Dreams

Kaushik woke with a start, his eyes immediately wide open, although as yet unseeing. He was aware he had been dreaming. He’d noticed over the years that he always felt unnaturally alert when he woke from a disturbing dream, as if he had consciously recognized its nature and had willfully wrenched himself out of it.

He found he lay facing the window. Its glass panels were shut and he heard muted rain. The incandescent yellows of the streetlights across the train tracks floated spectrally against the darkness. Everything was eerily still. Kaushik checked his watch; it read 2AM. He sighed and turned over to face the other side. Suresh was away for a week and he had the apartment to himself.

He had only vague memories of what he’d dreamt other than that it had to do with ghosts and the dead. He seemed to recollect an enormous dark castle, recognizable, for he had dreamt of it a few times during the last decade and was aware it appeared very similar to the one he’d imagined when he’d read ‘The Three Investigators and the Secret of the Terror Castle’ as a thirteen year old. He found it strange that his dreams should choose this one, created from imagination, rather than the numerous ones he’d seen in horror films.

He cursed himself, out loud, for bringing up the subject of horror films at this time. Instantly and inevitably, images from those queued up in his brain. He remembered how, as a kid, whenever he woke from a bad dream, he clutched his mother's arm and felt magically safe. "What will you do when I die?" His mother had once quipped, "You should cut my dead arms and keep it with you to put you to sleep." He had sudden visions of lying on an enormous bed covered by a glowing white sheet clutching a solitary arm. The grotesqueness of the vision unnerved him further and he frantically searched for more pleasing memories of limbs, finally arriving, gratefully, at the bewitching image of Eva Green as Bertolucci's magnificent version of Venus de Milo in The Dreamers.

He stole a quick glance at the door and found it slightly ajar, the diffused red of the mosquito repellant right next to it. He imagined what he’d do if an apparition or two were to walk in through there. He fancied himself sitting up straight, his back supported by the wall behind him, calmly light a cigarette, of which there were none in the house, and say “Right, so you’re here to kill me? Mind if I smoke?”

He was wide awake by this time and perspiring lightly from these visions. He sat up, drank some water from the bottle placed on the windowsill, opened the window and stared outside. Apart from the line of yellow lights, he now spotted a few stray whites, lit windows, against the night sky. There was virtually no sound, most notably, that of local trains plying their trade. The last one would’ve passed more than an hour ago. There were no cars on the road. It was as if the city had decided to pack up and leave and they’d forgotten to tell him. The rain had stopped; the rhythmic pitter patter replaced by the occasional solitary drop slipping off slanted roofs and exploding sweetly down below.

He hadn’t put on his glasses or switched on the light in the hope that he would soon by overcome by sleep again, this time deeper and more pleasant. Now, having stayed up for a half hour looking out the window, he realized it was unlikely to happen. So, he gave his eyes their aid and the room, its presence. He walked around the apartment for a while, unable to decide what to do. He rummaged inside the refrigerator and found pieces of cheese, leftovers from the weekend’s wining and revelry. He chewed on those for a while, practicing shadow cricket shots with his hands, setting a particularly tall target for himself to reach in very little time and then reaching it with extravagant strokes, muttering excited commentary as he did so.

The novel he was reading lay on the table – Chabon’s ‘The Mysteries of Pittsburgh’. He was halfway through it when he’d had to put it down that evening for dinner. He picked it up now and started to read from it, slow and unsure for a page or two whether he actually wanted to get into it at 3 in the morning, before the disarming beat of Chabon’s words found their way through his defense.

He read till he finished the novel, exhilarated and jealous, for he wondered if he’d ever be able to produce prose like this. It was near 5AM and the nearby mosque’s loudspeakers were halfway through the day’s first prayer. He lay down in bed again, anxious to salvage whatever he could of his sleep from the next two hours. It wouldn’t be his best day in office, he knew.

Café Harbour View

The Gateway of India stands near the southern tip of Mumbai and looks out westward to the Arabian Sea. The sea also flanks the Gateway’s sides – narrow channels of water brushing against stones and a makeshift pier. From the pier, steamers and cruises ply towards the South up to Goa, passing through tiny, sleepy beach towns that offer Mumbai’s populace quiet weekend getaway options. One of these is the town of Mandva, barely inhabited, which owes its disproportionate popularity in pop culture to the iconic Agneepath – one of Amitabh Bachchan’s most beloved films. Kaushik, Ashish and Ritankar had once taken a steamer back to Mumbai from Mandva. Throughout the journey, they had reeled off dialogues from the film at the slightest pretext. They had decided that they would return some day, dressed in all-whites like Bachchan had done, including the blazer, shoes and the rims of their glasses.

