Five Point Someone Read online

  “Hi everyone,” Prof Veera said as he entered class. He offered chewing gum to the first row students. The front row guys were all mugging nine-pointers, and freaked out at his offer. They declined, and he shrugged and popped a piece in his mouth and turned to the board.

  “Turbulent flows,” he wrote in big letters on the board.

  “Guys, in the first five lectures, we studied simple flows called laminar flows. The shape and direction of these flows are predictable with the help of formulas and equations. You know which equation, right?”

  He looked around for answers. Unlike other profs, he did not stick to the first row. In fact, he scavenged at the back. “Okay, I am not going to ask the studious kids all the questions. I want to ask the cool dudes at the back.”

  Ryan and I were chronic backbenchers; out of sight, this was the most defensive position for the outcaste five-pointers, but Prof Veera did not care.

  “Ryan, tell me, which is the first principle equation for laminar flows?”

  “Sir, me?” Ryan said, surprised that a Prof would know his name.

  “Yes you, Ryan. I know you know the answer.”

  “The Navier-Stokes equation.”

  “Right. You want to write it down for the class?”

  Ryan ran up to the board and the nine-pointers in the front row smirked at a five-pointer contributing to class. The equation was right though; Ryan doesn’t go up to the board unless he knows he’s right.

  “Perfect, thanks Ryan. By the way, was it you who wrote the impact of lubricant efficiency on scooter fuel consumption in your last term paper?”

  “Well, yes sir.”

  “Is it true you actually tested the data on your scooter?”

  “Yes I did, sir. Not accurately though.”

  “I like that,” Prof Veera said, looking at the nine-pointers who were busy taking frantic notes like trained parrots. “I really like that.”

  Ryan came back to his seat. I could tell he loved fluid mechanics, and most of all, he loved Prof Veera. He never missed FluMech and he would do anything for Prof Veera. Others however – the testy design prof, the painfully dull solid mechanics prof and the assignment-maniac thermodynamics prof – were a different story. Ryan could cut up their guts with a lathe machine in the machining workshop given a chance.

  I met Neha at Priya cinema a week after the FluMech class. I would have said I met my girlfriend but the damn problem was I was still not sure. I had known her for over a year, but she called me different things depending on her mood. First, I was just a friend. Then I was a good friend, then a friend who was special, then really-really good and special friends or some such crap. For her, calling someone a boyfriend was a big thing. Her dad had made her promise that she would never have a boyfriend, and she wanted to keep it. Of course, it did not prevent her from watching movies with me hand in hand every two weeks for over a year.

  “Late again?” she said. I must have been late by like two minutes.

  “Had fluMech class. Prof Veera overshot time and we did not even realize it.”

  “Prof Veera is that young guy right?”

  “Yes, you know him?”

  “Not really. Dad mentions him. I think my dad hates him.”

  “Your dad sounds like a total...”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Let’s go in. I don’t want to miss the trailers.”

  The movie was Total Recall, another sci-fi action crap. That’s the thing about English theatres in Delhi. They either show action or adult movies. I don’t mind the latter except that you can’t really take a girl to them. Especially these really nice and good-Indian-traditional girls like Neha. So, you have the choice of sci-fi action nonsense or a Hindi movie. No self-respecting girl will watch a Hindi movie on a date. Hence, there I was again, to watch Arnold flex his muscles and blow up planets.

  “You like sci-fi,” she said as she took her seat.

  “I do,” I said. What choice did I have anyway?

  “Typical IIT engineer.”

  Yeah right. Typical IIT engineers, my girl, don’t skip design class to watch stupid movies.

  And then just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. Neha and I took our seats in the balcony (Rs 35/ticket, total rip-off) and waited for the trailers to begin. However, according to a new government regulation, the theatre had to screen a ‘family planning documentary’ first.

  Okay, so India has this big population. So maybe people should just use some protection and we would have less new people. Simple enough, right? So you would think. Apparently, nobody wants to use contraception, so the government has to show people a more permanent way to not have kids.

  The documentary began; a doctor in a government hospital introduced himself with a beatific smile. He was supposed to be your friend in family planning, though I think he was the angel of death, especially when he recommended one sure shot procedure – vasectomy.

  The documentary showed this mill worker who had this idyllic home where he lived with his simple wife (who cooked all the time) and two kids. Then one day he sleeps and has a dream that he has six kids or something (obviously that would have taken a lot of screwing his wife, but they skipped all that). The kids need more food, education, toys and keep asking dad for more. But dad is tired from the mill job (not to mention the screwing) and breaks down. That is when our friend in family planning or angel of death appears.

  The doctor had this portable flip-chart with a picture of the male anatomy. He opened it, and the whole theatre, especially the front rows, started hooting. (Theatres are the opposite of class lectures, the front row is where the action is.)

  Anyway, so all this is going on when I am on my date. I had never approached the topic of sex (let alone controlling sex) with Neha. But there he was, the angel of death, showing the exact location of the cuts so that the male organ came under control. I was embarrassed like every other man in the balcony.

  Neha looked at me, noticing I was shifting around in my seat.

  “You all right?”

  “Don’t you think this is too much? Why do they have show this indecent stuff?”

  “What? It is educational.”

  “Yeah, right. I need that when I come to see a movie.”

  “Oh come on Hari. I actually think it is pretty funny.”

  The wife on screen listened carefully to the doctor and smiled at the prospect of sex without any consequences. I think the doctor and the wife had a thing going, but that was just my imagination.

  To the relief of all, the documentary ended in like half an hour. The mill worker wakes up and realizes how he must control his family and signs his reproductive facilities away. Happy ending, smiling faces of wife and kids which turn into cartoons, and the inverted triangle of the population control department. ‘Small Family Happy Family’ was the last nugget of wisdom thrown at us before trigger-happy Arnold took over the screen.

  Neha held my hand as the movie began. She had grown comfortable with doing this and I could not hope for anything more. I remembered my last conversation with Ryan. Could Neha also secretly want to do more than hold hands? Could I just ask her? Should I just make a bold move?

  We went to Nirula’s after the movie for a meal. “So, what is Prof Veera like, tell me,” Neha said, cutting the pizza we ordered into equal-sized pieces. Girls love organizing food on a table.

  “He is really different,” I said. “Like he doesn’t discriminate between nine-pointers and five-pointers. And he likes original thinking. Even his assignments push you to think more.”

  “Like how?”

  “Like he gave a term paper asking students to think about an engineering problem linked to fluid mechanics. Most profs would have just said, ‘do all the numericals at the end of Chapter 10’ or something, but Prof Veera invites ideas.”

  “Sounds cool. Is he good looking?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then I should tr y to see him. Maybe I’ll ask dad to invite him home,” she sa