Five Point Someone Read online

  I just want to tell you, don’t worry about me for I know girls should be good. Sometimes I feel this guy is only interested in getting physical. Other girls who have boyfriends tell me all boys are the same, want the same thing. But can I tell you something? Even I want the same. No, no I haven’t done anything yet. But then, every now and then I get curious, start imagining what Hari would do if I let him. Is thinking that a bad thing?

  Oh no, here I go, throwing questions at you again. Let me tell you more about Hari. He has two friends - Ryan and Alok. They are nuts. Now don’t think I have started liking IIT students or anything – just that these guys are different. For one, they can barely remain students with their five-point something GPAs.

  I know what you are thinking, they are the kind of students Dad would hate, and you are thinking she is hobnobbing with them for precisely that reason. You are wrong, Bhaiyya. You know on my last birthday, they broke into our house, these loafers I am talking about. Hari came into my room and gave me flowers plucked from our garden! I hope Dad never finds out about him the wrong way. And I hope I can keep meeting him forever. Though there is so much more I don’t yet know about Hari.

  My plan is the day Hari gets a job, I will introduce him to Dad. I mean, Dad will still flip his lid, but at least there would be something going for Hari. Right now, he is a little bit of a loser if you ask me. Sorry, if I am being mean. But in some ways, he is. For one thing, he is besotted with Ryan. “Ryan this, Ryan that,” bugs me no end sometimes. I don’t think this Ryan guy is all that cool. Wears branded clothes, but that is only because his parents are loaded. I personally think behind all this guy’s aggression there is a vacuum.

  See, that is the thing with these IIT guys and their college, they all are too wrapped up in the bricks and walls to know who they really are and what they really want. I want to tell them – before you get all gung-ho about working for the future, work out your past and present but that will just sound so grandma-ish and I am, well, so young.

  Well, that is all I shall write for now. I promise to write again, and I promise to be good. But do not tell Dad and Mom what I’ve been babbling about. See, I kept your last promise and have not told anyone about your letter to me how much ever that broke me, so keep mine. Yes, I know Mom would not have been able to take it. She hardly speaks these days anyway. Why did you leave us Bhaiyya? It isn’t fair, you know that, right?

  Missing you,

  Neha

  13

  —

  One More Year Later

  WE WERE DRINKING ON THE INSTI ROOF. THIRD YEAR students now, alcohol no longer a novelty. This meant we could drink less and not throw up every time to certify having a good time. We were drowning our sorrows today for two reasons. Firstly, after a year of working the files, the mechanical engineering department had coolly rejected Ryan’s lube project proposal. Secondly, I had messed up yet another viva. When it came to screwing vivas, I am the man you want!

  “Screw the lube project. I have wasted too much time on it. But look at you, Hari. It is so bloody typical of you. Why do you get so tongue-tied?” Ryan said, in whose veins confidence corpuscles flowed larger than red.

  “I wish I knew.” I squinted, frustrated.

  “You know the answer to the viva questions. You know the answers, right?” That was Alok.

  I nodded my head. It was pointless. Three years of practice in vivas did not leave me any less petrified.

  “Ryan, you know I hate vivas. But c’mon man. You must feel like crap,” I said.

  “What crap? I only did ten night outs on the proposal, the revised proposal and spent like a hundred hours in the lab. But in the end, Cherian shot it down. ‘Too optimistic and fantastic,’ he said. I could wring his bloody neck,” Ryan announced.

  “But you know your idea is good,” Alok said flatly.

  “Of course it is. Even Prof Veera thinks so. But Cherian doesn’t, and he is the head. Anyway, screw it.”

  “Is it completely over?” I said.

  “From my side. Prof Veera might try private sponsorship or something. Pretty much over though I should say,” Ryan said.

  Alok sat quietly, picking his nose and sipping his vodka. It was disgusting, but it didn’t bother me anymore. It is amazing how habit immunizes you.

  I looked fully at Alok. “At least you are happy.”

  “Happy?” Alok echoed, “good joke.”

  “Now what happened?” I said.

  “Nothing. Nothing bloody happens in my life situation. That is why I am never happy. Sister needs to get married, that is the latest I guess.”

  Alok had a point. A miserable home, pointless grades and loser friends was hardly the route to happiness. At least he had the joy of picking dirt out of his nose in the company of his friends.

  “How’s Neha?” Alok said.

  “She’s fine. That is the only thing that keeps me in IIT,” I said.

  “Yeah right. Have you gotten any further though?” Ryan said.

  “Like what? I have kissed her now you know,” I said.

  “Yes, but like ten years ago. And there is much more than that. You know that right? Or do you get tongue-tied in front of her as well.”

  Alok tittered.

  “Screw you Ryan,” I said, “Neha is not that type of girl.”

  “But you are that type of boy. So make her that way,” he said.

  “How?”

  “I can’t tell you everything.”

  Once it was dark we decided to return to Kumaon. Time did go on, and thank god for that. For that meant we only had so many fewer days left in this place.

  “I’ll be happy when college is over,” I said.

  “At least we have perfected the C2D,” Alok said.

  “Of course,” Ryan said and smirked, “when was the last time each of us did his own assignment?”

  “It still scares me sometimes though,” I said.

  “Why? The profs never read the crap they give us carefully. They’ll never find out,” Ryan dismissed, cocky as ever.

  “I heard Cherian is anal though,” Alok said.

  We’d find out soon; it was finally time for Cherian to start teaching industrial engineering and management or Indem.

  “Yes, the bastard will teach us finally. I am not attending any of his classes,” Ryan said.

  “You don’t have to. It’s Hari’s course under C2D,” Alok said and winked, “our guy wants to impress the dad.”

  “Well, at some point I do want Neha to tell her dad about me. Wouldn’t be a good start if I skip all his classes,” I said.

  “I hate him,” Ryan said simply.

  No one skipped Cherian’s first class. That is, no one apart from Ryan. I was curious to see in person the devil who tormented my girlfriend and my best friend. Others went to see the head of the mechanical engineering department of the best engineering college in the country. They said Cherian was a perfect 10 in his IIT student days. I didn’t know much about the man, apart from the fact that his daughter was a perfect 10 to me.

  I had reached five minutes early, and for the first time in three years, had taken a seat in the first row. I don’t know why, but I really wanted to do well in his course. Perhaps an A in Indem might give a good first impression, leading the way for Neha to introduce me. It just sounded better – “Dad, meet Hari – the guy who topped your Indem course,” rather than “Dad, meet Hari. The loser who scraped a C in your course.”

  Prof Cherian walked in precisely at nine, and brought with him a huge pile of books as if he had just robbed a library.

  “Pay attention everyone. Let us start with the lecture,” he began in a firm voice.

  There is something about seeing your girlfriend’s parent for the first time. I couldn’t help but notice how Cherian was an extremely bad replica of Neha. Like her wax statue had puffed up first and then begun to melt haphazardly. He had the same jaw and round face like hers, however, his face was twice as big, with chunks of loose flesh hanging where Neha ha