‘I was just saying. It’s worth a try. Imagine a life without her and then you might think it would be worth it. I’m going to be really insensitive right now but you need to hear this. How are you different from your Dad if you don’t fight for her?’
I Love u Rachu
75
It was one in the night when Aranya signed in the hostel register and shifted back to her old room. It was to be her last five days in this college. After that she would never come back to this college, this city, her family . . . and Dhruv.
It was over.
She unlocked her room and dragged her suitcases inside. She texted Raghuvir to inform him that she had reached her hostel. Her parents would get to know the same from him.
She sighed at the irony. Theirs wouldn’t be a love story that would end prettily. Her alter ego Farah could easily ensnare Raghuvir. If not Farah, someone else.
And the one she could imagine a life with was an impotent, powerless, selfish man revelling in self-pity and hollow heroism of letting her go.
She cradled her phone in her hands and almost dialled a number when there was a knock on her door. She opened it and Sanchit was standing there in a hoodie and pink pyjamas. She hurriedly ushered him in.
‘I was just about to call you,’ whispered Aranya.
‘And now I’m here!’
‘What the hell are you doing here? And that’s the worst disguise EVER. Pink pyjamas? And which girl in this college is 6'4"? You look like a transvestite.’
‘Hey! Hey! Transvestites have feelings too. And I’m 6'2",’ said Sanchit and looked around the room. ‘So cool! I’m finally in a girl’s hostel room.’ He picked up a pen and started scratching his name on the inside of the cupboard.
‘I have been calling you since so long! Where have you been? You better not abandon me after pushing me so far into this. And what the hell is your friend doing? He has still not come around! You said he would!’
‘Busy,’ said Sanchit and kept on scratching at the paint of her cupboard.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Aranya.
‘Etching my name on your cupboard! What else? Oh. The look on your face says you want to know why I am doing it. It’s quite simple, Aranya. You’re going to leave this college and so am I. But after you scores of girls are going to come to this room and when they see “SANCHIT WAS HERE. MULTIPLE TIMES” inscribed on the cupboard, they would think of me as a real badass who used to walk in and out of the girls’ hostel whenever he wanted to. Like Batman. Like a ninja Casanova.’
‘Whatever,’ said Aranya and slumped on the bed.
‘Don’t be sad now. He will come around. He’s just taking some time.’
‘He won’t. If he wanted to, he would have done that by now. And you said he would! All this planning is going to come to naught if that bastard doesn’t pull through,’ said Aranya.
‘I thought him listening to you making out with Raghuvir would break him. God knows why he didn’t react to it,’ said a puzzled Sanchit who had finished carving his name.
‘This was a fuck-all plan from the very beginning. You made me believe that Dhruv was still in love with me and he would come around. Don’t look at me like that. He’s your friend. God! I feel like such a fool now.’
‘I was just trying, Aranya! It’s better than being relegated to a relationship without love. Look at what Raghuvir did. He talks for two hours with Farah every day and he hasn’t even mentioned the name to you, Aranya. Sooner or later, he will slip and get back to his old ways.’
‘You made me make that profile, Sanchit!’
‘. . .’
‘Okay, fine. I did. But you sowed the seed of doubt in me. YOU CALLED ME EVERY DAY TO PUT DHRUV’S CASE IN FRONT OF ME. I WAS HAPPY BEING ME. Or at least I was better than this mess,’ grumbled Aranya.
‘Me? You were the one who used to call me and cry for hours thinking about Dhruv. That wasn’t me. That was always you.’
Aranya sighed. ‘Yes. That was me. Stupid, stupid me. And now he’s gone.’ She started to cry a little.
Sanchit put his arms around her. ‘There’s still time.’ Over the course of the past month, Sanchit and Aranya had gotten quite close.
‘What do we do now?’ asked a sobbing Aranya. ‘I leave in another five days.’
‘We will have to think of something,’ said Sanchit. ‘I better be leaving now. I can’t think unless I’m drunk.’
Aranya nodded. Sanchit pulled his hood over his head and opened the door.
