Notes from the Past: 6
March 2006, Alchemy College, New Delhi
Khushi was sitting right next to the main entrance because that was the only available spot. With two days to go before the students went off on their study holidays for the university exams in the month of May, the library was buzzing with activity. From the academic overachievers to the ones who slacked through the year, every single student of Alchemy was cramming at the Bimal Patnaik Library. The head librarian and the four assistants all looked very stressed as the students with scant regard to the careful sorting and cataloguing kept pulling down books from one place and putting them back elsewhere. Unlike usual, the library was not silent today. In fact, there was a lot of chatter because of the group studying in progress. Khushi however preferred to study alone because she found that the less social she was, the quicker it was that she was able to wade through the syllabus. This sometimes made Preeto mad, who believed that every activity was a social one, including studying, as she sat together with a bunch of their classmates, giggling over Trigonometry and the English (Hons) boys who were at the next table.
While Alchemy College was somewhat better than say, colleges like Joseph's in gender distribution, but across most courses, the boys always outnumbered girls. Pretty significantly. Though her own Mathematics (Hons) course had a 60:40 boys to girls ratio, in most other disciplines, only less than a third of the students were girls. Except for some of the arts streams like English Literature, Sociology and Psychology. The English literature department had only about five percent boys. This trend continued year after year. It also as a rule attracted the geyser chala do bhaiya' crowd as Preeto liked to say. Khushi was not aware of the existence of this demographic, until Preeto had explained to her that these are girls who are so are rich that they have this one young, male household help who wait over them for everything, including switching on the geyser half an hour ahead of bath-time. Preeto always had something like this to say about people. The English honours boys were usually better than those across other disciplines, probably the good influence of being among so many women. They were better dressed, more polite and the most chikna' boys on campus. They were constantly surrounded by giggling girls, and were a source of both envy and derision among the other male students from the more gender segregated disciplines. The first year English honours batch had two boys, christened as Kishen and Kanhaiya by somebody owing to them being surrounded by girls all the time. And much to the chagrin of other boys, Kishen and Kanhiaya got a lot of attention from girls who were in other disciplines as well. Even Preeto, prone to being dismissive of almost all boys, had a soft spot for Kishen and Kanhaiya and hence the giggling.
Khushi's thoughts were interrupted when Abhishek Rai, a classmate of hers came and sat next to her and said, "Yaar, Khushi, yeh inverse of a matrix kara do mujhe na?"
Abhishek was the most popular boy in her class. He was not particularly smart, or good-looking or have any special talent, but he was the designated funny guy. Khushi was always reminded of Karthik, her New-Ons batchmate when she saw him. Of course in the last ten months, Abhishek and she had not spoken to each other even once. Until now that is. While Khushi was a little annoyed with him for interrupting her study-alone time, but she also felt a little validated that he had come to her for help with a maths problem. She had worked hard in the last few months, actively participating in class and working hard on all her assignments and she hoped that it would pay-off in the exams. So she opened her notebook and explained the problem to an attentive Abhishek. She didn't need to look in the direction of Preeto to know that she was throwing a stink-eye her way. Somehow this made her giggle. She also became aware that Arnav who was sitting two tables away from her was also looking at her. She always knew when someone was looking at her, or at least she thought that she did. This fanciful notion of hers sometimes made her get off one stop before her actual one while on a bus. She would rather walk than have a co-passenger subjecting her to too much scrutiny.
