Chapter 20

19. Sanam Bewafa

'Kirti Singh, you are the only one who has not paid up,' The teacher announced from the front of the class.

Kirti stood up and ignoring the fifty five other pairs of eyes on her, she fixed her gaze on the teacher.

'I forgot,' she replied.

‘Should I pay for you?’ Tejas whispered. 

'How many times do you want me to repeat the same thing? For the past two weeks I have been shouting my lungs out reminding you all to get the money. It isn't as if I am asking for myself. You people easily spend hundred rupees in the canteen but can't contribute for a good cause!'

'I'll get it tomorrow, Ma'am.'

'You better do that.'

At home Kirti waited for her father to show up. She was going to mention about the money, her brother beat her to it. 

'Papa, money. I have to turn it in tomorrow.' He had been handed a similar collection sheet that he had to go around with, asking neighbors to donate for Flood relief. Her father had warned against begging around for money and that he would himself pay up whatever he could.

'You both will be the end of me!' He said and pulled out some old crumpled notes from his purse, handing it to her brother. Her father looked exhausted, and beaten. The auto strike that had started a week ago had entered into another week. She could not bring herself to tell him that she needed money too.

‘Should I get you a glass of water, Papa?’

‘Squeeze some lime in it. I feel dehydrated and I fear I feel the beginning of a headache.’

‘Will be right back, Papa.’

All night Kirti could not sleep a wink. She couldn’t go to her grandmother also because granny hadn’t received the payment for the last two months. Kirti checked her bag, she had a spare twenty rupees note. Fifty was the minimum amount one had to pay. Her classmates were paying around thousand and two thousand rupees as if they had money trees growing in their gardens.

‘What should I do?’ She pondered remembering the teacher’s warning and the looks the other students had given her. 

The next day around, five in the morning, she pushed a twenty rupee bill into an envelope and sealed it. 

When the teacher had asked for the money in the first period after having taken the class’ attendance, Kirti with a roaring heart and heavy feet, gave her the envelope. The teacher had accepted it, pushing it in between the attendance register sheets without checking the envelope.

The entire week, Kirti had sat through the class teacher’s period with a hammering heart, getting startled every time she was called by the teacher for innocuous purposes. Two weeks later when the NGO had sent certificates and gifts of appreciation for the children according to their contribution, Kirti had received a certificate and a smiley badge as well. 

This is in recognition of your contribution of Rs.50 for….

While her friends had pinned the badges on their bags, had talked about laminating their certificates, Kirti had gravely stared at the badge the entire day in the class, piercing her thumb with the sharp pin of it. On her way home, she bent the pin and threw the badge away as far as she could. The certificate, she had fed to the kitchen stove.

XxxxxxX

Her eyes closed and head down on the table, she was whiling away the free period day-dreaming about the soap she had watched last night when he knocked on the wooden surface next to her. She had a name he could very well use. Until then, she wasn't responding.

She had begun to follow a serial recently. She was a cartoon enthusiast but the dish cable operator had hiked the charges and her father had refused to pay a paisa more than one hundred and twenty rupees, the former rate. It had led to a slight contretemps between the cable guy who Kirti knew as Manoj Bhaiya, and her father; things had gotten out of control with her father calling Manoj Bhaiya a thief and a crook and in return being called a miser, and a cheapskate. Her father had yanked off the cable wire and threw it away, and much to his family’s despair, was up on the terrace fixing the rusting, contorted TV antenna which he had dug out from the trash that they stored away in the room adjacent to the bathroom. For a month, Kirti and her brother had to sit through evening programmes like Krishi Vigyan and Lok Nritya Sangeet because there was a dearth of diversions. Both of them by then had the Kisan Kendra Sahyog number at the tip of their tongues also knowing the exact composition of fertilizer to add to various crops. They would sincerely report their findings to their father in the hopes that he would realize that if given the chance they would gobble up the knowledge imparted by DD1's very sophisticated NRI cousins, Discovery and National Geographic, as well. Sometimes, they would also entertain him with various tribal dances they learnt from the same channel, the brother and sister, their arms joined, moving in synchrony. Her father though had neither the plans of gifting them a plot of land to till soil on or have them perform on Aadi Mahotsav, the annual tribal fair; he was still glad they were learning something. Learning without concern for applications often led to big breakthroughs! 

