Five Point Someone Read online

  “Why is he calling it the Mice Party though?” puzzled Alok.

  “Don’t know. He has this new theory that he is going to launch,” I shrugged.

  Ryan had banned us from venturing near his room before the party. I heard him shout “Fatso, buzz off ” at least six times at Alok. The guest list consisted of me, Alok, Sukhwinder, Anurag and Vaibhav, who lived in the last room on our floor and always had vodka in his room. To Ryan that meant he was good friend-material. However, I only later figured out the real criteria for the guest list; all the guests were in the five-point something range of scores, were underdogs and lived in the same wing. We all anxiously waited for ten o’clock for Mr Ryan to open his damn door.

  “Come in, guys,” Ryan called out after we had waited outside his room for like an hour, on the verge of going bananas.

  We entered and it was dark, for Ryan had replaced the normal bulbs in the room with red ones so that a crimson hue spread over the study table, which now doubled as a bar. Ryan had laid out vodka and rum bottles, juice from the roadside vendor, coke from the canteen, lemons, ice, sugar and finally, joints for the guests. When ready-made joints are served, you know the host is someone who gives attention to detail.

  That was not all. Nude women adorned the walls, posters extracted from US porn magazines, which made their way to Kumaon through ex-seniors in innocuous US university admission brochures via mail. Blondes, brunettes, red-heads, thin, voluptuous and petite, posed on Ryan’s wall, uniformly wanton.

  Alok stared at the posters, his mouth open as if a UFO had landed in his kitchen-sink. “These women are completely naked,” he managed to gurgle eventually.

  Thanks for the insight, Alok. His quality time with Venkat had made him miss out on a lot.

  We all sat down on the floor in Ryan’s room, where he had placed cushions for each guest. The first drinks, the customary ‘cheers’, the challenge to execute ‘bottoms up’ followed and Pink Floyd sang to us.

  We finished the first drink soon and Ryan topped us up promptly, and then again. I knew the alcohol had reached my head when I reached out for the ready-to-smoke joints; I always ache for a smoke when three drinks buzz inside me.

  Surd had his own way of being drunk, by becoming overtly affectionate, kind of spilling over on to others’ drunken space. He sat next to Alok, putting his arm around his shoulder, occasionally squeezing, rubbing.

  “Great party man. Alok, are you feeling happy-happy?” Surdy asked solicitously.

  Alok nodded, delicately removed Surdy’s arm and moved forward to speak. “So Ryan, what is the big theory that you are going to launch during this party?”

  Ryan was sitting across us with Anurag and Vaibhav. “Let’s have a good time first,” he said.

  “I am feeling very good man. Tell us,” Surdy said and replaced his arm around Alok’s shoulder.

  “Yes, yes, tell us,” Anurag and Vaibhav spoke in unison.

  “Guys, my theory is called the Mice Theory. But before I tell you that, I need you all to answer one question.”

  “What question?” Anurag said.

  “I want you to tell me exactly what you want from life.”

  “Yeah whatever,” I said, “Just tell us your damn theory.” I was familiar with Ryan’s showman tactics. Besides, my brain had too much alcohol to answer deep questions.

  “C’mon guys, work with me on this,” Ryan said, “you will appreciate this much more if you think about your own life first. Just one question – what do you want in life? Think about it for two minutes.”

  We fell silent. Ryan took a commercial break from his theory and refilled everyone’s drink. I was on drink number four and I had never felt more clueless about life. I watched everyone else think.

  “Okay, enough time,” Ryan said, “Surdy, what do you want?”

  Surdy held Alok tighter and dragged him closer. Then he planted a kiss on Alok’s mouth and whispered intimately to him, “Should I tell him?”

  Alok determinedly extracted himself from the affectionate and inebriated grip again and nodded.

  “I just want to reach the US. With my GPA, it’s impossible, but just somehow, someplace, somewhere I don’t know, I just want to be in the US of A,” Surdy babbled.

  Anurag muttered something about inventing a new computer language, and Vaibhav wanted to start his own business.

  I could tell Ryan was not too interested in the others’ life ambitions, yet he politely nodded to all of them. He wanted to hear from Alok and me.

  Ryan nodded at Alok.

  “Well, you know it,” Alok said.

  “Tell me again.”

  “I want to get a job in Delhi, so I can look after my parents and take care of our money problems.”

  “Really?” Ryan said, implying he did not find the response so convincing.

  “Of course,” Alok said robustly.

  “Really?” Surdy said again, though more out of affection than anything else.

  “You, Hari?” Ryan said.

  “I don’t know.” I really did not know what I wanted in life. I had thought about the question. I did not want to have a five-point GPA, and I did not want to be fat and unattractive. I also did not want to get tongue-tied in the damn vivas every semester. I mean, I definitely knew what I did not want – as I had it all in that department. But knowing what I really wanted was difficult.

  “Of course you know. Come on, be a sport,” Ryan urged.

  Sport, that is Ryan’s word. Ryan is always a sport. And Ryan is always thin and attractive. And Ryan is always confident and carefree. I hated Ryan. Yet at that point I realized what I really wanted – I wanted to be Ryan.

  “Nothing much,” I said, as I tried to think of an answer. I surely could not tell ever yone I wanted to be Ryan; after all, Ryan would never want to be someone else.

  “Still, say something man. So we can hear the theory,” Alok said.

  “I want to be able to kiss my girlfriend, and kiss her any time I want. And even do more, like go all the way with her.”

  I still don’t know why I said what I said. I mean, it was sort of true. Yeah, I did want to kiss Neha and everything, but I had wanted to say something different.

  “Who is your girlfriend?” Surdy turned to me with interest.

  “None of your business,” Ryan said briskly.

  “Anyway, tell us the theory now, sir,” Alok said. Two drinks down, he did not mind Surdy’s overtures that much anymore, settling down into the masculine embrace with a resigned look behind his glasses.

  “Gentlemen,” Ryan said, sitting on the bed. He was now above us all physically, showering our uptilted heads with his gospel knowledge. “Thank you for coming tonight. As I am sure you have figured out, you are the lowest GPA holders in our wing. We are, gentlemen, the underdogs. Cheers to the underdogs.”

  Though Ryan was shamelessly working us up, we felt special at being the failures in the IIT grading system, and held up our hands high to a big ‘cheers’.

  “And this IIT system is nothing but a mice race. It is not a rat race, mind you, as rats sound somewhat shrewd and clever. So it is not about that. It is about mindlessly running a race for four years, in every class, every assignment and every test. It is a race where profs judge you every ten steps, with a GPA stamped on you ever y semester. Profs who have no idea what science and learning are about. Yes, that is what I think of the profs. I mean, what have IITs given to this country? Name one invention in the last three decades.”

  Silence ran through the party crowd as Ryan’s speech became serious. I hoped Ryan was really drunk, for there was no other excuse for such patronizing crap at a party.

  “Anyway,” Ryan continued, “screw the profs. Coming back, this system is an unfair race. If you are a mouse who thinks or pauses to make friends with other runners, or stops to figure out what you want to do in life, or drag baggage from the past,” Ryan said, looking at Alok, “then you will be pushed behind. As we have been pushed behind by morons like Venkat.”