Arnav and she had not spoken since the last week when she went to apologise to him about her behaviour. He seemed to be his usual self and walked away after throwing a breezy goodbye her way. Somehow that had left her less than satisfied. She was not sure what she expected him to say or do, but she was not expecting the sab theek hai' pat on her head. Nothing seemed particularly theek to her, she thought sullenly. When she walked into the library a couple of hours ago, she had spotted him, a stack of ten books in front of him. Khushi had been a little surprised to see him like that. He was always a bright student in New-Ons, usually among the top one percent of the class. But unlike Veena, who had meltdowns studying, or Aaaksh who was almost a prodigious genius, Arnav was so casual about studies. He would never take down notes in class or pay attention to what the teachers used to say and yet when he was singled out by the teacher and a question was thrown at him, he had an answer. Usually a good one. Before an exam when everyone used to do some last minute cramming and praying and worry if they had enough dahi cheeni, he would be practising some cricket batting action with his hands. Or he and Aman would be cracking some joke. And after the exam while the rest of them indulged in a post-mortem of what they did, he would just shrug his shoulders and say, "It was fine, I guess." The results always showed that his guess was more than fine. Khushi envied this effortlessness in him. He was rich, he was good-looking, he was a good athlete, he was popular, he was a bright student and all of it came so easily to him. But now in college, he was a different person. Probably because college was much more difficult than school. Or because away from the rest of the New-Ons bunch, he was a different guy. Something that she noticed in their interactions, however limited. When Abhishek finally left after she explained the solution to him four times, he said, "Yaar tu toh sports quota hai na? Lekin teri maths toh bilkul top hai. Thanks." It was hard not to bask in the glory of his words and she offered him a smile as he walked away. When she looked at Preeto across the room, she had a questioning look and Khushi merely shrugged. And though she didn't want to, she could not help but look at Arnav on the other side of the room. As she had predicted, he was looking at her and nodded at her before going back to his notes.
She looked at her watch and saw that it was already four and she should have to leave now and go to the Raizada House if she was to keep her time of appointment with Mr Raizada. She got up, rather self-consciously pulled the end of the sari pallu around herself and walked to put back the books where she had taken down them from. This was the first time that Khushi had worn a sari to college. This was because in the morning she interviewed for a summer internship position with an analytics firm in Gurgaon. KR Fund, had known to have a selective procedure and picked interns from across the colleges each year. The interns were paid generously, Rs 25000 per month, but the bigger attraction was that roughly ten interns were assured of a job two years later when they were to graduate. Khushi really wanted this. It could be the solution to the family's woes with the mithai shop and be a fitting end for the struggles that Maa and Baba had gone through to give her the kind of education that she was getting. The placement committee member, a senior had given her some interview tips. She also suggested that she wear something formal, like a Western suit. Khushi was unsure why a salwar kameez was not formal enough, but Preeto suggested that a sari would be fine too. And so she wore a blue and white, cotton, block-printed sari that Maa had bought for her from the Rajasthan emporium when she was in New-Ons for her farewell. Maa had starched and carefully kept it back inside the almirah and all day today Khushi felt that she smelt like naphthalene balls. She hoped that it would not be a deterrent to her getting the job though.
After placing the books back exactly where she had taken down them from, she walked towards the exit. As she neared Arnav's table, she wondered if she should speak to him. After all, she was going to his house to meet his father because of an invite that he had brought her. But she also didn't want to give him more importance than necessary. But as she neared his table, politeness won and she decided to speak to him.
"Hi, Arnav."
"Hey, Mother India."
Of course, wearing a sari meant that she should be called Mataji or Mother India. At least he was still the New-Ons boy that he always was. She knew that she was always the butt of jokes among New-On-Ites, but she was still a little hurt. Arnav was not the type to make fun of her usually. He normally just ignored her and for some reason she held him up to different standards. He was looking at her and something in the manner he looked at her changed, he looked a little worriedly at her now.
"Khushi, I am sorry, that was silly.. just that you look all proper and stern.. I am making this worse, am I not?"
Khushi nodded. Because she really didn't know what to say.
"I am going to your house. I should go to your house, right?"
Khushi looked at Arnav hopefully, the same way that her classmates looked at a teacher, hoping for a test to get cancelled in college. She had nothing against Mr Anand Raizada, but she really wished that she didn't have to meet him. The idea was intimidating.
"Only you can decide what you should do, Khushi. But yes, my dad is expecting you today. Wait. Is that why you are dressed like this?"
"What is wrong with the way I am dressed?" she asked him sullenly, by now too annoyed to give him an explanation about her interview and how she had not thought of bringing a change of clothes.
