“Of course you are. But I can only do this with my close friends.”
No one else protested. If nothing else, Ryan’s theory formed core entertainment at the
party. One vodka bottle, ten joints and three cassettes of Floyd later, the speech was just
part of the evening. At one a.m. the others left. Alok and I helped Ryan clear the mess.
“That was a good party,” Alok said.
“I know, Fatso. You missed out on all this with the bastard Venkat,” Ryan said, and
staggered to his feet.
“So, what is with the implementation of the theory? How does that work?” I spoke idly.
“C2D,” Ryan said.
“What the hell is that?” It sounded like a code in those damn sci-fi movies.
“Cooperate,” Ryan said and fell on his bed, only half-intentionally.
“Cooperate?”
“Yes, Cooperate to dominate, C2D…” Ryan said and closed his eyes. All that work for
the party and the vodka had taken their toll. He had passed out.
“Come, fellow mouse, let’s go to our room,” Alok said.
The party was over.
I was in the machining lab with Ryan when I remembered my date with Neha the next day.
This time, madam had asked for a gift. She made this whole big deal about how I actually
never give her anything, and how other girls got gifts from their friends. I mean, it was
asinine logic if you ask me, as there were things she could be giving me, and without much
capital investment. To have the nerve to ask for a gift on top of this deprivation is something
only a woman can do, as they are made differently after all. Anyway, I’d promised her I
would not come without a gift and then had totally forgotten about it.
“Tomorrow morning?” Ryan said “How will you get a gift by then?”
“I don’t know, I just forgot. Man, will she sulk! I’ll just buy some chocolates, bloody
expensive they are though.”
“Yeah, but chocolates? That is not original at all. No wonder she doesn’t give you any,”
Ryan said.
“Well whatever. You have any bright ideas?” I was irritated at his conclusions, which
were probably right.
“Think man, think.”
We thought for several minutes and threw out most ideas; clothes too expensive, perfumes
too frivolous, books impersonal and so on. I had neither time nor taste to improvise.
“Make something for her.” Ryan snapped his fingers.
“What?”
“Like, make an object right here, in the lab. A handmade original, from an engineer, how
neat is that?”
It seemed like an interesting idea, even though completely impractical. And what if she
was expecting me to spend some money.
“Make what?”
“I don’t know. Think of some simple device she could use.”
I tried to think of Neha’s life. She had this big purse full of things. “How about a little box
to keep her lipsticks? They kind of keep rolling out of her purse when she takes things out.”
“Now you are thinking customer needs. Ok, lipstick box. How many lipsticks max?”
“Three…four.”
“And size of a lipstick?”
“No idea. Say three inches by one inch by one inch.”
“Cool. So, say we stack them two by two…and then we design with sheet metal of
thickness…”
I saw Ryan transform from the irreverent IIT underdog he purported to be into this
passionate scientist over my stupid lipstick box. For the first time ever, he pored over an
engineering drawing like he really wanted to make one. He thought of other clever things, a
snap-up lid, a little mirror, and her name etched on top.
After the designing, he broke up the task into various parts; cutting, bending, buffing – all
concepts we found boring as hell in class were now suddenly interesting. We forgot about
the actual assignment for the day, as we gave a damn about our grades anyway.
Three hours later, I etched out the last few letters of ‘Neha Cherian’ on her made-in-IIT
lipstick box.
“This is pretty neat,” I said, impressed at the snap-open mechanism, “she will love this.
Thanks, Ryan.”
“Any time man,” he raised his thumb. Yes, I really wanted to be like Ryan, who I loved
most of the time. At least I hated him less than myself.
I presented Neha’s gift to her at our ice-cream parlour.
“What? What did you say this is?” She twisted the metallic cigarette box-sized case
round and round in her hands.
“It is a lipstick holder,” I said.
“Really? Never heard of them.”
I asked her for her lipsticks. She had five, which meant our design was below capacity.
Anyway, I took four – red, copper, brown and pink (why girls put coloured wax on their
bodies continues to be a mystery to me) and placed them inside. Snug fit, snap cover – the
design worked perfectly. One surface had a mirror, so the user could apply the coloured
wax accurately and not paint their nostrils in the bargain.
“Why lipstick case?”
“I don’t know. I like your lips I guess,” I said.
“Very funny. And you made this?” she said.
“Yes, with Ryan. See, it is personalized.” I turned the box to its lower surface. ‘Neha
Cherian’, the most beautiful name in the world was written in the most beautiful letters.
“Wow,” Neha said softly, and then fondled the lipstick holder from the IIT Delhi
machining lab like it was a newborn baby. “Wow,” she said again.
“What?” I said. (Okay, so I was fishing for a little more appreciation here than the
monosyllabic ‘wow’.)
“No one has done anything like this for me,” Neha said.
And it was at this moment that by pure chance I came out with the right line. I don’t know
how it came to me, but it just did. “Well, no one has meant more to me in life.”
Maybe it was not completely true. But it wasn’t all lies either (and in any case, it is about
saying the right thing to girls, who gives a damn if it is true or not. I am Hari, not
Harishchandra).
“Really?” Neha asked.
“Yes.”
“Thanks, Hari. See I am going to use it right now,” she said.
I watched Neha’s face as she applied her lipstick with the same concentration as Alok
had when doing quanti problems. Girls are beautiful, let’s face it, and life is quite, quite
worthless without them.
“What time you got to go home?” I said.
“Say by nine,” Neha said. “I told them I’m meeting girlfriends for dinner.”
“Wow, pretty liberal of them,” I said sarcastically.
“They know I was feeling down. Thinking of Samir again.”
“Hey, you want me to take you to a secret place?” I said.
“Where?”
“The insti roof.”
“What? Are you crazy. Right on top of the insti, as if there could be a worse place for
going public!”
“There is no one there. Ryan and I have gone dozens of times. And the view from the bell
tower is beautiful.”
I could see Neha was excited about the roof. It took me a few minutes of persuasion,
convincing her that no one would find out, as we could follow her standard ‘five minutes
apart’ policy to walk up there.
“I’ll go. But not today. It’s close to nine. How about next time, and I’ll cry for Samir the
whole day so they let me go out until eleven.”
I didn’t really dig her idea of using her brother as a weapon to stay out late but her
parents were certified weirdos and probably deserved such tactics.
“Next time meet me on the roof directly, at eight-thirty.”
“Sure,” she said, “you said it is safe, right?”
“Yes, trust me,” I winked.
Five Point Someone What not to do at IIT Novel Chetan Bhagat
Re: Five Point Someone What not to do at IIT Novel Chetan Bh
10
—
Cooperate to Dominate
“HERE, ONE COPY FOR EACH OF YOU.” RYAN HANDED OUT papers to us with the
title: THE C2D PLAN.
I had forgotten about the C2D theory, but obviously Ryan hadn’t. He had in fact been
working on the official document. We were sitting at Sasi’s and Alok was busy with his
second plate of paranthas, when Ryan dished out his plan for the rest of our IIT stay.
“Whassit?” Alok’s greasy fingertips left marks on the sheet, obviously needing a tissue
more than an IIT plan. There was something about Alok with his food that was too intimate
to be watched.
I read out the contents.
Cooperate to Dominate. The IIT system is unfair because:
1. It suppresses talent and individual spirit.
2. It extracts the best years of one’s life from the country’s brightest minds.
3. It judges you with a draconian GP A system that destroys relationships.
4. The profs don’t care for the students.
5. IIT s have hardly contributed to the country .
“You have the time to do all this?” was Alok’s response, which was stupid because Ryan
had all the time in the world.
I read on: So, the only way to take on the unfair system is through unfair means – which is
Cooperate to Dominate or C2D. And this is the plan that Ryan, Hari and Alok agree to for
the rest of their stay at the insti. The key tenets are:
1. All assignments to be shared – one person will do each assignment by turn. The others
will simply copy it. Saves time, saves duplication of ef ort.
2. We will divide up the course responsibilities. For instance, if there are six courses in
the semester, we will take care of only two each. One must attend all classes that one is
responsible for, but can skip all others. (note: Ryan gets all Prof Veera courses) In each
class you attend for your course – take copious notes. The rest will merely copy them.
3. We share lab experiment observations.
4. Our friendship is above GPAs. With all the new spare time, we live our lives to the
fullest.
5. We combine our hostel rooms into one living unit – one common bedroom, one study
room and one fun party room.
6. We split the cost of vodka regardless of how many drinks each person has had.
Ryan looked at us as if he was expecting us to break into applause. We kept silent, hoping
he would explain where he was going with this.
“So, what do you guys think?” he asked.
“What is this? Some kind of teenage club thing?”
“If you agree, sign it. Sign it with your blood.”
“Yeah right,” I said, “How old are we, like twelve?”
