Revolution 2020: Love Corruption Ambition Read online

  I came to the living room at midnight. I called Aarti.

  ‘Hey, you okay?’ Her voice was calm.

  She knew my results. Yet she hadn’t called. She knew I’d call her when I was good and ready. Aarti and I were in sync.

  ‘We will talk on the boat,’ I said.

  ‘Four-thirty tomorrow morning at Assi Ghat,’ she said.

  I went back to bed after the call. I lay down but couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for ages. There would be no sleep till I sorted things out with Baba.

  I went to his room. He was asleep, the hot-water bottle still by his head.

  I kept the bottle aside. My father woke up.

  ‘I am sorry, Baba,’ I said.

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you tell me. I will try again if that’s what you want. I’ll become an engineer, Baba,’ I said.

  He placed a hand on my head as if in blessing. It acted as a tipping point for my emotions. I broke down.

  ‘I’ll work extra hard,’ I said as tears rolled down my cheeks.

  ‘God bless you, go to sleep,’ he said.

  I reached Assi Ghat at four-thirty in the morning. Phoolchand, my boatman friend, smiled as he handed me the oars. He had never charged me in all these years. I would take his boat for an hour, and buy him tea and biscuits in return. Firangs would pay five hundred bucks for the same.

  Sometimes I’d help him negotiate with foreigners in English, and he’d give me a ten per cent commission. Yes, I could make money like this too. Maybe not a lot, but enough to survive. If only Baba would understand this.

  ‘Come back by five-thirty,’ Phoolchand said. ‘I have a booking. Japanese tourists.’

  ‘I won’t take more than half an hour,’ I promised.

  He smirked. ‘You are going with a girl. You may forget the time.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You have a setting with her?’ Phoolchand said as he untied the anchor rope. In small towns, everyone is interested in every male and female interaction.

  ‘Phoolchand bhai, I will be back in half an hour,’ I said and got into the boat.

  Phoolchand frowned at my curt reply.

  ‘She is a classmate from school. Have known her for eight years,’ I said.

  He smiled. His paan-stained teeth shone in the semi-darkness of dawn.

  ‘I’ll help you with the Japanese, we will rip them off together,’ I said, holding the oars.

  Aarti was waiting twenty metres ahead of the ghat pier, away from the stare of boatmen and sadhus. She stepped into the boat, one foot at a time. I whisked the boat away from the shore.

  ‘Let’s go that way,’ she said, pointing in the quieter western direction. On the east, the morning aarti had commenced at the crowded Dashashwamedh Ghat. Dashashwamedh, believed to be the place where Brahma performed ten ashwamedha yajnas (horse sacrifice), is the hub of all holy activities on the banks of Ganga in Varanasi.

  The sound of bells and chants faded as I rowed further away. Soon, the only sounds came from the periodic slapping of the oars on the water.

  ‘It happens,’ said Aarti.

  Her face had an amber hue from the morning sun. It matched her saffron and red dupatta.

  My arms and shoulders felt tired. I stopped rowing and put the oars down. The boat stood still somewhere in the middle of the Ganga. Aarti stood up to come and sit beside me. Her movement shook the boat a little. As per ritual, she took my tired palms and pressed them. She held my chin and made me face her.

  ‘I’m scared, Aarti,’ I said in a small voice.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll get nowhere in life,’ I said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘So people who don’t have a top AIEEE rank get nowhere in life?’

  ‘I don’t know. I feel so … so defeated. I let Baba down.’

  ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘He wants me to try again. He is obsessed with making me an engineer.’

  ‘Do you want to be an engineer?’ Aarti said.

  ‘My dad is not in the IAS. My grandfather was not a minister. We are from a simple Indian family. We don’t ask these questions. We want to make a living. Engineering gives us that,’ I answered.

  ‘How old-fashioned!’

  ‘Filling your stomach never goes out of fashion, Aarti,’ I said.

  She smiled and placed a hand on my arm. I hugged her. As I held her, I brought my mouth close to hers.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Aarti said, pushing me away.

  ‘I … I just …’

  ‘Don’t,’ Aarti said sternly. ‘You will spoil our friendship.’

  ‘I really like you,’ I said. I wanted to say ‘love’, but did not have the courage.

  ‘I like you too,’ she said.

  ‘Then why won’t you kiss me?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to.’ She faced me squarely. ‘Don’t get me wrong. You have been my best friend for years. But I’ve told you earlier …’ She went silent.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t see you that way,’ she finished.

  I turned away from her.

  ‘Gopal, please understand. You are disturbed so I don’t want to …’

  ‘You don’t want to what, Aarti? Hurt my feelings? Well, you have.’

  I checked the time. My watch said 4:50 a.m. I had to return the boat. I picked up the oars again. ‘Go back to your place,’ I said. She complied. We remained silent till we reached the ghats. Phoolchand gave us a smile, which evaporated fast when I glowered at him.

  We stepped off the boat.

  ‘You want to come home later today?’ Aarti said.

  ‘Don’t talk to me,’ I said.

  ‘You are being an idiot.’

  ‘I am an idiot, don’t you know? That’s why I couldn’t clear the AIEEE,’ I said and walked away without looking at her.

  5

  Like AIEEE, I did not make it in the JEE either. Raghav did, with an all-India rank of 1123. It turned him into a mini-celebrity in Varanasi. Local papers carried big stories the next day. Four students from Varanasi had cracked the JEE. Among those four, only Raghav had cleared the exam as a resident of Varanasi. The other three had appeared from Kota.

  ‘Why did they go to Kota?’ Baba mused, looking up from the newspaper.

  Baba had resigned himself to my being a loser. He did not react to my not obtaining a JEE rank at all.

  ‘Kota is the capital of IIT coaching classes. Tens of thousands go there,’ I explained.

  Every year, the tiny western Indian town of Kota accounted for a thousand, or a third of the total IIT selections.

  ‘What?’ Baba said. ‘How is that possible?’

  I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t want to discuss entrance exams any more. I had secured seventy-nine per cent in class XII. I could do BSc at the Allahabad University. The 120-kilometre commute would be difficult, but I could move there and visit Baba on weekends.

  ‘Which IIT is Raghav joining?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Baba, can you give me two hundred rupees. I need to buy college admission forms.’

  Baba looked like I had stabbed him. ‘Aren’t you repeating AIEEE?’ he said.

  ‘I will join the Allahabad University and repeat from there,’ I said.

  ‘How will you prepare while doing another course?’

  ‘I can’t waste a year,’ I said and left the house.

  I had to meet Raghav. I had not even congratulated him. True, I did not feel any happiness about his JEE selection. I should have, but did not. After all, we had been friends for ten years. One should be happy for pals. However, he would be an IIT student and I’d be a fucking nobody. Somehow, I could not feel thrilled about that. I practised fake smiles while pressing his doorbell. Raghav opened the door and hugged me straight off.

  ‘Hey, nice to see you,’ he said.

  ‘Congrats, boss,’ I said, my lips stretched into a smile and teeth sufficiently visible.

  ‘Now I can say I