He looked outside waiting for me to leave but I was stubborn. He would have known that if he knew me better. Finally, he spoke, ‘Is what everyone saying in school true? Did you . . . ?’
‘Lose my virgi—’
‘Shhh!’
‘No, I haven’t! Where did you hear that?’
The bus stopped outside the gate of our school and the kids poured out. Sarthak, literally, jumped over me and walked away before he could catch my infection. Grabbing my bag from my seat, I ran after him to get my answer.
‘Tell me. Who told you, Sarthak?’
He stopped, turned at me, furious as he seldom was, and said, his spit flying angrily all over, ‘Everyone, okay! The boys in my class are taking bets about who will be the next one who sleeps with you!’
‘But—’
‘I know it’s not your fault but that’s what it is! And I’m sorry for shouting right now but I can’t help it.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s better we don’t talk.’
‘But—’
‘Look, Aisha, what you do is your own business. I won’t stop you. But don’t expect anything more. That’s how it is.’
‘But you’re my brother.’
‘I know, Aisha. You deserve a better brother.’
It sounded more like a plea for me to leave him alone. I obliged and let him walk away into the crowd.
I sat through mathematics and physics and chemistry and English thinking if I were at fault, discovering masturbation, wanting to have sex, getting my boobs. They should have been my little high points in life. Then why did people find some way to ruin it all for me? The last time I had truly laughed with my brother was when I was in the seventh standard and a new school year was about to begin. We’d shoplifted brown covering paper from our neighbourhood stationery shop. Usually we stuck to pencils and gel pens, so wrapping paper was a bit of a stretch, and we almost thought we’d get caught as we cycled away from the sprinting shopkeeper. We spent hours laughing that night as we wrapped our copies with brown papers, stuck labels on them and wrote our names neatly with our flicked pens.
‘Are you looking forward to the counselling session today?’ asked Megha in the middle of the chemistry class.
‘I would rather throw myself in a blender.’
‘Oh! I forgot to tell you! I have a date with Dhruv today after school. We are going to this new pub and a movie afterwards.’
‘Are you planning to drink?’
‘Of course,’ said Megha. ‘How dowdy will it be to not drink in a pub.’
‘Then he will probably slide his hand under your skirt.’
‘What?’ she exclaimed.
‘I mean he might.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I read books,’ I said.
‘Fifty Shades of Grey?’ she asked.
I rolled my eyes at the poor, ignorant girl. She had taken my copy but her parents got hold of it, read a few pages, and branded me as a slut. They asked her never to talk to me. I hadn’t even enjoyed the book! It was stolen and I’d later exchanged it for a copy of Eleanor and Park.
Why do I even talk to her?
‘Okay, but what should I do if he does that?’
‘I think you should stop him,’ I said. ‘If you’re not ready.’
‘Am I ready?’
‘I don’t think so. You don’t even touch yourself. How can you allow him to do so? Plus he won’t know what to do. Your nether region is like an archery target. You have to be totally precise!’
She crinkled her brow. ‘What if I’m ready and I don’t know if I’m ready. I think I will stay quiet.’
‘I think you should say No.’
‘What if he doesn’t listen? I don’t want to be uptight with him.’
‘You should say No.’
‘What if he still doesn’t stop?’
‘If you think that’s a possibility, you should not go out with him and tell all your friends not to go out with him as well!’ I said with authority.
‘C’mon!’ she said, exasperatedly. ‘I should just give him what he wants. He might begin to date me after all.’ She shrugged her shoulders excitedly as if free candy was on offer.
I decided to be happy about the fact that I wasn’t the kind of woman who was happy that a boy was ready to date her. Nor was I a woman who wouldn’t shame a boy trying to get into her pants, even after she said No.
The classes ended and I was instructed to wait outside the counsellor’s room, who was running late by an hour, and so I waited, drawing love handles on the skinny women in the newspapers.
Along with me were three boys—one was caught smoking weed, another had set off fireworks in the washroom, and the third had abused a teacher.
I was the last one in the line.
The stoner, hardly thirteen, looked at me and asked, ‘Are you the one who mast—’
‘Yes, I do!’ I snapped.
‘That’s only like the coolest thing ever.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know so,’ whispered the boy. ‘I just discovered it. It’s awesome!’
‘I know, right?’
‘So you are here for that?’ I nodded in response. ‘You’re so screwed. So are you going to deny it? Stop doing it? What?’
‘Of course not. I’m in love with it. I’m never stopping.’
‘You’re like the coolest girl ever, bro,’ he said.
12
Danish Roy
I was not corrupt.
I was not the one hollowing out this country’s fortunes, taking horrendous decisions that affected real people, and from that perspective I was much better than my father who got me a job at a fancy school as a counsellor to young boys and girls. Anyone with an elementary level education would know why this was such a bad decision. I made a quick stop at the local liquor store and picked up a bottle of white wine and drained it into a bottle of Sprite. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an alcoholic. It’s too expensive an addiction to have. But there was no way I was getting through this sober.