“I am serious man,” Ryan said and then before we could say anything, he flicked out a
razor blade from his pocket. In one nick, his thumb sprouted a dot of red.
“Ryan, are you crazy?” Alok squeaked, almost losing his breakfast at this gross act.
“No. Just want to drive the point home. You decide what you want to do,” Ryan said,
signing the document with a toothpick dipped in his blood.
“Can we discuss this first?” I said.
“What is there to discuss? I am not forcing anyone.”
“Like this whole sharing assignments and observations. Isn’t that heating?” Alok said.
I agreed with Alok, though I was more concerned about the vodka costs, given that Ryan
out-drank us ever y single time.
“It is not cheating, it is cooperation. They have divided us with their GPAs, we are just
pulling together to fight back.”
“I don’t see it that way,” I insisted.
“Are you signing or not?” Ryan put his hands on his hips.
I thought about the C2D one last time. “Well. I can sign it, though I am not cutting myself
or anything.”
“It just takes a second,” Ryan said and flicked the blade on my forefinger and blood
spouted out of me before I could form my denial.
“Fuck you.”
Ryan laughed and said, “Sorry man, look at your face. C’mon man, get into the spirit. Just
sign it.”
I looked at Ryan in disgust and signed the sheet.
Alok sat there, petrified like a chicken in a butcher shop. The old Alok would have
vociferously stood up to Ryan, but the new, improved version, just back with us, did not
want to fight again. “I’ll make the cut myself,” he said finally.
And soon he did get some blood from his little finger and we signed the C2D document
like primitive tribesmen. I have to say, the whole blood thing made this feel important. I was
not sure of what I had done, but somehow it sounded exciting. We converted our three single
rooms into one apartment the same day. Ryan’s room became the party room, Alok’s was the
study room with three tables and my room had the three beds.
“So you friends moved in together,” Neha said.
We were en route to the insti roof as per plan. She met me at eight p.m., her parents
blissfully ignorant about her real whereabouts, picturing her by a cake at a non-existent
friend’s birthday party.
“Yes, sort of. We combined our rooms to one living unit,” I said, panting as we climbed
the back stairs to the building.
“Sounds exciting,” she said, blowing the fringe out of her eye.
It was already dark when we reached the roof. As always, there was no one there.
“Wow, look at all the stars,” Neha said.
“Yes,” I said, proud as if I had finger-painted the sky myself. “And it’s all ours. Check out
the campus view. See – that’s where you live,” I pointed.
We couldn’t see much, apart from the lights in the living room.
“Wow. We are so near to them, yet so far,” Neha said dreamily, flopping on the concrete
floor. “So?”
“So what?” I said.
“Where is the vodka? Don’t you guys drink here?”
“Yes. But you don’t drink, do you?”
“Says who? I’ll have one if you have some.”
“We do hide a bottle under the bell. Let me look,” I said, surprised at Neha’s request. She
was a nice girl, I thought. Nice girls do not drink. But I kind of could do with a drink myself,
so I came back with the bottle.
“Nice,” she said, as she lay back against the dish antenna, “look at the stars above, just so
beautiful. I wish I were a bird.”
When people want to be birds, they are normally getting drunk. But she was getting trippy
just from the idea of drinking on the insti roof.
“Oh, I could lie here forever. Give me another drink,” she said.
“Don’t have too much,” I had to caution.
“I won’t. My dad will kill me if he smells it.”
“Of course you’ll smell of it.”
“Not much, check this out.”
She opened her purse. Ten items later, she took out a pack of cardamom pods.
“See, one of these and I go home minty fresh.”
“Really? Then have one now, be minty for me.”
“What? Do I have bad breath?” she sat up straighter.
“I did not say that.”
She held my arm and pulled me toward her. “Look me in the eye and tell me if I have bad
breath.”
“I don’t know. I have never been that close to your mouth,” I said honestly, even as the
millimeters between our mouths lessened.
“Go to hell,” she laughed and pushed me away.
“See, you are chicken. Just so chicken,” I said.
“No, I am not. Look at me, a professor’s daughter, getting drunk on the insti roof with a
five point something loafer.”
If she had not been laughing, I would have resented that, but I decided to milk the
opportunity anyway.
“Loafer? So I am a loafer,” I said.
“Yes, but…”
“But what?”
“But I love my loafer,” she said and pulled me toward her again. Again, our mouths were
millimeters away. She tilted her head sideways. Was she going to kiss me? Or rather, was
she-plus-two-glasses-of-vodka going to kiss me?
“We don’t need no ejju-kay-shion…” a hoarse singing voice startled us from our
embrace. Someone had just come to the insti roof.
“What the…” Neha said, “I thought you said no one was here.”
“I don’t know. Shh…quiet,” I said as we tried to hide behind the antenna.
I finally recognized Ryan’s voice through all that bad singing and saw him heading for our
vodka hiding place.
“It’s Ryan!” I said in a voice mixed with relief and irritation at losing my moment.
“Ryan,” I shouted.
“Hari,” he shouted back, walking over. “Bastard, you are here and I was looking all over
for you. Is there someone with you?”
“Ryan, I want you to meet…”
“It’s a girl!” Ryan exclaimed as if he had spotted me with a dead rabbit. Neha continued
to cower behind me, attempting anonymity.
“It’s Neha,” I said. “Neha, meet Ryan. Ryan, be nice and say hello to Neha.”
Ryan’s voice mellowed down instantly. What is it with men; they become another person
in female company. So predictable!
“Hi Neha,” Ryan said, trying to avoid staring too much at someone he had heard so much
about.
“Hi,” Neha said, still unsure if Ryan could be trusted.
“I was just looking for Hari to do an assignment,” Ryan said.
“Drop it Ryan. We’re having a drink,” I said.
“Really?” Ryan said as if he expected Neha to be winged and haloed or something. “But I
thought Neha was not like that.”
“Like what?” she asked immediately.
“Uh, nothing,” Ryan said and sat down on the warm concrete.
“So what have you heard about me?” Neha said.
“Lots,” Ryan said and started telling her sacred details about all our past dates. They kept
talking for like ten hours or something and I just kept getting more drunk. Ryan has a
computer memory or something, and he told her about the times even I had forgotten about.
“He told you about the family planning documentary?” Neha tittered.
“Of course, he tells me everything,” he said with considerable pride.
I wondered if Neha and I would have kissed and managed more if bloody Ryan had not
dragged himself up here. I considered pushing him off the insti roof, but thought it would
kind of spoil the mood anyway.
“So why did you say I wasn’t that type of girl?” Neha said.
“You know, the whole vodka thing. You are supposed to be well…forget it,” Ryan said.
“What? Tell me,” Neha said with a firmness only good-looking women possess.
“You are like this good girl. Like why else won’t you let him do anything? Dating for a
year, still no kiss even. Just this goody-goody prof’s daughter.”
“He told you that?” Neha squeaked.
“Of course. You think you are dating a guy or someone asexual? You don’t think he has
needs?”
“Shut up, Ryan.” This from me.
“C’mon man. Show some guts sometimes. This is for your own good.”
“Needs?” Neha repeated, dazed.
“Yes, ever y man has needs. And pretty girls like you are either not aware of them or deny
them for power games.”
“Power?” Neha repeated.
I wanted to tell Ryan I had just been getting somewhere nicely, thank you, when he
whistled by.
“Yes, power. What else?” Ryan said, calming down finally.
“I crave power? Now that is a joke. You guys just don’t understand women do you?”
Neha said, with a vodka-infused confidence that could take on even Ryan.
“Huh?” Ryan said, proving that we really did not understand women.
Neha had to go home soon after that, so we left the topic there. I wanted to scream at
Ryan later, but he rolled two joints for me and gave me a scooter ride back to Kumaon, so I
left it. Besides, Neha really did not seem mad or anything.
I had a hunch he might have helped my case!
—
Cooperate to Dominate
“HERE, ONE COPY FOR EACH OF YOU.” RYAN HANDED OUT papers to us with the
title: THE C2D PLAN.
I had forgotten about the C2D theory, but obviously Ryan hadn’t. He had in fact been
working on the official document. We were sitting at Sasi’s and Alok was busy with his
second plate of paranthas, when Ryan dished out his plan for the rest of our IIT stay.
“Whassit?” Alok’s greasy fingertips left marks on the sheet, obviously needing a tissue
more than an IIT plan. There was something about Alok with his food that was too intimate
to be watched.
I read out the contents.
Cooperate to Dominate. The IIT system is unfair because:
1. It suppresses talent and individual spirit.
2. It extracts the best years of one’s life from the country’s brightest minds.
3. It judges you with a draconian GP A system that destroys relationships.
4. The profs don’t care for the students.
5. IIT s have hardly contributed to the country .
“You have the time to do all this?” was Alok’s response, which was stupid because Ryan
had all the time in the world.