"Nothing at all. In fact you look rather.. very nice. You carry a sari very nicely, in fact," he said, really slowly, pausing after each syllable, like it was something that he had not considered until then.
"Oh," was all Khushi could manage. As always she was ill-equipped to handle compliments and acts of kindness.
"But my dad is already impressed with you. So you don't need to do anything more," he said grinning.
"I will leave now then," she said, deciding to ignore whatever he had said then.
"Okay. I have a lot of work to finish, else I would have given you a ride. So now you can go home without worrying about me being around."
She nodded and began walking away when he called to her.
"Hey, Khushi. HP will offer you coffee and tea. But don't have his coffee. He makes the worst coffee in the world. Chai is better."
She smiled at him, waved and left.
**
It was Gullu Bhaiya who let Khushi into the Raizada House. Khushi was sure he did not recognise her as the girl whom he refused to give a ride to. Maybe it was the sari or probably the fact that she was the guest of the bade saheb that brought the respect for her. He courteously asked her to sit in the living room and said that she would have to wait there as Saheb was busy on a phone call. Khushi placed the multiple bags all around her feet as she sat on a half-white expensive sofa. As soon as she sat on it she regretted it. There was no way that she would elegantly be able to get up from it when Mr Anand Raizada arrived. Especially since she was not so comfortable in a sari yet. She should have taken the more practical wrought iron chairs on the other end of the room. But now it was too late, as a rather stern looking household help walked in and placed a side table in front of her, and a coaster and a glass of water. She assumed this was HP of the dubious coffee-making skills. Khushi could not help but feel that unlike the now friendly Gullu Bhaiya, HP did not feel the same way about Saheb's guest.
"Saheb call mein hain. Pandrah minute aur lagega. Chai bana doon ya coffee?" HP asked her, not even initiating any eye-contact with her. Which was of course a good thing because Khushi remembered her conversation with Arnav from before and couldn't help but giggle.
"Chai, theekh rahega," she said and smiled at him. At this he looked at her, his face still impassive, nodded and walked away.
Khushi now removed a box of angoori pethas that Baba had insisted that she take for the Raizadas.
"Baba, itna meetha mithai toh nahin kahyange woh sab," she had almost begged her father to not make her take the mithai.
"Champion, tumhe iss baat ki sharam hi ki tumhaare Baba ek halwai hai?"
Baba never said something like that and Khushi had no choice but to take it along. Of course, she was not embarrassed of her Baba or who she was. While Baba took great pride in all the mithais he made, the Angoori Petha was special because it had a more elaborate process than the others. It took about three days to make them and Baba had made this batch especially for the Raizadas. The dabba was sticky because of the sugar syrup so she put it back into the bag. She didn't want to make a mess of the carpet and sofa of the Raizadas. In the meantime, HP brought her a cup of chai and some cake. But Mr Raizada was nowhere to be seen. She was getting a little anxious now. She almost wished that Arnav or Aakash would be around. Of course, Aakash was not going to be around. She always knew that. For one, he no longer lived in Raizada House and Aakash was busy this particular evening because he had a MENSA meet. Aakash was now officially a genius, he had passed some test that said he was. It was because of this even Maa and Baba who were uncomfortable of any of the boys she knew, were comfortable with Aakash. After the Aman episode in school, her parents constantly worried about boys who were her classmates. Of course, it was another matter that Khushi did not have friends who were boys. But when she would tell Maa and Baba about wanting to meet Aakash after college, they always approved. In fact last evening when Madhumati Bua had learnt that Khushi was going to the Raizadas today, she had not been very approving of it.
"Un logon se humein kya kaam," she had asked her brother.