The principal met me at the reception. ‘You come highly recommended. Your father told me you have quite a lot of experience working with young people. I don’t need to tell you what to do,’ he said, smiled widely and shook my hand with both of his. A firm, tendon-snapping handshake. His confidence in me gave me nausea.
Coming back to a school may flood some with nostalgia but to me it felt like someone had thrust an umbrella up my ass and opened it. At least there was hope when I was young, now there was just disappointment. But I felt shamefully proud when I was shown my room which had a top-of-the-line Mac desktop, a nameplate, letterheads, a printer and a personal peon who would bring me whatever I asked for.
‘Should I send the first person in?’ asked the peon.
There were already four students waiting outside whom I had to counsel, and my knees shook like fucking tongs.
‘Yes, please do.’
I decided I would sit like psychiatrist, nod my head seriously, scratch my forehead from time to time, and pray they didn’t look for guidance or comfort or whatever the hell they were here for.
The first boy was Aryan, thirteen, who had been caught smoking weed in the school premises after it set off a smoke alarm. I kind of expected that a rich boy would waltz in, spit on my face, wave his middle finger, and tell me how powerful his father was. Instead, a rather shy boy with round, Harry Potter glasses walked in with his gap-toothed, shy smile.
‘Hello sir,’ he said.
I nodded. I didn’t know what to say so I just let him talk. Every time he would stop complaining about something I asked him if there was something else he would like to talk about.
Depressed. Sad. Tired. Alienated. Rejected. Alone. Lonely. He used words which were expected from an investment banker going through a nervous breakdown.
In thirty minutes, he had cried, apologized, lost his temper twice, called the counselling session a sham, abused his friends, realized he was hurti
ng his parents, and that he did really have two friends, not popular kids but friends nonetheless, and that right now he would rather be on his PlayStation with them, and then he told me he would never smoke weed again.
‘I’m writing in your report that it was a one-time mistake, okay?’
‘But it isn’t.’
‘We can all catch a break sometimes, can’t we?’
He smiled and left the room.
Then the second kid came in. The Sprite bottle lay untouched. All I had to do was listen and make them talk. These were smart kids who knew what they were doing. It was a cry for help, an appeal for someone to listen. They weren’t twisted, just lost. I had been scared for no reason. There were times when I wanted to jump out of my seat and tell them how I felt the exact same things when I was growing up, how I felt so terrible myself. But I didn’t.
I called the next kid in.
‘Hi.’
I doubled checked her file that lay on the table. Seventeen? When I was seventeen, girls had unibrows and sideburns that could put John Travolta to shame. This girl was . . . a woman.
‘Come in.’
She took her seat, poured herself some water in a glass and drank from it. A pall of silence fell between us.
‘Are you nervous?’ she asked when she saw me with my fingers resting under my chin—a pose I thought exuded confidence. ‘I would be nervous too if it were my first day.’
‘I . . . I’m not nervous. You should be nervous.’
Wow, Danish. What a comeback!
‘I am.’
I took my serious thinking pose again. ‘Why are you nervous?’
‘For Megha, she’s my friend, well she’s not really my friend, but we’ve known each other since the second standard and we go for movies sometimes, and sometimes our cycles match, so yeah.’
‘You missed the part where you should tell me why you are nervous about Megha.’
‘Oh yes. That. Megha is going out with a guy. I’m not sure he likes her a lot. But he will try to get his hands under her skirt.’
‘Oh, shouldn’t you have stopped her?’
‘I told her what I could. It’s up to her now.’
‘So let’s talk about why you are here. Do you want to tell me yourself?’
‘There was a misunderstanding. The principal thought I have started having sex with people, while all I admitted to was being a compulsive masturbator.’
‘You what?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Umm . . . you don’t have to be sorry,’ I said reflexively.
‘But the principal thinks I should be and that’s why he has sent me here. To talk to you. You will set me right, he said.’
‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with . . . umm—’
‘Masturbating?’
‘Yes, that’s perfectly normal.’
‘That’s what I tried to tell him. The boy outside? Aryan? He told me he does it too. Every boy does it, he said. Then why did the principal call me out?’
I shrugged my shoulders.
She continued. ‘You would have such a long day if every boy who masturbated was sent to you, right?’ She chuckled. ‘I think even my brother masturbates. Sometimes he spends too much time in the washroom. But why isn’t he sitting here? He’s in the same school, by the way. And we hardly ever talk.’
There has to be a handbook on how to tackle such questions from precocious teenagers. What right did she have to be so straightforward and . . . confident? Like, why? She was seventeen. A kid!
Finally, I came up with a question which seemed most appropriate and I said it in my most serious voice. I asked, ‘I’m just trying to get where you’re coming from, Aisha. Also because I have to file this report, so don’t get me wrong, but you have told people you’re a compulsive masturbator. Like why is it a compulsive habit?’
‘Why do you masturbate?’
‘What?’
‘I read in the book Student Careers and Counselling that therapy sessions should be a two-way conversation,’ she said, ‘so I thought I can ask you the same question.’ She waited for my answer with a bright smile. She was screwing with me.