I read on: So, the only way to take on the unfair system is through unfair means – which is
Cooperate to Dominate or C2D. And this is the plan that Ryan, Hari and Alok agree to for
the rest of their stay at the insti. The key tenets are:
1. All assignments to be shared – one person will do each assignment by turn. The others
will simply copy it. Saves time, saves duplication of ef ort.
2. We will divide up the course responsibilities. For instance, if there are six courses in
the semester, we will take care of only two each. One must attend all classes that one is
responsible for, but can skip all others. (note: Ryan gets all Prof Veera courses) In each
class you attend for your course – take copious notes. The rest will merely copy them.
3. We share lab experiment observations.
4. Our friendship is above GPAs. With all the new spare time, we live our lives to the
fullest.
5. We combine our hostel rooms into one living unit – one common bedroom, one study
room and one fun party room.
6. We split the cost of vodka regardless of how many drinks each person has had.
Ryan looked at us as if he was expecting us to break into applause. We kept silent, hoping
he would explain where he was going with this.
“So, what do you guys think?” he asked.
“What is this? Some kind of teenage club thing?”
“If you agree, sign it. Sign it with your blood.”
“Yeah right,” I said, “How old are we, like twelve?”
“I am serious man,” Ryan said and then before we could say anything, he flicked out a
razor blade from his pocket. In one nick, his thumb sprouted a dot of red.
“Ryan, are you crazy?” Alok squeaked, almost losing his breakfast at this gross act.
“No. Just want to drive the point home. You decide what you want to do,” Ryan said,
signing the document with a toothpick dipped in his blood.
“Can we discuss this first?” I said.
“What is there to discuss? I am not forcing anyone.”
“Like this whole sharing assignments and observations. Isn’t that heating?” Alok said.
I agreed with Alok, though I was more concerned about the vodka costs, given that Ryan
out-drank us ever y single time.
“It is not cheating, it is cooperation. They have divided us with their GPAs, we are just
pulling together to fight back.”
“I don’t see it that way,” I insisted.
“Are you signing or not?” Ryan put his hands on his hips.
I thought about the C2D one last time. “Well. I can sign it, though I am not cutting myself
or anything.”
“It just takes a second,” Ryan said and flicked the blade on my forefinger and blood
spouted out of me before I could form my denial.
“Fuck you.”
Ryan laughed and said, “Sorry man, look at your face. C’mon man, get into the spirit. Just
sign it.”
I looked at Ryan in disgust and signed the sheet.
Alok sat there, petrified like a chicken in a butcher shop. The old Alok would have
vociferously stood up to Ryan, but the new, improved version, just back with us, did not
want to fight again. “I’ll make the cut myself,” he said finally.
And soon he did get some blood from his little finger and we signed the C2D document
like primitive tribesmen. I have to say, the whole blood thing made this feel important. I was
not sure of what I had done, but somehow it sounded exciting. We converted our three single
rooms into one apartment the same day. Ryan’s room became the party room, Alok’s was the
study room with three tables and my room had the three beds.
“So you friends moved in together,” Neha said.
We were en route to the insti roof as per plan. She met me at eight p.m., her parents
blissfully ignorant about her real whereabouts, picturing her by a cake at a non-existent
friend’s birthday party.
“Yes, sort of. We combined our rooms to one living unit,” I said, panting as we climbed
the back stairs to the building.
“Sounds exciting,” she said, blowing the fringe out of her eye.
It was already dark when we reached the roof. As always, there was no one there.
“Wow, look at all the stars,” Neha said.
“Yes,” I said, proud as if I had finger-painted the sky myself. “And it’s all ours. Check out
the campus view. See – that’s where you live,” I pointed.
We couldn’t see much, apart from the lights in the living room.
“Wow. We are so near to them, yet so far,” Neha said dreamily, flopping on the concrete
floor. “So?”
“So what?” I said.
“Where is the vodka? Don’t you guys drink here?”
“Yes. But you don’t drink, do you?”
“Says who? I’ll have one if you have some.”
“We do hide a bottle under the bell. Let me look,” I said, surprised at Neha’s request. She
was a nice girl, I thought. Nice girls do not drink. But I kind of could do with a drink myself,
so I came back with the bottle.
“Nice,” she said, as she lay back against the dish antenna, “look at the stars above, just so
beautiful. I wish I were a bird.”
When people want to be birds, they are normally getting drunk. But she was getting trippy
just from the idea of drinking on the insti roof.
“Oh, I could lie here forever. Give me another drink,” she said.
“Don’t have too much,” I had to caution.
“I won’t. My dad will kill me if he smells it.”
“Of course you’ll smell of it.”
“Not much, check this out.”
She opened her purse. Ten items later, she took out a pack of cardamom pods.
“See, one of these and I go home minty fresh.”
“Really? Then have one now, be minty for me.”
“What? Do I have bad breath?” she sat up straighter.
“I did not say that.”
She held my arm and pulled me toward her. “Look me in the eye and tell me if I have bad
breath.”
“I don’t know. I have never been that close to your mouth,” I said honestly, even as the
millimeters between our mouths lessened.
“Go to hell,” she laughed and pushed me away.
“See, you are chicken. Just so chicken,” I said.
“No, I am not. Look at me, a professor’s daughter, getting drunk on the insti roof with a
five point something loafer.”
If she had not been laughing, I would have resented that, but I decided to milk the
opportunity anyway.
“Loafer? So I am a loafer,” I said.
“Yes, but…”
“But what?”
“But I love my loafer,” she said and pulled me toward her again. Again, our mouths were
millimeters away. She tilted her head sideways. Was she going to kiss me? Or rather, was
she-plus-two-glasses-of-vodka going to kiss me?
“We don’t need no ejju-kay-shion…” a hoarse singing voice startled us from our
embrace. Someone had just come to the insti roof.
“What the…” Neha said, “I thought you said no one was here.”
“I don’t know. Shh…quiet,” I said as we tried to hide behind the antenna.
I finally recognized Ryan’s voice through all that bad singing and saw him heading for our
vodka hiding place.
“It’s Ryan!” I said in a voice mixed with relief and irritation at losing my moment.
“Ryan,” I shouted.
“Hari,” he shouted back, walking over. “Bastard, you are here and I was looking all over
for you. Is there someone with you?”
“Ryan, I want you to meet…”
“It’s a girl!” Ryan exclaimed as if he had spotted me with a dead rabbit. Neha continued
to cower behind me, attempting anonymity.
“It’s Neha,” I said. “Neha, meet Ryan. Ryan, be nice and say hello to Neha.”
Ryan’s voice mellowed down instantly. What is it with men; they become another person
in female company. So predictable!
“Hi Neha,” Ryan said, trying to avoid staring too much at someone he had heard so much
about.
“Hi,” Neha said, still unsure if Ryan could be trusted.
“I was just looking for Hari to do an assignment,” Ryan said.
“Drop it Ryan. We’re having a drink,” I said.
“Really?” Ryan said as if he expected Neha to be winged and haloed or something. “But I
thought Neha was not like that.”
“Like what?” she asked immediately.
“Uh, nothing,” Ryan said and sat down on the warm concrete.
“So what have you heard about me?” Neha said.
“Lots,” Ryan said and started telling her sacred details about all our past dates. They kept
talking for like ten hours or something and I just kept getting more drunk. Ryan has a
computer memory or something, and he told her about the times even I had forgotten about.
“He told you about the family planning documentary?” Neha tittered.
“Of course, he tells me everything,” he said with considerable pride.
I wondered if Neha and I would have kissed and managed more if bloody Ryan had not
dragged himself up here. I considered pushing him off the insti roof, but thought it would
kind of spoil the mood anyway.
“So why did you say I wasn’t that type of girl?” Neha said.
“You know, the whole vodka thing. You are supposed to be well…forget it,” Ryan said.
“What? Tell me,” Neha said with a firmness only good-looking women possess.
“You are like this good girl. Like why else won’t you let him do anything? Dating for a
year, still no kiss even. Just this goody-goody prof’s daughter.”
“He told you that?” Neha squeaked.
“Of course. You think you are dating a guy or someone asexual? You don’t think he has
needs?”
“Shut up, Ryan.” This from me.
“C’mon man. Show some guts sometimes. This is for your own good.”
“Needs?” Neha repeated, dazed.
“Yes, ever y man has needs. And pretty girls like you are either not aware of them or deny
them for power games.”
“Power?” Neha repeated.
I wanted to tell Ryan I had just been getting somewhere nicely, thank you, when he
whistled by.
“Yes, power. What else?” Ryan said, calming down finally.
“I crave power? Now that is a joke. You guys just don’t understand women do you?”
Neha said, with a vodka-infused confidence that could take on even Ryan.
“Huh?” Ryan said, proving that we really did not understand women.
