat. Even though he had died, I felt the fire must hurt him. I remembered how he would dress me up for school when I was a child, comb my hair … Smoke rose from the pyre and tears finally welled up in my eyes. I began to sob. Aarti and Raghav had come to the funeral. They stood with me, condoling in silence.

  Half an hour later most of the relatives had left. I watched as the flames ate up the wood.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around. Two muscular men with paan-stained lips stood behind me. One of them had a thick moustache curved upwards.

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  The moustached man pointed his finger at the pyre. ‘Are you his son?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Come aside,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘He owed us two lakhs.’

  ‘Ghanshyam taya-ji wants to offer three lakhs?’ I said to Dubey uncle, shocked.

  He flipped through the document he had prepared for me. ‘You sign here, you get three lakhs. Loan sharks are after you. They are dangerous. I am trying to help you.’

  I examined the document. I didn’t really understand it. ‘Three lakhs is too low. They offered ten lakhs ages ago,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right, ages ago. When your father didn’t take it. Now they know you can’t do anything. And you need the money.’

  I kept quiet. Dubey uncle stood up. I wondered whose side my lawyer represented anyway.

  ‘I realise it isn’t an easy time for you. Think about it,’ he said.

  I attended the career fair held in a giant tent put up in the Dr Sampooranand Sports Stadium.

  Vineet had urged me to go. ‘Meet my friend Sunil there. He is the event manager of the fair and knows all the participants.’

  I entered the main tent. Hundreds of stalls made it resemble a trade expo. Private colleges around the country were trying to woo the students of Varanasi. Members of managing bodies of colleges stood with smiling faces. Banners inside the stalls displayed campus pictures like real estate projects. In cases where parts of the college building were under construction, the pictures were an artist’s rendition.

  ‘Once complete, this will be the best campus in Uttar Pradesh,’ I heard one stall-owner tell a set of anxious parents. He skipped the part about how during construction students would have to study in makeshift classrooms surrounded by concrete mixers.

  Loud posters proclaimed college names along with emblems. Names varied, but were often inspired by gods or grandfathers of rich promoters.

  Select faculty and students from each college greeted us with glossy brochures of their institute in these stalls. Everyone wore suits and grinned like a well-trained flight crew. Hundreds of los
er students like me moved restlessly from one stall to the next. Seventy per cent of the stalls comprised of engineering colleges. Medical, hotel management, aviation academies and a few other courses like BBA made up the rest.

  I reached the Sri Ganesh Vinayak College, or SGVC, stall at noon – the designated place and time to meet Sunil.

  I picked up the SGVC brochure, with its smiling students on the cover. The boys seemed happier and the girls prettier than the JEE toppers in the Kota brochures. The back cover of the brochure carried praise for the facilities and faculty of the institute, enough to make an IIT director blush. Inside the booklet I found a list of the programmes offered. From computer science to metallurgy, SGVC offered every engineering course.

  I read through the entire brochure. I read the vision and mission statements of the founders. I read the college’s philosophy on education, and how they were different. Other career fair veterans grinned as they walked past me. I seemed to be the only person actually reading the document.

  Sunil found me at the stall for the Sri Ganesh Vinayak College, deep in study.

  ‘Gopal?’ he said tentatively.

  ‘Huh?’ I turned around. ‘Sunil?’

  Sunil gave me a firm handshake. Stubble and sunglasses covered most of his face. He wore a purple shirt and tight black jeans with a giant silver buckle. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked straight off.

  ‘Reading the brochure,’ I said.

  ‘Are you stupid? Go to the fees and placements page. See the average salary, check the fee. If two years’ income pays the cost, shortlist it, else move on.’

  ‘What about teaching methods? Learning …’

  ‘Fuck learning,’ Sunil said and snatched the brochure from my hand. I found his mannerisms and language rather rough. He borrowed a calculator from one of the students at the stall. ‘See, tuition fifty thousand, hostel thirty thousand, let’s say twenty thousand more for the useless things they will make you buy. So you pay a lakh a year for four years. Average placement is one and a half lakhs. Fuck it. Let’s go.’

  ‘But …’ I was still doing the calculations.

  ‘Move on. There are a hundred stalls here.’