But when Maa pointed out that she was visiting Aakash's maama, she had been a little more yielding. But there was no Aakash, no Arnav, no Anjali Di, not even Arnav's mother, who was a little terrifying. Khushi looked at her watch, it was over five now and there was no sign of Mr Raizada. She struggled and got up from the sofa and looked around. The Raizada House living room itself was almost the size of their house. She walked in the direction that HP Had come from, assuming it would lead her to the kitchen. She walked through a dining room that had a table that could seat sixteen, into a long passage that led her to the kitchen. There was nobody around. By now she felt like an intruder and it would not be for the first time. Last time she had sauntered into one of the Raizada spaces uninvited, it had turned into a rather unpleasant experience. She quickly retracted her steps and went back to the living room. Just in time, because she heard footsteps and came face to face with Mr Anand Raizada.
"Beta, it is so good to see you. I am sorry you had to wait for so long," he said warmly, taking her hands and squeezing them.
"It is okay, Mr Raizada. I think I came in a little early, there wasn't much traffic."
"What Mr Raizada? That is too formal. You can call me uncle. You are Arnav and Aakash's friend, aren't you?"
Not Arnav's friend, she thought, but she couldn't say that to him and so she nodded in agreement.
"How are you feeling now, Uncle? Your health now.." she trailed off, unsure whether it was fine for her to ask something of that sort.
"Ah, my health is all fine. Thanks to you actually. This is why I wanted to thank you and your parents."
"Sorry, Uncle. Baba and Maa couldn't close the shop today.. we have a mithai shop in Chandni Chowk."
"Oh, is that right? That is wonderful. Some day I will visit your shop maybe?"
That is when Khushi remembered the mithai and handed it over to him. He opened the mithai dabba almost immediately and ate the angoori pethas, sampled all the flavours kesar, vanilla, chocolate and orange. He called out to HP to take the box from him, but he did not seem to be around.
"Main rakh deti hoon, Uncle," Khushi said, taking the box from him and went to the dining hall and put it on the table.
"Did AR pay you your salary and do your full and final settlement? Why did you quit the job? I hope it was not because of whatever happened."
So, he did not know that Vijay Shastri, the administrative head of AR Enterprises had called her in a day after Mr Raizada collapsed and handed over a termination letter.
"Yes, I got my money, Uncle. I have to concentrate on studies now. I am hoping to get a summer job at a company call KR Fund. I had an interview today."
"Oh, really? My schoolmate Shankar Bhalla runs the company. I will speak to him. They must hire a bright girl like you."
"No, Uncle. Sifarish nahi chahiye.. I mean.."
"A little help from people is okay. When I began my business, so many people helped me. I was grateful for that. This is the least I can do."
Though Khushi was uncomfortable with this, she nodded and muttered a thanks.
"Uncle, mujhe chalna chahiye. Aap bhi tired lag rahe ho. Mera ghar Chandni Chowk mein hain... time lagega pahunche"
"Of course. Gullu se bol doonga tumhe ghar pahuncha de."
He did not even allow her to protest and went in search of Gullu who was at the front gate and was informed that Khushi would leave in five minutes and would needed to be dropped off at Chandni Chowk. This time, Gullu Bhaiya did not offer a protest and meekly agreed.
When Anand Raizada came back inside, he looked a little ill.
"Uncle, aap theekh hai?" Khushi asked him concernedly.
He waved his hand at her and suddenly bolted up the stairs towards his room. Khushi was shocked and had a feeling of deja vu as she followed him. She did not care that she had entered the most private space of the Raizadas, the bedroom of Arnav's parents and walked in to a retching Mr Raizada. Khushi helped him, by patting his back and noted that he had thrown up all the angoori pethas, there was green orange and yellow.
"I am sorry, beta, I am sorry, beta," he said, while Khushi wiped off his shirt with her sari pallu.
It was probably not the best moment for Mrs Poonam Raizada to walk in and say, "What is happening here? You again?"
Gullu Bhaiya drove back a tearful Khushi home. She had not done anything wrong, but everything was going the worst way possible. She was absolutely mortified. Maybe it was her tears, but even Gullu Bhaiya seemed sympathetic and handed over a bottle of water to her that she accepted gratefully. When she came back home, Baba and Maa wanted to know everything.
How was the meeting?
What did they feed her?
Did they like the angoori petha?
Who dropped her home?
Why did she look so tearful?
What happened?
Did she do something stupid again?