Neha had to go home soon after that, so we left the topic there. I wanted to scream at
Ryan later, but he rolled two joints for me and gave me a scooter ride back to Kumaon, so I
left it. Besides, Neha really did not seem mad or anything.
I had a hunch he might have helped my case!
Re: Five Point Someone What not to do at IIT Novel Chetan Bh
11
—
The Gift
I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON ON THE INSIDE AND THIS I demonstrated while fitting in
Alok for the morning classes, citing his practice of waking early during those Venkat days,
laying on thickly the unreliability of Ryan and me for any sunrise job.
C2D was great, I found out, as I was responsible for only two courses in a semester. For
the rest, Alok and Ryan gave me all the assignments (which I copied) and their notes (which
I photocopied). I returned the favour in my courses. We now needed to spend only an hour
or two a day in studies, leaving us with plenty of time for movies, scooter drives,
restaurants, chess, scrabble, indoor cricket, sleep, squash (yes, Ryan was trying again) and
of course, booze and grass. The first minors that semester were a breeze. We didn’t like ace
the class or anything, but our expectations were low – just maintaining our five-point GPAS.
It is amazing how happy one can be with low expectations of one’s self.
I was in the design class one day, a course for which I was responsible. Ryan chose to
attend the class with me. I think he believes he is like this great designer or something. Prof
Vohra was teaching us.
“Class, note down this problem that I want you to do in the next fifteen minutes. Design a
car jack to lift the chassis in case of flat tires etc. Do a simple sketch.”
Prof Vohra was a portly man in his fifties, who had an unusually kind face for a Prof. Of
course, nothing in his nature supported this. With six term papers a semester and a lethal red
pen that crossed out one design submission after another, kind was hardly how you’d
describe Prof Vohra.
It was my course, therefore my hand that had to sketch the car jack with Ryan merely
having to copy it. Prof Vohra had taught us enough for us to execute at least a basic screwtype
design. I had just begun to draw when Ryan said, “What? You are going to make the
same damn thing like the rest?”
“Yes sir, I am not Thomas Edison,” I said, “and this is my course so just shut up and copy
it.”
“I have another idea,” Ryan said.
I wanted to tell Ryan to screw his other idea and copy my screw-jack. But I never say
anything to Ryan, and he never listens to anyone anyway.
So Ryan drew this ‘modified screw-jack’, in which one did not manually have to open
and raise the jack. A flat tire did not mean the engine had failed, he said, hence one could
attach a motor on the traditional jack and hook it up to the car battery. If one switched on the
car ignition, the motor could derive power.
“What are you doing?” I said, worried about Ryan’s sketches of the car battery, obviously
irrelevant to the current task.
“You wait and see, the prof will love it,” Ryan said.
I stuck to my traditional screw-jack like the rest of the class. The course was called
Design, not Original Design after all.
Prof Vohra walked along the class rows, looking at the familiar designs that all his
students drew year after year – the simple screw-jack. His stroll ended at our desk.
“What is this?” Prof Vohra said, twisting his head around to make sense of Ryan’s
unfamiliar drawing.
“Sir, this is a modified screw-jack,” Ryan said, “It can be attached to the car’s
battery….”
“Is this an electrical engineering class?”
“No sir but the end need is the same...”
“Is this an internal combustion engines class?”
“Sir but…”
“If you don’t want to be in my class or follow my course, you may leave.”
Prof Vohra’s face no longer looked kind. If only Ryan had kept quiet, he would have
moved on.
“Sir, this is a new design,” Ryan said, as if it was not painfully obvious.
“Really? And who told you to do that?”
Ryan did not answer, just lifted his assignment sheet. Then in one stroke, he ripped it
apart in two pieces.
“There, it is useless now,” Ryan said.
Prof Vohra’s face contorted and turned red, “Don’t act smart in my class.”
“Sorry sir,” I said, though it was not for me to say it.
But it broke the tension. The prof and Ryan looked at me via the corners of their
respective eyes. Prof Vohra exhaled and moved on; Ryan sat down.
“That wasn’t very smart. You know he can flunk you,” I said to Ryan after class.
“I don’t care. I can’t wait to get out of this stupid place man,” he said, kicking the scooter
stand as if it was Prof Vohra’s face.
It wasn’t Ryan’s course anyway and he did not attend any further classes in design. He
directly copied answers of my assignments mindlessly, and never as much as looked at the
question-sheet. Yes, our greatest designer gave up.
The three of us were in our common study room one day, copying Alok’s thermal science
assignment.
“So, Prof Vohra is mad at you now,” Alok said.
Ryan kept silent.
“Of course he would be. You should have seen his face,” I contributed.
Alok laughed, shaking his head.
“He can flunk me for all I care,” Ryan stated.
“That is not the point,” Alok began.
“Fatso, you won’t get the point, so give up. By the way, Prof Veera called me to talk
about my lubricant assignment.”
“Really?” Alok and I said in unison, wondering if Prof Veera had caught us cheating.
“Nothing to worry guys. I gave him a separate paper. It wasn’t a class assignment.”
“You have time to do separate papers?” I said.
“I have time to do what I want. I had thoughts on doing some experiments with various
substance mixtures to check lubricant efficiency in a scooter engine.”
“Where?” I said.
“Well, ideally in the fluid mechanics lab. But then we need a scooter engine, and a small
budget to buy materials. Until then, I tried a few tests on my scooter.”
“Wow. you’re screwing your scooter up. How will we travel?” I said.
“It is for science. I might be on to something. Anyway, I combined different types of oils
to check mileage. I think I can beat normal lubes by ten percent.”
I have to say, I was impressed with Ryan. Against all odds, this man was working to
reduce our petrol bill. I thought of all the extra paranthas we could buy with a ten percent
lower fuel cost.
“So, what did Prof Veera call you for?” Alok said.
“He said he’d help me get the institute’s permission to use the lab and get some research
grant.”
“Wow! You will be a scholar man,” Alok said.
“Yeah whatever,” Ryan shrugged, “It is not that easy. One has to submit a proposal to Prof
Cherian, detailing budgets, benefits, timing and all that crap, then a committee decides. It
takes months.”
“But if you do get it...” Alok blinked rapidly, “so neat man.”
“I have to work hard on the proposal over the next few weeks. Don’t worry, I’ll do my
courses, but no partying or movies,” Ryan said.
Now, if Alok had said the same thing, Ryan would have blown a fuse. But this was Ryan,
and we never said anything to him. Besides, I was kind of glad he was into something
sensible.
“Sure, we’ll tell you what you missed,” I said and winked at Alok.
“Yeah, though that makes you the mugger now,” Alok said.
“I am not a mugger. You are the mugger, Venkat-boy,” Ryan retorted.
I have to say, it was never my thing to visit Alok’s house. Just the thought assailed me with
medicine smells, crumbling concrete and cooking smells, topped by a middle-aged woman
wailing at the drop of a hat. Yet, there I was one Saturday with Alok, if only because Ryan
was busy with his do-not-disturb-me lube research proposal. It was depressing to see Ryan
work so hard and he did like three night-outs one week in the computer centre and the
library. On top of that, he spent his days in the fluid mechanics lab mixing lubes and then
testing them on the scooter. I told him about this movie at Priya in which there were as many
as six topless scenes and he only looked blankly at me. I tried luring him with new cocktail
recipes, but Ryan stuck to six straight cups of coffee a night. Objectives, scoping, budgeting,
applications, past research – each section in his proposal was like a million pages. He
submitted drafts to Prof Veera, who almost always wanted Ryan to do more.
So when Alok asked me to his house for lunch I found myself agreeing if only for the
food. I had learnt to ride now and Ryan’s scooter was free that day (though Ryan did give us
the task of noting down the kilometres back and forth).
Delhi roads are a nightmare and I couldn’t dream of driving as fast as Ryan. Alok and I
couldn’t go beyond fifty, and Alok kept talking as I navigated the cows and the cops to the
suburbs.
“You think Ryan will get the project?” Alok said, sitting pillion.
“I think so. His proposal alone is eighty pages, which I think is a project in itself. And I
mean, it is original work.”
“Yes, but you know he has to put a cover sheet on the proposal.”
“So?”
“The cover sheet carries the student’s name and GPA. You think they’ll fund a five-point
something?”
“Why not? They’ll read the proposal and decide.”
“They are profs,” Alok said, “and you know how they think.”
“Prof Veera is with him.”
“Yeah, let’s see.”
We reached Alok’s house in an hour. I kind of stopped breathing to skip the medicine
smells. Of course, couldn’t do without oxygen forever but luckily Alok’s mom laid out the
food soon.
“Alok, see I have made paneer for you and your friend,” his mother said.
For a poor family, Alok’s family ate quite well. I mean, there was rice, rotis, daal, gobialoo,
mango chutney, raita and of course, matar-paneer. I guess that explained the
corpulence running in the family.