Manoj Bhaiya had been in the cable business for the last ten years and these small altercations were a routine affair with everyday a couple fighting, or a child failing and an enraged husband or father asking TV cable to be disconnected right then. In exam seasons, he was perpetually up on the terraces, disconnecting wires. So, a month later he was back at Singh’s door on a Sunday when Kirti’s father sat on the porch, tuning his radio. A match between India and Sri Lanka was on. It was being aired on Doordarshan also but it had rained heavily last night and the antenna had succumbed to the injuries.

‘Bhaiya, tar jod doon? Dadi aur bacche ghar mein bore ho jate honge’

Dinesh Singh’s anger had also petered out, his desire for Hindi cinema beating its wings against the cage of his heart. How long since he had watched a Suniel Shetty movie; but he remained adamant about the price. ‘I will not give a penny more than Rs. 120’

‘Kya bhaiya?! Chaliye maan gaye aapki baat. 4 serial ke channel, 2 news, 2 cinema channel. Itne paise me itnaich milega!’

‘CN, Disney and Pogo?’ Her brother had asked.

‘Woh sab toh Munna, 200-250 wale pack mein aayega’

Thus, Kirti and her brother had been forced into a compromise relationship with soap operas. Kirti realised that she couldn’t remain indifferent to the ups and downs of the lives of the heroine. Her brother remained ambivalent, though. Kirti thought he would come around, just like all the heroes did in forced marriages.

She was replaying in her head the events of the last episode.The main guy had wooed and married the girl in a dreamy manner. Yesterday it was revealed he had been tricking the girl who had earlier challenged the autonomy of his father in front of the entire village. This is your retribution, he’d said as he’d tugged off the girl’s veil and fed it to the roaring fire in the mandap. Both her grandmother and Kirti had been dismayed. Even her brother and father had been riveted by the DhoomTanaNanas.

‘What will happen now?’ Kirti thought. ‘That’s why the show was called Sanam Bewafa’ ‘Will they separate?’ It made her sorrowful. As inexplicable it was,she felt funny in the pit of her belly when they looked into each other’s eyes, the background score playing. She wished Manisha were present today. They had found a kindred in each other's love for the drama.

The thumping happened again right next to her ear. This time there was a tap of pen too for an added extra effect. 

'Kirti’

She opened half her eyelid to look at him.

‘Farewell money?’ He asked, spinning a Reynolds around his fingers. There were students going gaga over it, asking him to teach how to pull that off. She, however, found it a pure nuisance. It was distracting, especially when there was a test in the next period and she’d be trying to revise the lesson, her eyes darting to the casual but flick movements of his big hand; his long and pretty fingers.

She raised her head, supporting it on one hand, and looked at him clearly now.

‘What?’

‘Ajanta Ma’am is retiring. Everyone was supposed to summit Rs.100 for it.’ Right! They were supposed to get the money. Like a money vendor machine, they were always supposed to be spitting money for one or the other reasons.  

She saw that the last page of his notebook was open, where he had checked against all the roll numbers except hers. He was a leftie and his check mark unlike others was very different, the tail of it inwards as if done from right to left. 

‘I forgot,’ she said. She hadn’t even informed at the house about this. 

‘You said the same thing yesterday,’ Sana observed. Kirti didn’t realize she had been listening in.

'Let me rephrase, I forgot again.’

‘Today’s the last day to submit,’ Nishit said. His pen slipped from his hand and landed where her foot lay. She was going to bend and retrieve it for him, when he nudged it towards his side with the side of his shoe. No respect for the Goddess of Learning!

‘You know you’re the person who always pays last be it any occasion.’ For a person who showed no interest in building any kind of repartee with her, Sana sure spent a lot of time observing her. 

‘I’ve a forgetful memory. Sorry, Nishit. I’ll get it tomorrow.’ 

‘That is if you’d be able to remember,’ Sana said.

Giving them a sheepish grin, Kirti put her head down again, hiding the carmine tincture of her mortified face.

Surviving in this school was becoming exceedingly onerous. 

SUPW money, Teacher’s Day, Children’s Day, various farewells to retiring teachers, birthday gifts to fellow students, Picnic, trips,  every other day she was standing in front of her grandmother or father, diming up. She wasn’t a kid anymore to be unable to read the look that crossed their faces. Only the other day, her father had commented, ‘They don’t run schools. It’s all business, a means to earn money. Kabhi Kabhi lagta hai galti kar diya, bade school mein dakhila kara ke. Ab batao jitna kamao usse zyada kharch kar do.’ Then he sighed and asked her to take the money from his purse, before adding, ‘Dekh rahi ho na beta, bina paise ke ek kadam nahi chal sakta admi. Khub mann lagakar padho.’