"Arnav ke papa phir se bimaar ho gaye, angoori petha ki wajha se," a sobbing Khushi told her parents. Baba seemed amused by this and Maa looked at her thoughtfully.
Poonam Raizada does not like me at all, Khushi thought. She had suspected it the day she had taken Anand Raizada to the hospital and while she did not for a moment think that Mrs Raizada would thank her, she had not expected her to yell at her asking what she had been doing at the eight floor. In Mrs Raizada's mind, she had made a transgression then, as she had done today.
"Aunty, I am sorry.. uncle was suddenly feeling sick, so I came in here."
"I can see what is happening here. And please don't call me Aunty. You can leave now. I will take care of this," she had said with such finality that there was nothing more left for Khushi to say.
"I am okay now. Poonam, get Gullu to drop this girl. It is too late for the girl to go alone," Mr Raizada said to his wife. That was the only concession that Mrs Raizada was willing to make for Khushi and had asked HP to make sure that Gullu dropped her off home. When Khushi followed HP, she heard Mrs Raizada say to him, "Acha hua mujhe samay par bula liya, HP."
**
"Jab se Raizada wallo ke yahan se aayi ho, kuch chup chaap ho. Sab theekh toh hai na?" Maa asked her the next morning as she got ready to leave for college.
"Haan, maa. Bas bola na. Woh angoori petha walli baat, aur kuch nai," Khushi said. No, she was not going to explain what happened to her parents. They wouldn't understand. In fact, she herself did not understand.
"Kuch hua hai toh, mujhe bologi, hai na?" Maa said slowly. Khushi wondered if something was wrong with Maa. She seemed a little different these days. A little sadder, as if something was on her mind. She spent a lot of time going through old photographs. For some reason, she was missing Shyam Bhaiya a lot. Khushi felt a little guilty for being so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she was not there enough for Maa. On an impulse she hugged Maa and said, "Sab theek ho jaayega."
She was unsure who was consoling whom.
In college, as soon as she entered, she saw the one person whom she did not want to see. And also, the one person she wanted to. Arnav.
"Arnav, wait," she said running to catch up with him. He stopped and gave her a look that she could not read. Was he mad at her. Was he indifferent. Curious. She could not tell.
"Your father got sick last evening when I was there. Hope he is feeling better now," she asked.
"Wow! You are a sick person Khushi Kumari Gupta. You make me sick. What were you thinking? I knew you had some weird middle class insecurities, that I can understand. But this. This business of just barging into people's private spaces, so uncool, so very uncool. I hope you get that f**king job you want so badly," he walked away leaving behind a very confused Khushi.
A few minutes later an excited Preeto came and hugged her saying, "Khushi, tu kitni chupi rustam nikli. Poorey Alchemy mein se sirf tujhe select kiya KR Fund walloh ne! Kameeni! But you deserve it."
Khushi had immediately begun sobbing and a baffled Preeto had said, "Yeh Khushi ke khushi ke aaansoon hai ya aur kuch?"
Later that evening when Khushi had rather solemnly given the news to her parents, they had reacted the way that she expected them to. Maa cautiously happy and Baba with unbridled joy that involved distributing the leftover angoori pethas from the same batch that was made for the Raizadas to everyone on the street.
**
Exactly a month after her fiasco at the Raizada House her university exams began. Khushi had been grateful for the study leave of the past one month. It helped her stay lost and away from people other than her family. She studied for twelve hours, helped around the house and shop for two hours and walked around Chandni Chowk aimlessly for an hour each day. That was her only contact with the outside world. Some of the shopkeepers knew her and would chat with her about politics and cricket. Sometimes people she didn't recognise, but who knew her would talk to her.
"Garima ki beti ho kya tum?"
"Ji."
The man nodded. Before Khushi walked away, she saw the signage that said - Tewari & Sons. This was a first, most people usually knew Baba and not Maa. She would ask mom about this person later. That was Khushi's life in a nutshell. No New-On-Ite. Nobody from Alchemy. No Raizada. Nobody.