“Eat beta, eat. Don’t be shy,” Alok’s mother egged me on.
The food was delicious but the conversation tasteless. Alok’s mother recounted her last
week, which was full of problems. The funny thing was almost all her problems had one
solution – more money. On Monday, the five-time-repaired geyser had broken down and
there was no money for a new one. On Wednesday, the TV antenna took a toss and a new
one was too expensive. The family had to live with grainy reception until they could save
some money. On Friday, Alok’s father fell off the bed, which required a doctor to come
home, another hundred bucks. There were other stories too – the ration shop had started
charging double for sugar, and the maid had ditched twice that week.
“Ma, can you stop boring my friend,” Alok said.
“No, it’s fine,” I said, reaching for more daal. Actually, the life Alok’s mother led at
home intrigued me. Somehow, her clutching her sari to wipe her tears had been the only
image I had been stuck with for the past year but now I realized she had a life too. The
challenges she faced were not quite lube research proposals, but pricey tomatoes
nonetheless.
“And you know the sofa springs are coming out…” she was saying when Alok interrupted
her.
“Mom, can you please keep quiet. I have come home after a month and that is all you have
to tell me.”
She looked surprised. “Who else will I tell my problems to? I have only one son.”
“Enough mom,” Alok said, his face turning red like an expensive tomato.
“I will keep quiet,” Alok’s mom agreed and started mumbling to herself as she ate her
food, “earn for them, then work like a servant for them and then they don’t even want to
listen to you. Physics teacher Mrs Sharma tells me, these days sons forget their parents.”
Clang, Alok threw his plate on the floor. Bits of lunch splattered all across the living
room and he got up and left the room.
What was I supposed to do? Follow my friend, who had brought me here? Or sit and
watch Alok’s mother wipe her tears with her sari? I decided to do none of the above,
focusing on the matar-paneer. The food was good, that is what I came here for, I kept telling
myself, looking intently at the plate.
Needless to say, it wasn’t a happy visit home. Alok kind of cooled down, came back to
the living room, and sat on the sofa. Alok’s mother cried her stock of tears, and went in to
get kheer.
“Alok, what are you doing man?”
“You stay out of this Hari. You won’t understand.”
Yeah right, I should stay out of this, I thought. But he was the one who had got me into
this.
“She has made kheer and everything. What is your problem?”
“They are my problem. You won’t understand, shut up and wait for the kheer.”
We did wait for the kheer, which was perfect. I was sure that Alok’s family could solve
half their problems if they stuck to a more frugal diet but good food seemed vital to them,
even at the cost of TV reception. It was their situation, so I stayed out of it until we were on
our way back.
“I know what you are thinking,” Alok said.
“What?”
“That how can I be so heartless.”
The only thing I had thought about Alok’s heart was that it would be under tremendous
strain with such a fat-intensive diet.
“Nah, just haven’t seen you like that,” I said as I turned on the Munirka crossing,
narrowly avoiding a peanut seller.
“That is all they talk to me about; problems, problems and more problems,” Alok said,
“and what can I bloody do about them?”
“Hmmm. That is true,” I said, wondering if Alok was now telling me a problem I couldn’t
do anything about.
Vivas – the most hated, dreaded moments of my student life. I avoided them like I did cows
on the road with their tails twitched up. But like the cattle in Delhi traffic, sometimes you
just couldn’t avoid running into them. And this one Wednesday was the design viva. It was
my course under the C2D, and I was supposed to take the lead on all questions. I tried to
convince Ryan and Alok to help me, but the bastards didn’t care and had gone to sleep at ten
the previous night, leaving me to mug through the night and prepare for all expected
questions. It wasn’t much use, for in my case it wasn’t about knowing the answers.
“Hari, what makes C40 steel better than C20 steel for making rigid structures?”
More carbon in C40, hence harder steel, I thought. Also, probably cheaper in terms of
costs. C20 was soft and could buckle. I knew the answer… if only Prof Vohra would stop
looking me in the eye.
“Sir, C40 steel is…” I said as I looked back at Ryan and Alok to evoke some pity.
“Look at me Hari,” Prof Vohra said, “I am asking you.”
I didn’t want to look at him, and I really wanted to get the answer out. But all I got out
was fat drops of sweat, on my face, arms and hands.
Four tries and three different questions later, Prof Vohra gave up. Ryan shook his head
and smiled, as if he’d known all along that this would happen. Alok kept quiet, as he
mentally calculated how many marks we had lost.
“Sorry guys,” I said at dinner, “I let you down again. I hate vivas man.”
The mess workers tossed rotis that you could make jeans out of; I tore one hard, hoping to
relieve my tension.
“What happens to you?” Alok said.
“I don’t know. Whenever someone asks me a question in a stressful situation, I can’t say
anything.”
“Since when?” Alok said.
“Since high school,” I said.
“Something happened?” Ryan said.
“No…I mean yeah, nothing,” I said.
“What?” Alok said.
“Forget it. Pass the rice, I can’t digest these rotis. They are like chewing gum,” I said.
Neha’s birthday was on December 1 and as usual I was clueless about what to get her.
“You have to make it special,” Ryan said. We were skipping class and having lunch in the
canteen.
“Special how? I have no cash. I can’t even afford toothpaste right now,” I said.
“You are not brushing your teeth?” Alok said, looking up.
“No man I’m using Ryan’s,” I said. “Anyway, come to the point Fatso, what should I do?”
“Think,” Ryan said, knocking his head like he was solving a nuclear physics problem. He
is a patronizing bastard, I tell you.
“I can’t think of anything,” I said. “No more ‘make-your-own-gifts’, did that with the
lipstick box already, so it won’t have the same effect. And I am so broke, I can’t give her
something expensive.”
“How about something useful but cheap, like handkerchiefs?” Alok said.
“Shut up Alok,” Ryan said.
I was glad he said it for me. Alok had as much of an idea of romantic gifts as his mother
had about cabarets.
“Ryan, what should I do?” I was panicking.
“Well, it doesn’t have to be expensive, as long as it’s a surprise. Who doesn’t like
surprises?”
“Like what?” I said.
“Like being the first one to wish her,” Ryan said.
Ryan’s plan was quite original (and cheap); to break into her room, right through her
window on the eve of her birthday. At midnight, I would be the first one to wish her and the
surprise would sweep her off her feet (and hence eliminate the need for a real gift). It was a
crazy idea, for we weren’t just breaking into my girlfriend’s house, but a prof ’s house, that
too a head of the department no less. But Ryan made it seem easier than copying a
thermodynamics assignment, and I agreed.
So, at eleven-thirty p.m. on a cold December night, Ryan, Alok and I quietly slipped out
of Kumaon. Ryan drove us to the faculty housing complex and parked his scooter fifty
meters from Neha’s house. The entire lane was silent in contrast with Kumaon where the
assignments and mugging had only just begun for the night. The profs slept blissfully, while
their minions worked away through the night.
“Ryan, you sure we can handle this?” I asked one last time as we neared the lawns of
Prof Cherian’s house.
“Shhh… of course, we can, but if only you keep quiet,” Ryan said as he lifted the latch off
Cherian’s gate.
Silence, apart from a gentle creaking of the gate as we entered the den of the beauty and
the beast.
I looked up at Neha’s window, imagining her sleeping peacefully, her beautiful face
glowing in the dark. My heart quickened.
“Alok, come on you go first. On the pipe now,” Ryan whispered.
“This is impossible,” Alok said.
“I’ll give you a push,” Ryan said.
As he climbed up the flimsy steel pipe, he looked like a gorilla hanging onto a bamboo
stick. There was serious risk of the pipe breaking, given his mass and the strength of
galvanized steel (see, our engineering knowledge did amount to something), so we decided
to wait until he reached the roof.
After Alok it was my turn, followed by Ryan, who shimmied up the pipe in seconds. Ten
minutes to midnight, we were on Prof Cherian’s roof.
It was pitch dark. Ryan finally switched on a flashlight and we tried to navigate through
the water tanks and clothes left to dry on the roof.
“Where is her room?” Ryan whispered.
I pointed mutely and we moved toward the ledge.
“Here are the flowers,” Ryan said as he pulled out a bunch of sunflowers from under his
shirt.
“Where did you get these?” I said.
“Just now, from Cherian’s garden.”
“Are you crazy?” I said.
“Nice touch,” Ryan said, “now get ready.”
We knocked on Neha’s window using some pebbles from the roof. Nothing happened at
the first pebble, nothing on the second and third.
“It’s not working, she probably sleeps too deeply,” Alok said.
“Keep trying,” Ryan said.
We kept throwing little pebbles like morons. Probably a million pebbles later, we had a
reaction. The room light switched on, and the window became bright.
Climbing up a pipe was hard enough, but the next step was the real killer. I was supposed
to dangle myself over the ledge, with Alok and Ryan holding my hands for emergency
support. But first Neha had to open the window.