‘Sanchit?’
‘Yes?’
‘At least I earned a friend in all this,’ said Aranya and smiled.
‘Umm . . . actually you got a lover and someone who fantasizes about you,’ Sanchit said with a wink.
‘You’re gross.’
I Love u Rachu
76
Dhruv had been dreading this moment ever since Aranya had walked into the college. He was in the queue three places behind her with a cheque and a registration form for the second year. She stood there, fidgeting with her transfer form, earplugs dug deep inside her ears, irritatingly unmindful of Dhruv’s presence. She looked beautiful. He said that to himself, making sure no one heard it because that would be awful. Aranya? Beautiful? But surely, she was. The corners of her lips moved while she mouthed the song she was listening to, the twitching of the eyebrows, the gentle batting of the eyelids, the soft skin, were all quite hypnotic to him right now.
He moved out of the line and sat on one of the benches pretending he hadn’t filled up his form. He waited for her to complete her formalities so that he could bump into her accidentally. The first ten seconds would be the key. He felt a cardiac arrest coming on. He saw them stamp her papers and tell her to come back in a couple of days to get her transcripts and the transfer letter. She looked a little sad when she should have been fucking happy to leave this shitty city, fly away and never come back.
‘Hey?’ said Dhruv as she crossed him, his tongue almost failing, flapping like a vestigial organ in his mouth. ‘All set?’
She waved the stamped papers in his face. ‘Yes.’
‘Good for me,’ said Dhruv.
‘Good for you,’ said Aranya.
Awkward silence. Like a soundproof wall had been erected between them.
‘Are you going for a creative writing course? Just asking because you have taken a deep interest in writing letters and whatnot,’ said Dhruv, trying to at least hate her if not be charming.
Aranya shook her head dismissively. ‘That’s your comeback? We have been away from each other for so many days and my arch nemesis welcomes me with this? Am I taking a creative writing course?’
‘I would have talked about Raghuvir’s small dick but I thought I would be nice to you since you’re running away scared from this college.’
People in the queue turned and looked at them. The administration officer looked, too. Aranya and Dhruv slunk out of sight.
Aranya forced a smile on her face. They were out in the lawns of the electrical department and walking towards the canteen. ‘Yes, I am. But at least I’m going after beating your ass. Look where we started and where we are now. You came in with all your swag, your big motorcycle, bloodied knuckles and all, and I came in hiding behind walls and people. And now I’m going to the US, have an insanely gorgeous boyfriend, and you’re still here moping in the dirt. Oh, by the way, that lie about Ritika and you being together in college? I didn’t buy it for one bit.’
‘Because I didn’t tell it convincingly.’
‘Blah.’
‘You forgot one thing though,’ said Dhruv. ‘The results of the first semester come out this evening, and I can bet anything in the world that you’re going to be second for the first time in your life. And that will be my comeback.’
Aranya laughed hysterically. ‘You? Dhruv? You’re going to beat me? Are you out of your mind?’
Dhruv sat down on a bench and leaned back. He hoped she would sit next to him. ‘No,’ he said. He poin
ted to the board in front of him where the results would be displayed that evening. ‘Here. In another six hours.’
Aranya smiled and sat next to him. ‘Let’s wait, then, to see who wins.’
‘What’s at stake?’ asked Dhruv.
‘Anything,’ said Aranya and thrust her hand out.
‘Everything.’
They shook hands on it.
I Love u Rachu
77
An hour had passed and they were still sitting on that bench. Dhruv played Candy Crush, the phone held upside down, and Aranya stared blankly at the board. Time crawled at a dastardly pace.
‘Did we decide to sit here and wait?’ asked Aranya.
‘We didn’t but that’s the beauty of it.’
‘You’re such a drama queen, Dhruv. If only you had been brought up on books rather than a diet of daily soaps there would have been a sliver of a chance of you beating me.’
‘Says the girl who sent mails to see if it still bothered me,’ said Dhruv.
‘Of course I knew it bothered you. That was the whole point. To make you feel bad, which you did. See that little paunch peeking from over your belt. That’s what I gave you.’