Kirti did not realize when her mind had started collecting these words, storing them away until one day, she had woken up with a giant mixed bag of guilt, embarrassment, pressure on her back all bowing her down under its weight.

The school which was supposed to discover her flair, help her sprout wings and reach the zenith of success was soon beginning to feel like shackles that hampered her growth.

In the eighth, she had tried to keep up with her classmates, but they galloped and cantered, sometimes even flew, rendering her breathless and heaving. She would coax out money from her gullible Dadi, sometimes even stealing notes from the tight knots of her pallu or from under the newspaper covers of the shelves, just so that she could feel one with the girls she sat with. When they said, they did not do a thing at home, Kirti pretending to be like them, refused to pick even a twig. The girls detailed the arguments they had with their parents, and how they gave it back good, Kirti began to back answer at home. She weaved lies and fabricated stories imagining herself to be one of them until reality had cut in her flight of fancy.

Laying on the bed, she was watching songs while her grandmother washed clothes in the bathroom. She had asked out Kirti to wipe the floor outside the kitchen where her brother had spilled water earlier.

‘Work work and more work,’ Kirti thought. ‘None of my friends have to do a thing. Why should I?’ She ignored the incessant calls.

Then her grandmother had walked in, having forgotten about the water, had slipped and dislocated her hip. Her painful screech,Kirti still remembered till date. 

She had been rushed to the hospital and operated a few days later. A guilty Kirti could only shed tears, watching her helpless father run from counter to counter, begging for some time to deposit the hospital bill, dialing up people to ask for loans. Once, her grandmother had been operated on, they hadn’t stayed in the hospital a day extra because it meant adding to the bill. 

In school, she sat by Shivani Jaiswal, suddenly being able to see the differences in vivid detail.

‘I hate my specs! It looked good at the time of buying but now I feel it doesn’t suit my face. My father won’t get me new unless this wears out.’

‘Break it or lose it, why don’t you?’ One of Shivani’s admirers suggested.

‘That seems like a good idea,’ and as Kirti sat dazed, she saw Shivani drop her customized glasses on the floor. Made of sterner stuff, it didn’t break and so she saw a few girls and guys go at it unless the pair of glasses lay shattered, breathing its last.

Kirti’s drunken stupor had begun to fade. By the time she reached ninth standard she was all sober and clean.

XxxxxxX

‘Guys, may I have your attention, please?’ Sana clapped her hands.

`We had a class leader meeting this recess.’ Kirti looked at Nishit who stood quietly next to Sana. He always let her take the lead and act as if she was the head of the class. Even the assistant leader didn’t have such leverage over him.

‘This Children’s day we are going to have a color theme for our class celebration. Red or white, we’d been pondering on it. Since, it’s rumoured that the eighters are going all red so let’s go for white. What say?’

Kirti continued to play tic tac toe with herself.

‘White? That’s so boring! How about sexy black?’ Someone suggested.

‘The 10thers have already picked it.’

‘Why are our leaders so slow?!’

‘How about pink?’

‘You have to take in consideration the boys as well.’

‘I don’t have a white dress.’

‘You can always buy one, come on’

‘Any Which way the boys are going to flout the theme and wear whatever they want to.’

‘So white it is! Those of you who have not paid for the children’s day, please submit it to Nishit or Aanchal.’

XxxxX

‘Kirti, you are coming on the children’s day, right?’ Tejas came to sit next to her since Nishit was outside the class talking to a friend of his. 

‘I haven’t decided.’

‘Isme decide kya karna hai? You are coming that’s it!’

‘Pata nahi. I’ll see.’

‘Have you paid the money at least?’ Sana asked.

‘You haven’t right! I knew it. Tejas will start topping the class the day you pay on time.’ Nishit had come now and stood waiting for Tejas to empty his seat.

‘Sana ke sath baith na thodi der.’

‘You should have sat with her when I had asked you’ 

Kirti understood Nishit’s frustration. Tejas never wasted a second occupying the former's seat. She herself didn’t like when she had to wait as other students, capturing her desk, chatted up Nishit.

‘You haven’t?’ Tejas asked her.

‘I keep forgetting.’

‘Are you trying to ditch us like Picnic and Teacher’s Day?’ Well, one could always bail out from program expenses that weren’t mandatory, couldn’t they.

‘It’s nothing like that.’

‘Look, Kirti. If you don’t come on Children’s day, we are done, then. As for money,’ he said and paused, pulling out the purse from the back of his trousers, he offered the money to Nishit. ‘Tick against her name too.’ Instead of accepting the money, Nishit looked at her. She could feel Sana’s gaze too.