“Quick, say her name before she screams in fear,” Ryan said.
“Neha, it’s me,” I said, not whispering for the first time in half an hour.
“Hari,” Neha said as she opened her window, “What are you doing here?”
“I can explain. Let me come in first,” I said, and sprung myself over.
“Are you crazy?” she said and rubbed her eyes even as my legs dangled in front of her
face.
“Careful Ryan,” I said.
“Who else is there?” Neha said, by now completely awake and completely in shock.
“No one… I mean only Ryan and Alok,” I said as I swung myself inside the window.
“Careful,” she said as I landed on some cushions on a rug, pretty and delicate as only in a
girl’s room.
I gave a thumbs-up signal to my friends and banged shut the window.
“Hari, what exactly do you think you are doing?” Neha said, “What if Dad wakes up?”
She adjusted her hair as I noticed her nightclothes. She wore a sleeveless, simple cotton
nightie with little blue triangles all over. As always, she looked beautiful.
“Happy birthday, Neha,” I said, and took the flowers out from under my shirt.
The flowers were crushed and already wilted, but there is something about flowers and
women. Somehow, seeing these reproductive tools of plant-life works wonders. It chills
them out. Neha’s anger vanished, and I could tell the idea had worked.
“Sunflowers,” Neha said, “Where did you get these?”
“From your garden actually.”
“What?” Neha said and threw a stem at me, “you loafer. Such a cheapo you are.”
I took a cushion in response and threw it back at her. I was just getting excited about the
impending flower and pillow fight when she nipped it in the bud.
“Don’t mess with these cushions, I hand-painted the covers.”
Hand-painting cushion covers, how can girls waste their time on such useless pursuits? I
mean, Ryan and I didn’t even have cushion covers, let alone painted ones.
“What are you thinking?” Neha said as she came close and held my hand.
“Nothing. And I’m sorry I startled you like that.”
“It’s okay, I like it,” Neha said, “I guess it is kind of special. Come sit.”
She made me to sit on her bed. I sat down as close to her as possible, my eyes drifting
down to her chest. Girls don’t wear bras at night I guess, which quite obviously suits them
better. At the same time, I thought of the possibility of Prof Cherian walking in through the
door.
“What are you thinking? Look into my eyes,” Neha said.
“Huh…nothing. Happy birthday,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
My eyes went wide as UFO saucers.
She drew back. “Wait a minute. You want to, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“So now?” she said.
“Now what?” I said.
“Are you going to kiss me or what?”
Maybe it was the flowers, or just the whole excitement of breaking in, or maybe even that
she had finally grown up. I moved forward, and even though I had seen a million kisses in
movies, I can’t tell you how hard it is to deliver a good one the first time.
“Oops…not so hard,” she said, “gentle, baby kisses first.”
She led the path from there, and frankly, I was too excited and scared to do better. But I
had my first kiss, right there in Prof Cherian’s house.
“Shh…Daddy’s got up for water,” she said, pushing me away.
“Now what?”
“Nothing, he won’t come up. But you should go now.”
“I want to stay.”
“Just go now,” she said as she pushed me off the bed, in contrast to her loving looks
moments ago.
It was pointless to insist. Besides, a part of me wanted to get the hell out of there before
the gig was up.
“So, how was it?” Ryan said as I was pulled back on the roof.
“Nice. Very nice,” I said with a big grin splitting my face which said it all.
Getting down was as much an art as climbing up, but the real problem was as we reached
the lawns. Someone had switched on the living room light.
“How did the light go on?” Alok said.
“Don’t know. I think Cherian woke up for water,” I said.
“Let’s crawl out,” Ryan said as we bent under the window to be out of sight.
A bucket fell noisily as Alok crawled through the grass, loud enough to make all our
whispers pointless.
“Who is it?” a male voice came from inside as we heard footsteps.
“Fuck, it’s Cherian. Run, get the hell out of here,” Ryan said.
We stopped with the slithery crawl and ran for our lives. If Cherian had seen us, he
would have kicked our butts out of the college right then.
We were just outside the gates when the door opened and Cherian came out in what
looked like his wife’s nightgown.
“Who is it?” he shouted, adjusting his spectacles.
“Your father,” Ryan yelled as we ran away from the house.
I don’t know if Cherian chased us or was too scared to do so but the three of us did not
stop running until we reached Ryan’s scooter.
“Are you stupid or what? Why did you say that?” I reproved as we rode off.
“Yeah, right. I should have said, sir, it’s only your son-in-law with some friends. He
would’ve brought the drinks out then.”
—
The Gift
I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON ON THE INSIDE AND THIS I demonstrated while fitting in
Alok for the morning classes, citing his practice of waking early during those Venkat days,
laying on thickly the unreliability of Ryan and me for any sunrise job.
C2D was great, I found out, as I was responsible for only two courses in a semester. For
the rest, Alok and Ryan gave me all the assignments (which I copied) and their notes (which
I photocopied). I returned the favour in my courses. We now needed to spend only an hour
or two a day in studies, leaving us with plenty of time for movies, scooter drives,
restaurants, chess, scrabble, indoor cricket, sleep, squash (yes, Ryan was trying again) and
of course, booze and grass. The first minors that semester were a breeze. We didn’t like ace
the class or anything, but our expectations were low – just maintaining our five-point GPAS.
It is amazing how happy one can be with low expectations of one’s self.
I was in the design class one day, a course for which I was responsible. Ryan chose to
attend the class with me. I think he believes he is like this great designer or something. Prof
Vohra was teaching us.
“Class, note down this problem that I want you to do in the next fifteen minutes. Design a
car jack to lift the chassis in case of flat tires etc. Do a simple sketch.”
Prof Vohra was a portly man in his fifties, who had an unusually kind face for a Prof. Of
course, nothing in his nature supported this. With six term papers a semester and a lethal red
pen that crossed out one design submission after another, kind was hardly how you’d
describe Prof Vohra.
It was my course, therefore my hand that had to sketch the car jack with Ryan merely
having to copy it. Prof Vohra had taught us enough for us to execute at least a basic screwtype
design. I had just begun to draw when Ryan said, “What? You are going to make the
same damn thing like the rest?”
“Yes sir, I am not Thomas Edison,” I said, “and this is my course so just shut up and copy
it.”
“I have another idea,” Ryan said.
I wanted to tell Ryan to screw his other idea and copy my screw-jack. But I never say
anything to Ryan, and he never listens to anyone anyway.
So Ryan drew this ‘modified screw-jack’, in which one did not manually have to open
and raise the jack. A flat tire did not mean the engine had failed, he said, hence one could
attach a motor on the traditional jack and hook it up to the car battery. If one switched on the
car ignition, the motor could derive power.
“What are you doing?” I said, worried about Ryan’s sketches of the car battery, obviously
irrelevant to the current task.
“You wait and see, the prof will love it,” Ryan said.
I stuck to my traditional screw-jack like the rest of the class. The course was called
Design, not Original Design after all.
Prof Vohra walked along the class rows, looking at the familiar designs that all his
students drew year after year – the simple screw-jack. His stroll ended at our desk.
“What is this?” Prof Vohra said, twisting his head around to make sense of Ryan’s
unfamiliar drawing.
“Sir, this is a modified screw-jack,” Ryan said, “It can be attached to the car’s
battery….”
“Is this an electrical engineering class?”
“No sir but the end need is the same...”
“Is this an internal combustion engines class?”
“Sir but…”
“If you don’t want to be in my class or follow my course, you may leave.”
Prof Vohra’s face no longer looked kind. If only Ryan had kept quiet, he would have
moved on.
“Sir, this is a new design,” Ryan said, as if it was not painfully obvious.
“Really? And who told you to do that?”
Ryan did not answer, just lifted his assignment sheet. Then in one stroke, he ripped it
apart in two pieces.
“There, it is useless now,” Ryan said.
Prof Vohra’s face contorted and turned red, “Don’t act smart in my class.”
“Sorry sir,” I said, though it was not for me to say it.
But it broke the tension. The prof and Ryan looked at me via the corners of their
respective eyes. Prof Vohra exhaled and moved on; Ryan sat down.
“That wasn’t very smart. You know he can flunk you,” I said to Ryan after class.
“I don’t care. I can’t wait to get out of this stupid place man,” he said, kicking the scooter
stand as if it was Prof Vohra’s face.
It wasn’t Ryan’s course anyway and he did not attend any further classes in design. He
directly copied answers of my assignments mindlessly, and never as much as looked at the
question-sheet. Yes, our greatest designer gave up.
The three of us were in our common study room one day, copying Alok’s thermal science
assignment.
“So, Prof Vohra is mad at you now,” Alok said.
Ryan kept silent.
“Of course he would be. You should have seen his face,” I contributed.
Alok laughed, shaking his head.