The exams went better than she expected and she found a little bit of her earlier cheer surfacing. By the time she began her internship at KR Fund, she was feeling better. Everything was so new. There was so much to learn from Econometric modelling to swivelling chairs to coffee vending machines. She now spoke with Aaaksh occasionally, who also had taken an internship with a professor at his college. Aakash did not ask her about the Raizada House fiasco, but she was sure sure that he had some idea about it because he carefully tiptoed around the subject. The only time that he ventured into anything remotely connected to the Raizadas was when he mentioned that Anjali Di had now a cupcake business and the next time he met her, he would bring her something called a red velvet cupcake. But that was it.
Preeto was spending the summer at her maternal grandfather's house in Patiala and called her every single day and spoke for hours.
"Preeto phone rakh, mujhe sona hai. Pata hai Gurgaon jaane ke liye kitna savere nikalna padta hai?"
But Preeto was unfazed and demanded every detail about her very boring life. Khushi had not told the entire story of the Raizada House fiasco to her, but Preeto had pieced her own story and was constantly harbouring murderous rage towards Arnav Raizada.
"Usne kuch nahi kiya waise," Khushi would sometimes argue, but it was more fun to listen to Preeto's version of a Raizada genocide.
When she got her first month's salary from KR Fund, she took Maa and Baba to the huge AnandRams near her office. They had an enjoyable time dissing all the food and feeling superior about how Gupta Mithai made way better stuff. Sadly, Gupta Mithai was now dangerously close to shutting down. Business had gone down by thirty percent in the last few months and unless something miraculous happened, they would need to shut shop. Though Baba and Maa wanted her to invest her KR Fund money wisely, Khushi hired a contractor and got the Indian style toilets at home converted to Western.
"Logon ko kya kahenge, ki bitiya ki kamayi se shuach banwaya?" Maa had said somewhat dramatically.
But Khushi was unperturbed. Her parents were not old, but they were ageing. Almost every house in Chandni Chowk, inspite of its archaic facade were bringing in modernity into their living spaces. It was as good an investment as any other.
A fellow trainee at KR Fund, Vinu Thomas, had helped her create an email id for herself. New-Ons had a compulsory computer class, but she had joined in at Class IX and email creation happened in Class V. So she was four years too late. Because she never had a computer at home and more importantly people to email, she had never considered creating an email id until now. It seemed that she was too late because Vinu informed her that Khushi, KhushiGupta and KhushiKumariGupta were all taken. She finally settled for KhushiGupta567. Some arbitrary random number that she decided to assign herself.
Through all this, there was little time to think about Arnav and what he had said the last time that they had met. Though, she was hurt, she didn't harbour a grudge against him. Perhaps, she would have said similar things too had she been in his position. Of course, she would never be in his position. She was not going to blame herself yet again for something that she honestly had no control over. This happened once with Aman Sabharwal and again now. She didn't do anything wrong, except perhaps carry a dabba full of angoori pethas.
**
When Khushi returned to Alchemy after college reopened, she was feeling better about herself. She had done well in her exams and was among the top two percent. She had been surprised that she had done that well. This year her classroom was in the New Science Wing, which meant that she would probably run into Arnav even lesser. That could only be a good thing, both for him and for her. She looked around the class, everyone looked different and it took a while to put names to the new faces. Preeto had cut off her beautiful hair and now had it very short.
"Why did you cut your hair so short," Khushi asked.
"Because there was an army of juyen on my head. Toh naani ne kata diya," Preeto said cheerfully, like the lice kingdom on her head was a thing of pride.
"Oh," Khushi said quickly taking her hand away from Preeto's head.
But Preeto would have none of it and pulled a giggling Khushi into a hug, while she mock tried to save her hair from coming in contact with Preeto's. The Trigonometry professor walked in and Khushi opened her new notebook.
First year had some problems, but this year will be better, KhushiGupta567 thought.
It wasn't.
**
NEXT
Edited by YellowBoots - 10 years ago
CID
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Ghum Hai Kisikey Pyaar Meiin
330