‘But that’s inappropriate.’
‘Why?’
‘Umm . . . because you’re seventeen.’
‘I will ask you next month then,’ she said. ‘I’m turning eighteen.’
And just then, the peon walked in and informed us that the principal wanted to introduce me to the rest of the faculty and saved me from the most embarrassing conversation ever.
‘See you tomorrow?’
‘Sure.’
13
Aisha Paul
OH.MY.GOD. That man-child in that counselling room was cute!
I would have shared this important piece of information with Megha had she bothered to breathe in between her hour-long-minute-by-minute report of her boring but safe date with the boy.
‘He drove at 120 mph! Imagine! It was the best thing ever!’ she exclaimed.
‘That he can drive fast? That’s the best thing ever? Does he wear a bracelet as well? Middle-parted long hair?’ I asked, a little pissed off.
I wanted to tell her about the awkward, super funny conversation I had had with my cutely fidgety counsellor, tell her how he went so red in the face when I intentionally embarrassed him, but the moment was gone now and I didn’t want to say it any more.
‘How did your counselling go? Was he cute?’
‘Why would it matter whether he was cute or not?’
I just wanted to be angry at her for ignoring me for so long. How was her date more important than my therapy session? ‘Of course it does. So tell me, was he cute?’ She rested her chin on her knuckles and leaned forward.
‘I don’t know.’
‘But the entire school is saying he’s cute!’
‘I don’t know, Megha.’
‘Stop being such a spoilsport.’
‘I am not!’
‘Kritika was telling me that he has the most amazing hair, and a light stubble like the one that actor keeps? What’s his name? Arjun Kapoor! Yes. So does he look like him? I bet he’s cute. You’re just not telling me.’
‘Why would I not tell you if he was cute?’
‘I don’t know, you tell me.’
‘Megha, I don’t know if he was cute or not.’
‘How can you not know if he was cute or not, Aisha? It’s the first thing you notice!’
‘I didn’t notice it, okay?’
‘How can you not notice it?’ she grumbled.
‘Because he’s a lot many other things than just being cute!’
‘Like what? Like what did you notice that was so important that you didn’t care about his looks?’
‘I can’t tell you that right now,’ I snapped.
I hadn’t bothered to find out. I had straightaway, like everyone else in school, had put him in a little box—cute—and nothing else mattered. He would now be cute forever. Not necessarily a bad thing, but that’s what kids in my school feel about my big breasts. She’s the girl with the big boobs and an active sex life. Not necessarily a bad thing, but you might just lose a brother because of it.
‘You will not call him cute.’
‘Why?’ protested Megha.
‘Because you don’t know him.’
‘So what?’ she said.
‘The first thing you know about a person can’t be his cuteness! That’s just wrong. Who defines what cute is anyway? What if he doesn’t want to be cute? What if he wants to be something else? What if he wants smaller breasts?’
‘What?’
‘Sorry. But don’t call him cute. You can’t judge people on the most basic thing about them—how they look! You can’t do that. It can hurt them.’
‘How can calling someone cute hurt them?’
‘It can! And it can also hurt people who aren’t called cute! Have you thought about people who are not cute?’
‘What about them?’ she shrugged. ‘They already kno
w they are not cute.’
‘Whatever.’
‘What whatever, Aisha. You always judge people by how they look. If you can tell me one other aspect that you would rather notice, I will agree to what you’re saying,’ said Megha.
‘Ummm . . . what if like, like . . . like a person walks by and he has a halo over his head?’
‘Good luck with that, Aisha!’
We didn’t talk for the rest of the day. I decided I wouldn’t be the kind of woman who puts people into boxes like cute or big breasts or thick legs. But what about those whom I had already judged, and put into little boxes with no holes? Were they still breathing? Over the years, I had been on the receiving end of many vicious rumours. But I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I had done the same to many others as well. But none worse than Namrata, that nice, intelligent girl in my class.
I needed to talk to Danish about this.
This counsellor was already working for me. He was good for me—yes, that’s the first thing I would tell people about him, not that he was cute, but that he was good for me.
My mother served paneer and rice that night. I told her about the counselling session.
‘What do you need counselling for?’ she asked.
‘Nothing major. Just like that.’
She was too busy making little rice balls and feeding me to pursue that line of questioning and asked, ‘Is he good?’
‘Yes, he’s very good. He’s nice. I think it’s his first time as a counsellor. But he’s good. I’m seeing him again tomorrow.’
‘Don’t trouble him.’
‘What makes you think I will trouble my counsellor?’
It was at times like these that I felt my mother knew everything. How did she know that I had enquired about his motivation to wank?
‘Eat.’
‘Where’s Sarthak?’ I asked.
‘He’s eating in the room. He has some assignments to complete.’
‘Mom?’
‘Yes, bachha?’
‘Do you remember Namrata?’
‘Yes, of course I do,’ she said, stuffing my mouth with another oddly shaped rice ball.
‘You do?’
‘Wasn’t she the new girl who’d joined a few years back? Scored more than you in SST and science? God! How many tantrums you threw in those days!’