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  ‘So what if he asked you to leave. It’s not like a real college,’ Prateek said.

  ‘I fell asleep. Such a boring lecture,’ I said.

  He laughed.

  ‘I gave them their bloody second installment today. Still they do this to me,’ I said.

  ‘Chill, we need more than tea today.’ Prateek stood up. We walked out of the teashop.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘My place,’ he said.

  Prateek’s room didn’t look like that of a hardworking repeater in Kota. Beer bottles outnumbered books, cigarette butts exceeded pens. The walls had posters of scantily-clad women instead of Resonance circulars.

  ‘You’ve really settled down here,’ I said.

  ‘I would if I could. My parents won’t fund me here after this year,’ he said. He took out a bottle of Old Monk from his cupboard. He poured the rum neat for me. It tasted terrible.

  ‘What happens after this year?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing. Reality check for my parents. Both of them are teachers. Hopefully, the passing of two years and half their life savings will make them realise that their son can’t crack any entrance exam.’

  ‘You can if you work hard,’ I said and kept my drink aside.

  ‘No, I can’t,’ Prateek said, his voice firm. ‘The selection rate is less than three per cent. Most of us can’t crack these tests, basic probability. But who will drill it into our parents’ heads? Anyway, finish your drink in one shot.’

  The rum tasted like some hot and bitter medicine. I forced it down my throat. I had to get over Aarti. Sometimes the only way to get rid of an unpleasant feeling is to replace it with another unpleasant feeling.

  I asked for another drink, and then another. Soon, Aarti didn’t seem so painful.

  ‘You loved her?’ Prateek said.

  ‘What is love?’

  ‘Love is what your parents give you if you clear the IIT exam,’ he said.

  We high-fived. ‘I did I guess,’ I said after a while.

  ‘How long?’ He lit a cigarette.

  ‘Eight years.’

  ‘Holy shit! Did you guys meet at birth in the hospital?’ Prateek said.

  I shook my head. Over the next three hours I told him my entire one-sided love story. From the day I had stolen her tiffin to the day she massaged my hand for the last time, and until she finally logged out and removed me as a contact.

  Prateek listened in silence.

  ‘So, what do you think? Say something,’ I said. To my surprise he was still awake.

  ‘You can talk a lot, man!’ He poured out the remaining rum for me.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said sheepishly. ‘Did I bore you?’

  ‘It’s okay. Try to forget her. Wish her happiness with her JEE boy.’

  ‘I can’t forget her. I haven’t studied a day since she stopped talking to me.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You will get another girl. Everybody gets a girl. Even the last rankers. How do you think India has such a large population?’

  ‘I’ll never marry,’ I said.

  ‘Then what? Marry your hand?’ Prateek burst out laughing.

  Men are useless. They hide their inability to discuss relationships behind lame jokes.

  ‘I better go,’ I said.

  He didn’t stop me. He lay on the floor, too tired to go to his bed. ‘Don’t lose your grip, man,’ he shouted after me as I left his house.

  Grip. Yes, that’s the word. The trick to these entrance exams is that you have to get a grip on them. You need a game plan. What are your strong subjects, which are your weak ones? Are you working with the teachers on the weak areas? Are you tracking your progress on the mock-tests? Are you thinking about nothing but the exam all day? Do you eat your meals and take your bath as fast as possible so that you have more time to study? If your answer is ‘yes’ to all these questions, that’s when you can say you have a grip. That’s the only way to have a shot at a seat. Of course, you could be one of those naturally talented students who never have to study much. But most of us are not, courtesy our parents’ mediocre genes. Ironically, these same parents who donated these dumb genes take the longest time to understand that their child is not Einstein’s clone.

  I had lost my grip. At least for the three months after Aarti cut me off. The spaced-out Prateek became my new and only friend. I attended classes, though my hangover made it difficult to understand Benzene structures or radioactive isotopes. I tried to do my practice sheets, but could not focus. The teachers started to see me as a quitter and stopped paying attention to me. I became a sucker-student, one of the no-hope kids who are only kept around because they paid the coaching centre.

  I had another problem to deal with. My expenses had increased, for I had to pay for rum. Prateek treated me a few times, but after a while he asked me to pay my share. I knew Baba had borrowed to pay the last installment and had no money. However, I had little choice.

  I dialled home from the STD booth one night.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t call last week, Baba,’ I said.

  ‘It’s okay. You are studying hard,’ Baba said, his voice very weak.

  ‘Baba, there is a little problem,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need some new books. They are supposed to be the best for maths.’

  ‘Can’t you borrow them from someone?’

  ‘Hard to,’ I said. ‘Everyone wants to keep theirs.’

  Baba paused. I kept quiet, trying to recuperate from uttering so many lies at once.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two thousand. They are imported.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Do you have the money, Baba?’

  ‘Can I send it in a week?’

  ‘How much loan did you take, Baba?’ I said.

  ‘Fifty thousand,’ he said. ‘I sent you thirty, but needed some extra to repair the roof.’

  ‘What about your medical bills?’

  ‘I owe twenty thousand to the hospital.’

  ‘You will anyway borrow more, right?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Send whatever you can. I will go now, it is an expensive call,’ I said, wanting to end the ordeal as soon as possible.

  ‘You will get selected, no, Gopi?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I will.’

  I kept the receiver down. I felt terrible. I resolved to study harder. I will get back into the twenty-five percentile, and then the top five percentile. I decided to study the entire night. However, I had a craving for rum first. My resolve weakened. I went to Prateek’s house and spent most of the night there. Nothing could motivate me to study. Then came my birthday.

  11

  My birthday came five months after my arrival in Kota. I did not think of it as a special day and planned to attend classes as usual. However, late night on my birthday eve, Mr Soni knocked on my door.

  ‘Someone on the phone, asking for you.’ He sounded drowsy.

  ‘Who is it?’ I said, surprised. ‘Baba?’

  ‘A girl,’ Mr Soni said. ‘And happy birthday, by the way.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said and picked up the phone. Who could it be? I thought. A teacher from Career Path? Did I do something wrong?

  ‘Happy birthday, Gopal.’ Aarti’s wonderful words fell like raindrops on a hot Kota afternoon. Emotions surged within me. I felt overwhelmed.

  ‘Aarti?’ I said. Uncontrollable tears ran down my cheeks.

  ‘So you still recognise my voice? I thought I’ll play a guessing game. Can we talk? Or am I disturbing you?’

  I had played out this scene – of speaking with Aarti – a million times in my head. I thought I would be curt with her if she ever called me. Like I didn’t care who she was. Or I would pretend to be busy. Of course, all those mental dress rehearsals flew out of the window. ‘No, no, Aarti,’ I said. ‘You are not disturbing me at all.’

  I had not felt better in months. Why did birthdays come only once a year?

  ‘So, doing anything special on your birthday?�€