“He can flunk me for all I care,” Ryan stated.
“That is not the point,” Alok began.
“Fatso, you won’t get the point, so give up. By the way, Prof Veera called me to talk
about my lubricant assignment.”
“Really?” Alok and I said in unison, wondering if Prof Veera had caught us cheating.
“Nothing to worry guys. I gave him a separate paper. It wasn’t a class assignment.”
“You have time to do separate papers?” I said.
“I have time to do what I want. I had thoughts on doing some experiments with various
substance mixtures to check lubricant efficiency in a scooter engine.”
“Where?” I said.
“Well, ideally in the fluid mechanics lab. But then we need a scooter engine, and a small
budget to buy materials. Until then, I tried a few tests on my scooter.”
“Wow. you’re screwing your scooter up. How will we travel?” I said.
“It is for science. I might be on to something. Anyway, I combined different types of oils
to check mileage. I think I can beat normal lubes by ten percent.”
I have to say, I was impressed with Ryan. Against all odds, this man was working to
reduce our petrol bill. I thought of all the extra paranthas we could buy with a ten percent
lower fuel cost.
“So, what did Prof Veera call you for?” Alok said.
“He said he’d help me get the institute’s permission to use the lab and get some research
grant.”
“Wow! You will be a scholar man,” Alok said.
“Yeah whatever,” Ryan shrugged, “It is not that easy. One has to submit a proposal to Prof
Cherian, detailing budgets, benefits, timing and all that crap, then a committee decides. It
takes months.”
“But if you do get it...” Alok blinked rapidly, “so neat man.”
“I have to work hard on the proposal over the next few weeks. Don’t worry, I’ll do my
courses, but no partying or movies,” Ryan said.
Now, if Alok had said the same thing, Ryan would have blown a fuse. But this was Ryan,
and we never said anything to him. Besides, I was kind of glad he was into something
sensible.
“Sure, we’ll tell you what you missed,” I said and winked at Alok.
“Yeah, though that makes you the mugger now,” Alok said.
“I am not a mugger. You are the mugger, Venkat-boy,” Ryan retorted.
I have to say, it was never my thing to visit Alok’s house. Just the thought assailed me with
medicine smells, crumbling concrete and cooking smells, topped by a middle-aged woman
wailing at the drop of a hat. Yet, there I was one Saturday with Alok, if only because Ryan
was busy with his do-not-disturb-me lube research proposal. It was depressing to see Ryan
work so hard and he did like three night-outs one week in the computer centre and the
library. On top of that, he spent his days in the fluid mechanics lab mixing lubes and then
testing them on the scooter. I told him about this movie at Priya in which there were as many
as six topless scenes and he only looked blankly at me. I tried luring him with new cocktail
recipes, but Ryan stuck to six straight cups of coffee a night. Objectives, scoping, budgeting,
applications, past research – each section in his proposal was like a million pages. He
submitted drafts to Prof Veera, who almost always wanted Ryan to do more.
So when Alok asked me to his house for lunch I found myself agreeing if only for the
food. I had learnt to ride now and Ryan’s scooter was free that day (though Ryan did give us
the task of noting down the kilometres back and forth).
Delhi roads are a nightmare and I couldn’t dream of driving as fast as Ryan. Alok and I
couldn’t go beyond fifty, and Alok kept talking as I navigated the cows and the cops to the
suburbs.
“You think Ryan will get the project?” Alok said, sitting pillion.
“I think so. His proposal alone is eighty pages, which I think is a project in itself. And I
mean, it is original work.”
“Yes, but you know he has to put a cover sheet on the proposal.”
“So?”
“The cover sheet carries the student’s name and GPA. You think they’ll fund a five-point
something?”
“Why not? They’ll read the proposal and decide.”
“They are profs,” Alok said, “and you know how they think.”
“Prof Veera is with him.”
“Yeah, let’s see.”
We reached Alok’s house in an hour. I kind of stopped breathing to skip the medicine
smells. Of course, couldn’t do without oxygen forever but luckily Alok’s mom laid out the
food soon.
“Alok, see I have made paneer for you and your friend,” his mother said.
For a poor family, Alok’s family ate quite well. I mean, there was rice, rotis, daal, gobialoo,
mango chutney, raita and of course, matar-paneer. I guess that explained the
corpulence running in the family.
“Eat beta, eat. Don’t be shy,” Alok’s mother egged me on.
The food was delicious but the conversation tasteless. Alok’s mother recounted her last
week, which was full of problems. The funny thing was almost all her problems had one
solution – more money. On Monday, the five-time-repaired geyser had broken down and
there was no money for a new one. On Wednesday, the TV antenna took a toss and a new
one was too expensive. The family had to live with grainy reception until they could save
some money. On Friday, Alok’s father fell off the bed, which required a doctor to come
home, another hundred bucks. There were other stories too – the ration shop had started
charging double for sugar, and the maid had ditched twice that week.
“Ma, can you stop boring my friend,” Alok said.
“No, it’s fine,” I said, reaching for more daal. Actually, the life Alok’s mother led at
home intrigued me. Somehow, her clutching her sari to wipe her tears had been the only
image I had been stuck with for the past year but now I realized she had a life too. The
challenges she faced were not quite lube research proposals, but pricey tomatoes
nonetheless.
“And you know the sofa springs are coming out…” she was saying when Alok interrupted
her.
“Mom, can you please keep quiet. I have come home after a month and that is all you have
to tell me.”
She looked surprised. “Who else will I tell my problems to? I have only one son.”
“Enough mom,” Alok said, his face turning red like an expensive tomato.
“I will keep quiet,” Alok’s mom agreed and started mumbling to herself as she ate her
food, “earn for them, then work like a servant for them and then they don’t even want to
listen to you. Physics teacher Mrs Sharma tells me, these days sons forget their parents.”
Clang, Alok threw his plate on the floor. Bits of lunch splattered all across the living
room and he got up and left the room.
What was I supposed to do? Follow my friend, who had brought me here? Or sit and
watch Alok’s mother wipe her tears with her sari? I decided to do none of the above,
focusing on the matar-paneer. The food was good, that is what I came here for, I kept telling
myself, looking intently at the plate.
Needless to say, it wasn’t a happy visit home. Alok kind of cooled down, came back to
the living room, and sat on the sofa. Alok’s mother cried her stock of tears, and went in to
get kheer.
“Alok, what are you doing man?”
“You stay out of this Hari. You won’t understand.”
Yeah right, I should stay out of this, I thought. But he was the one who had got me into
this.
“She has made kheer and everything. What is your problem?”
“They are my problem. You won’t understand, shut up and wait for the kheer.”
We did wait for the kheer, which was perfect. I was sure that Alok’s family could solve
half their problems if they stuck to a more frugal diet but good food seemed vital to them,
even at the cost of TV reception. It was their situation, so I stayed out of it until we were on
our way back.
“I know what you are thinking,” Alok said.
“What?”
“That how can I be so heartless.”
The only thing I had thought about Alok’s heart was that it would be under tremendous
strain with such a fat-intensive diet.
“Nah, just haven’t seen you like that,” I said as I turned on the Munirka crossing,
narrowly avoiding a peanut seller.
“That is all they talk to me about; problems, problems and more problems,” Alok said,
“and what can I bloody do about them?”
“Hmmm. That is true,” I said, wondering if Alok was now telling me a problem I couldn’t
do anything about.
Vivas – the most hated, dreaded moments of my student life. I avoided them like I did cows
on the road with their tails twitched up. But like the cattle in Delhi traffic, sometimes you
just couldn’t avoid running into them. And this one Wednesday was the design viva. It was
my course under the C2D, and I was supposed to take the lead on all questions. I tried to
convince Ryan and Alok to help me, but the bastards didn’t care and had gone to sleep at ten
the previous night, leaving me to mug through the night and prepare for all expected
questions. It wasn’t much use, for in my case it wasn’t about knowing the answers.
“Hari, what makes C40 steel better than C20 steel for making rigid structures?”
More carbon in C40, hence harder steel, I thought. Also, probably cheaper in terms of
costs. C20 was soft and could buckle. I knew the answer… if only Prof Vohra would stop
looking me in the eye.
“Sir, C40 steel is…” I said as I looked back at Ryan and Alok to evoke some pity.
“Look at me Hari,” Prof Vohra said, “I am asking you.”
I didn’t want to look at him, and I really wanted to get the answer out. But all I got out
was fat drops of sweat, on my face, arms and hands.
Four tries and three different questions later, Prof Vohra gave up. Ryan shook his head
and smiled, as if he’d known all along that this would happen. Alok kept quiet, as he
mentally calculated how many marks we had lost.
“Sorry guys,” I said at dinner, “I let you down again. I hate vivas man.”
The mess workers tossed rotis that you could make jeans out of; I tore one hard, hoping to
relieve my tension.