‘So you’re saying your effect on me is just a bit of bad cholesterol?’ Dhruv laughed.
‘You know what I mean. You still are head over heels in love with me and it crushes you to know that I’m with Raghuvir,’ said Aranya.
A couple of more hours passed and Aranya dozed off on the bench. She woke up to find Dhruv drinking from a plastic bottle. It looked like Coke but going by Dhruv’s crinkled face she was certain there were other miscible liquids in the bottle.
‘What’s that?’ asked Aranya. Her face was imprinted with the pattern of the bench she had rested her face on. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘You look funny.’
‘Tell me something new,’ she said and snatched the bottle away from him and put it to her lips. Dhruv counted the seconds. Ten seconds. She gave it back to him. ‘Alcohol makes everything better. Wonder what took me so long to warm up to it.’
‘Your tyrannical parents perhaps?’
Aranya nodded and smiled weakly.
‘Thirty minutes more to go. I will just go to the washroom and come. We will then start the countdown to your defeat,’ said Dhruv.
Aranya waved her middle finger in his face and Dhruv left for the washroom.
*
‘How’s it going?’ asked Sanchit, standing in front of the urinal, acting like he was peeing.
‘She’s not around, Sanchit! We can talk normally.’
‘Shut up and move to the next urinal, Dhruv. And don’t look at me while you’re talking. If I have to play the double agent, I will do it well.’
Dhruv rolled his eyes and stood in the urinal next to Sanchit’s.
‘You better charm her today, Dhruv. Do whatever it takes. Seduce, emotionally manipulate, threaten, love, whatever!’ said Sanchit.
‘I’m doing my fucking best.’
‘Keep that tone in control!’
‘CONTROL?’ thundered Dhruv. ‘You asshole! You fucked me over, dude! You went on to her side and asked her to have sex with Raghuvir and make me hear all of it? And you have the balls to ask me to keep that tone in control?’
‘Wait. Let’s get the facts correct. She had already had sex with Raghuvir before. I just asked her to make you listen to her enjoy it, use it to rile you up so that you ball up and take what’s yours!’
‘Couldn’t you just have fucking told me that and I would have done it?’
Sanchit winked. ‘Where’s the fun in that? And she wanted to see you fight! You needed to give her that. And moreover, I believe in true love and not deception. Had I told you, it would have been deception and no love story should start with that.’
‘And what are you doing now, Sanchit? Changing sides and scheming with me to get her?’ asked Dhruv.
‘I realize that both of you are psychotic and I’m the only voice of reason. If it were up to both of you, this story would never end! But more than that tonight and the next two days are yours, Dhruv. Make her fall in love with you and fall in love with her and make sure you guys are forever . . .’
Dhruv rolled his eyes.
‘Is that what I get for a good speech?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Now go out. No one likes a boy who pees for so long,’ said Sanchit. ‘And remember: DON’T. LET. HER. GO.’
*
Other students had started milling about the lawns, counting time backwards, nervous about the impending results. A few closed their eyes and said little prayers. Others talked to their parents, and a few discussed the trend of marks in the last few years.
Dhruv and Aranya finished the bottle between them and were reasonably tipsy by the end of it. Enough to know that drinking more would get them drunk but it was probably too late to stop.
‘Whoever loses buys the next bottle,’ said Dhruv.
‘You mean you. And I thought the stakes were higher, weren’t they?’ asked Aranya and giggled.
‘Not funny at all.’
And just then, a few people from the administration department walked towards the notice boards with the rolled up result sheets under their arm. Dhruv and Aranya sat up. They were sober within a split second. They staggered towards the boards where the fates of 200 first-year students were stuck with little pins. A sea of people had descended near the area and swarmed it like locusts. Dhruv and Aranya were pushed to the back.
Dhruv’s heart pounded and he crossed his fingers. He, too, said a little prayer. Students in front of them shrieked and lamented with equal intensity and then moved out of their way. After about five minutes, they reached the board. Dhruv noted Aranya’s marks first and then his own. It was a close call from the look of things. They both started tapping their phones furiously, calculating the weighted average of their marks. A pall of gloom descended on Aranya’s face, a brief smiled appeared on Dhruv’s.