‘You do not have to, Tejas. I’ll pay myself.’

‘I know you will. This is just a loan. Tomorrow when you get the money, give it to me instead of Nishit.

Getting up from the seat, he had zipped open Nishit’s bag and pushed the money inside.

‘Don’t forget to mark her name. And you, Kirti, you are coming.’

Her hands clasped together, she had stared at the desk. ‘I will ‘ 

‘Pakka aana because...cake maza na degi...ice cream maza na dega...tere begair oh.. Kirti celebration maza na dega.’

‘Where do you learn such songs from?’ Sana said as he jumped next to her.

XxxxX

She hadn’t kept the promise. Her wardrobe had no decent white dress and she wasn’t going to ask her father to buy one just for this occasion that was going to last few hours.

‘So rahi hai beta, school nahi jaana?’ Her father had asked, pulling her toes.

‘Aaj chutti hai, Papa.’

She had washed and was having breakfast when Patralekha Di had come to inform there was a call for her.

‘For me?’She had gone to the neighbour’s house to answer the call.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello Kirti?’

‘Tejas?’

‘Where are you? School kyun nahi pahuchi?’

‘Woh, I am not feeling well so…’

‘Are you coming to school or not?’

‘No, I’m not,’ The moment she had uttered, he had cut the line.

She hadn’t known what to feel. Happy because someone had cared enough or sad because she had disappointed the only person who cared.

In the afternoon, she was playing chain-chain with the neighbourhood kids in an open field near her house when she had spotted him and the sparkling fancy car parked on the other side of the road where an NGO office was located. Leaning against the passenger door of the car, the wires of the Walkman plugged in his ears, in a white shirt and blue pants, Nishit was there looking back at her. In two pigtails, a short kurti and pajama, she must have looked very different to him. A lady dressed in crisp zari sari, waved at the younger kids that were playing at a little distance from Kirti’s group; all of them brown, pot bellied with matted hair, the lady was waving at them, gesturing them to go to her. When they all ran to her, Kirti saw her distribute food packets and sweets to them.  She looked at him again. He did not acknowledge her, neither did she. The chasm was just too wide.

The next day at school she received a cold shoulder from all her friends.

‘Navyam and I had a bet you know. Thanks for not coming,’ Sana had said.

‘Tejas, are you angry? I’m sorry.’

‘Were you really sick?’ He asked. Kirti couldn’t answer. His cousin had seen her sprint like a sturdy horse yesterday. He must have snitched.

‘You weren't, right? You broke the promise! That too when I said we’ll be over if you don’t come’ He had turned away, ignoring her the entire day. Even the next day, she had been treated with the same frigidity.

‘Tum toh dhokebaaz ho, vada karke bhool jate ho…’ Tejas had started in the free period with Navyam continuing with all the emotions of an equally spirited spiteful partner, ‘Ahaan...tum bhi bade chalak ho muskura kar... dil jalatiii ho’

She poked Tejas back. ‘I said I am sorry.’ He shrugged her.

‘Roz roz tum jo sanam aisa karoge...hum jo rooth jayenge toh aahein bharoge’

Kirti began to feel miserable. One true friend she had and she’d lost him too. If they continued, she might even cry, She could feel it come up her throat. 

‘Kirti...Kirtiiii...Kirti,’ Manisha ran to her desk.

‘Did you watch last night’s episode?’

‘Manisha, we’d decide not to talk to her.’ Sana reminded Manisha.

‘Oh just shut up,’ Then turning to Kirti she began, ‘Oh my God Kirti. Yesterday, he got jealous.’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Kirti nodded, having forgotten Tejas and the others. 

‘That scene when he asks her not to talk to the doctor guy.’ she squealed.

‘I know. I didn’t understand why they got the doctor to stay at their house. It seems they had planned to add the jealousy track.’

‘Kirti, he’s soon going to realize her worth.’

‘What are you both talking about?’ Navyam asked.

‘It’s a show,’ Kirti answered.

‘Sanam Bewafa,’ Manisha was more concise.

‘Sanam Bewafa? Tune promise mera toda...kahi ka na choda...sanam bewafa o...sanam bewafa..’

‘Tejas, stop with this tacky song right now.’ Sana had planted her hands on her ears. 

Kirti was beginning to feel better. He would come around. If he was a true friend, he would.

[NOCOPY]

[MEMBERSONLY]