“What happens to you?” Alok said.
“I don’t know. Whenever someone asks me a question in a stressful situation, I can’t say
anything.”
“Since when?” Alok said.
“Since high school,” I said.
“Something happened?” Ryan said.
“No…I mean yeah, nothing,” I said.
“What?” Alok said.
“Forget it. Pass the rice, I can’t digest these rotis. They are like chewing gum,” I said.
Neha’s birthday was on December 1 and as usual I was clueless about what to get her.
“You have to make it special,” Ryan said. We were skipping class and having lunch in the
canteen.
“Special how? I have no cash. I can’t even afford toothpaste right now,” I said.
“You are not brushing your teeth?” Alok said, looking up.
“No man I’m using Ryan’s,” I said. “Anyway, come to the point Fatso, what should I do?”
“Think,” Ryan said, knocking his head like he was solving a nuclear physics problem. He
is a patronizing bastard, I tell you.
“I can’t think of anything,” I said. “No more ‘make-your-own-gifts’, did that with the
lipstick box already, so it won’t have the same effect. And I am so broke, I can’t give her
something expensive.”
“How about something useful but cheap, like handkerchiefs?” Alok said.
“Shut up Alok,” Ryan said.
I was glad he said it for me. Alok had as much of an idea of romantic gifts as his mother
had about cabarets.
“Ryan, what should I do?” I was panicking.
“Well, it doesn’t have to be expensive, as long as it’s a surprise. Who doesn’t like
surprises?”
“Like what?” I said.
“Like being the first one to wish her,” Ryan said.
Ryan’s plan was quite original (and cheap); to break into her room, right through her
window on the eve of her birthday. At midnight, I would be the first one to wish her and the
surprise would sweep her off her feet (and hence eliminate the need for a real gift). It was a
crazy idea, for we weren’t just breaking into my girlfriend’s house, but a prof ’s house, that
too a head of the department no less. But Ryan made it seem easier than copying a
thermodynamics assignment, and I agreed.
So, at eleven-thirty p.m. on a cold December night, Ryan, Alok and I quietly slipped out
of Kumaon. Ryan drove us to the faculty housing complex and parked his scooter fifty
meters from Neha’s house. The entire lane was silent in contrast with Kumaon where the
assignments and mugging had only just begun for the night. The profs slept blissfully, while
their minions worked away through the night.
“Ryan, you sure we can handle this?” I asked one last time as we neared the lawns of
Prof Cherian’s house.
“Shhh… of course, we can, but if only you keep quiet,” Ryan said as he lifted the latch off
Cherian’s gate.
Silence, apart from a gentle creaking of the gate as we entered the den of the beauty and
the beast.
I looked up at Neha’s window, imagining her sleeping peacefully, her beautiful face
glowing in the dark. My heart quickened.
“Alok, come on you go first. On the pipe now,” Ryan whispered.
“This is impossible,” Alok said.
“I’ll give you a push,” Ryan said.
As he climbed up the flimsy steel pipe, he looked like a gorilla hanging onto a bamboo
stick. There was serious risk of the pipe breaking, given his mass and the strength of
galvanized steel (see, our engineering knowledge did amount to something), so we decided
to wait until he reached the roof.
After Alok it was my turn, followed by Ryan, who shimmied up the pipe in seconds. Ten
minutes to midnight, we were on Prof Cherian’s roof.
It was pitch dark. Ryan finally switched on a flashlight and we tried to navigate through
the water tanks and clothes left to dry on the roof.
“Where is her room?” Ryan whispered.
I pointed mutely and we moved toward the ledge.
“Here are the flowers,” Ryan said as he pulled out a bunch of sunflowers from under his
shirt.
“Where did you get these?” I said.
“Just now, from Cherian’s garden.”
“Are you crazy?” I said.
“Nice touch,” Ryan said, “now get ready.”
We knocked on Neha’s window using some pebbles from the roof. Nothing happened at
the first pebble, nothing on the second and third.
“It’s not working, she probably sleeps too deeply,” Alok said.
“Keep trying,” Ryan said.
We kept throwing little pebbles like morons. Probably a million pebbles later, we had a
reaction. The room light switched on, and the window became bright.
Climbing up a pipe was hard enough, but the next step was the real killer. I was supposed
to dangle myself over the ledge, with Alok and Ryan holding my hands for emergency
support. But first Neha had to open the window.
“Quick, say her name before she screams in fear,” Ryan said.
“Neha, it’s me,” I said, not whispering for the first time in half an hour.
“Hari,” Neha said as she opened her window, “What are you doing here?”
“I can explain. Let me come in first,” I said, and sprung myself over.
“Are you crazy?” she said and rubbed her eyes even as my legs dangled in front of her
face.
“Careful Ryan,” I said.
“Who else is there?” Neha said, by now completely awake and completely in shock.
“No one… I mean only Ryan and Alok,” I said as I swung myself inside the window.
“Careful,” she said as I landed on some cushions on a rug, pretty and delicate as only in a
girl’s room.
I gave a thumbs-up signal to my friends and banged shut the window.
“Hari, what exactly do you think you are doing?” Neha said, “What if Dad wakes up?”
She adjusted her hair as I noticed her nightclothes. She wore a sleeveless, simple cotton
nightie with little blue triangles all over. As always, she looked beautiful.
“Happy birthday, Neha,” I said, and took the flowers out from under my shirt.
The flowers were crushed and already wilted, but there is something about flowers and
women. Somehow, seeing these reproductive tools of plant-life works wonders. It chills
them out. Neha’s anger vanished, and I could tell the idea had worked.
“Sunflowers,” Neha said, “Where did you get these?”
“From your garden actually.”
“What?” Neha said and threw a stem at me, “you loafer. Such a cheapo you are.”
I took a cushion in response and threw it back at her. I was just getting excited about the
impending flower and pillow fight when she nipped it in the bud.
“Don’t mess with these cushions, I hand-painted the covers.”
Hand-painting cushion covers, how can girls waste their time on such useless pursuits? I
mean, Ryan and I didn’t even have cushion covers, let alone painted ones.
“What are you thinking?” Neha said as she came close and held my hand.
“Nothing. And I’m sorry I startled you like that.”
“It’s okay, I like it,” Neha said, “I guess it is kind of special. Come sit.”
She made me to sit on her bed. I sat down as close to her as possible, my eyes drifting
down to her chest. Girls don’t wear bras at night I guess, which quite obviously suits them
better. At the same time, I thought of the possibility of Prof Cherian walking in through the
door.
“What are you thinking? Look into my eyes,” Neha said.
“Huh…nothing. Happy birthday,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
My eyes went wide as UFO saucers.
She drew back. “Wait a minute. You want to, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“So now?” she said.
“Now what?” I said.
“Are you going to kiss me or what?”
Maybe it was the flowers, or just the whole excitement of breaking in, or maybe even that
she had finally grown up. I moved forward, and even though I had seen a million kisses in
movies, I can’t tell you how hard it is to deliver a good one the first time.
“Oops…not so hard,” she said, “gentle, baby kisses first.”
She led the path from there, and frankly, I was too excited and scared to do better. But I
had my first kiss, right there in Prof Cherian’s house.
“Shh…Daddy’s got up for water,” she said, pushing me away.
“Now what?”
“Nothing, he won’t come up. But you should go now.”
“I want to stay.”
“Just go now,” she said as she pushed me off the bed, in contrast to her loving looks
moments ago.
It was pointless to insist. Besides, a part of me wanted to get the hell out of there before
the gig was up.
“So, how was it?” Ryan said as I was pulled back on the roof.
“Nice. Very nice,” I said with a big grin splitting my face which said it all.
Getting down was as much an art as climbing up, but the real problem was as we reached
the lawns. Someone had switched on the living room light.
“How did the light go on?” Alok said.
“Don’t know. I think Cherian woke up for water,” I said.
“Let’s crawl out,” Ryan said as we bent under the window to be out of sight.
A bucket fell noisily as Alok crawled through the grass, loud enough to make all our
whispers pointless.
“Who is it?” a male voice came from inside as we heard footsteps.
“Fuck, it’s Cherian. Run, get the hell out of here,” Ryan said.
We stopped with the slithery crawl and ran for our lives. If Cherian had seen us, he
would have kicked our butts out of the college right then.
We were just outside the gates when the door opened and Cherian came out in what
looked like his wife’s nightgown.
“Who is it?” he shouted, adjusting his spectacles.
“Your father,” Ryan yelled as we ran away from the house.
I don’t know if Cherian chased us or was too scared to do so but the three of us did not
stop running until we reached Ryan’s scooter.
“Are you stupid or what? Why did you say that?” I reproved as we rode off.
“Yeah, right. I should have said, sir, it’s only your son-in-law with some friends. He
would’ve brought the drinks out then.”