‘What the—’
Dhruv interrupted. ‘Looks like I won. Stop calculating it over and over again. It’s 78.34 and 78.31. You have lost by a convincing 0.03.’ Dhruv pumped his fist.
Aranya double-checked, still incredulous at her defeat at the hands of someone whom she was labelling as an ape a few moments earlier.
‘What do you want?’
‘Spend some time with me before you go,’ said Dhruv and walked a few steps closer to her.
‘That’s all?’
‘Yes,’ said Dhruv, holding her hand and whispering in her ear. ‘That’s all.’
I Love u Rachu
78
‘What exactly are our plans?’ asked Aranya as she climbed on to Dhruv’s motorcycle.
‘I’m not sure of it. But they will include chains, restraints, pliers and medieval instruments of torture.’
Dhruv tossed Aranya the helmet and revved up his motorcycle. He drove to the nearest booze shop and picked up a few bottles with varied alcohol percentages guaranteed to knock them out.
‘Don’t tell me that after all this, all you want to do is get me drunk,’ shouted Aranya in Dhruv’s ear. The bottles clanged near her legs in the black satchel.
‘I want to celebrate our separation. Is that too much to ask for?’ Dhruv shouted back.
Aranya shrugged. Dhruv parked his motorcycle at the far corner of the hostel parking and sneaked Aranya into his hostel room.
‘WELCOME!’ said Sanchit and hugged Aranya. ‘I thought you were leaving without saying goodbye!’ Dhruv closed the lid of his laptop. Sanchit had been watching fat women porn.
‘This is the dirtiest room I have ever stepped into,’ said Aranya.
‘What’s this?’ asked Sanchit and took the bottles from her. His eyes lit up. ‘PERFECT! Come, Aranya, we will show you the perfect place to drink this. The last night the three of us will ever spend together.’
‘We are not friends,’ echoed Dhruv and Aranya.
‘And then you say you’re not ma
de for each other.’
Sanchit led them to the roof where they poured themselves large drinks. Dhruv noticed that Sanchit sit between him and Aranya like a parent. Dhruv was still a little high from the rum and the thundering victory over Aranya. He poured two shots down his throat. He found the anger, the animosity, years of hatred melting away and he wanted to wrap himself around Aranya, the cute, ugly girl.
‘What will you miss the most?’ asked Sanchit.
‘Me?’
‘Obviously, you. Why would I ask Dhruv? He’s going to rot here for the rest of his life mourning you.’
‘Fuck off,’ said Dhruv and lay supine on the roof, facing the glaring emptiness that stared back at him.
‘I would miss nothing, I think,’ said Aranya.
‘Alcohol is the closest thing we have to a truth serum. So I propose two more shots. What say, Dhruv?’
‘She’s a slave today. She will do anything I ask her to do,’ said Dhruv.
‘Anything and you asked her to drink with us? You’re like the worst Delhi boy ever.’
Sanchit poured six shots for the three of them.
‘Dhruv’s my best friend, you know,’ said Sanchit, cradling Dhruv’s foot in his lap. ‘The last of the men.’
Aranya laughed. ‘You mean the last of the men who still think there’s something inherently noble in being a species that has a flaccid piece of meat hanging between their legs.’
‘What’s so great in being a woman?’ shot back Dhruv.
‘We are always in control.’
Dhruv waved his middle finger at her.
‘That’s all you can do, Dhruv. Men and their abuses, their unnecessary display of power and perceived superiority—’
Dhruv interrupted Aranya. ‘And the feminist rises to defeat all men, take them as slaves!’
‘Ugh. It’s so hard to talk to you. Do you even know what the term means?’ Aranya shot back.
‘Actually, I’m not interested. Are you, Sanchit?’ asked Dhruv but Sanchit had already walked to the other end of the roof, a bottle dangling from his right hand, singing to himself.