Even from up close, the Gateway of India appears strangely unimpressive, almost feeble. The unquestionable grandeur of the Taj Mahal Hotel behind it accentuates the Gateway’s lack of stature. From steamers approaching Mumbai, the Taj Mahal hotel can be spotted from miles out; the Gateway not until much later, when it is only a few hundred meters away.

Nevertheless, thousands of tourists flock to the Gateway each day, year after year. The spacious square, in the centre of which the Gateway stands, teems with people throughout the day, even when the Sun is at its angriest. A dozen photographers walk around, carrying decade old cameras and a colour printer inside a bag on their shoulders, nudging every tourist group, especially those from foreign lands, to pose for pictures.

A narrow street leads away from the Gateway and runs by the sea, separated by a wide parapet. Two minutes into its journey, the street leaves behind the noise and commotion and chooses to pass by old bungalows and three storey apartments instead. Most of the structures, simple and elegant, are from before Independence and the European design and décor is evident. Wide verandahs look straight out to sea; old men and women, a lot of them Parsis, spend their days there, swinging gently in their armchairs.

It is on this street that one stumbles upon the Strand Hotel. From the outside, the hotel appears somewhat dilapidated, an impression that is reinforced once one walks inside. Over the entrance, on a stained white translucent sheet, behind which tasteless tube lights flicker, the name is written in large red fonts, the ends of the ‘S’ curved around twice for style. Right next to this signboard, another smaller wooden plate has the words ‘Café Harbour View’ on it.

A cramped elevator that lurches violently before it moves, much like Mumbai’s local trains, takes one to the terrace where the café is.

Once at the terrace, the scene alters considerably. The tables, about a dozen of them, are widely spaced. A cool breeze blows in from the sea, which is visible in breathtaking panorama. Dozens of boats, private yachts, commercial vessels and steamers lie scattered in the harbor, simmering in the afternoon sun. Towards evening, when the sky darkens, twinkling lights from ships anchored far out at sea become visible; their presence betrayed in the setting sun after they’d remained undetected in daylight.

There is a ‘No Smoking’ sign pasted on one of the walls but nobody heeds it. If requested, the waiters bring cigarette packs from a shop downstairs. Ashtrays are not offered; cigarette stubs litter the floor. The presence of ashtrays, they explain, is considered evidence when the occasional friendly Police raid occurs, whereas cigarette stubs and ashes are not.

The service is embarrassingly poor. It takes ages for food to arrive. Sometimes, it doesn’t arrive at all. If one looks up and searches for a waiter, there are none to be found. After waiting a few minutes for one to appear, it is wiser to walk into the kitchen oneself, where the waiters huddle together, chatting. On seeing a customer appearing thus, they are not flustered in the least, and calmly note the order being placed.

Gratifyingly, the beer is rarely delayed. And since nobody goes to Harbour View for a quick bite, everybody waits patiently to be served.

Kaushik was told of Café Harbour View by a colleague in office, who he rarely otherwise listened to. But the colleague insisted that Kaushik check it out and one day, when he was in the general area, Kaushik decided to. He went there in the late afternoon, towards the beginning of the summer months. They placed an enormous umbrella, stuck at the top of an iron stand, over his table. Once in its shade, the wind from the sea took effect, and it became most pleasant. They also planted a table fan near him which blew full into his face. It made him gasp for air and lighting a cigarette impossible. He asked them to remove it and ordered beer. He spent close to four hours there, that day.

The next weekend, Ritankar and Ashish were introduced to the place.

Around that time, Kaushik also learnt of Couchsurfing – the online network of travelers that allowed its members to approach other members in cities they were travelling to and spend a few days with them. It was just after he and Ritankar were back from Europe and Kaushik cursed himself for not discovering the community earlier. He registered on it, as did, Ritankar and Ashish, although those two never actually used it. By the end of one year, he’d met more than a dozen travelers from around the world. Initially, it was only men, young and old, that sent him meeting requests. Ashish and Kaushik quipped regularly how even this ploy of theirs wasn’t working; they had earlier joked how this was perhaps the only way they were going to have women visiting their apartment, although none of them was sure what good it would do to them. Ritankar rarely partook in such bouts of crassness for he was reticent in these matters. A few months later, however, once a few men had passed through and Kaushik’s credibility was sufficiently established, the women started to appear, although they always came with a boyfriend in tow. There was one from New Zealand about whom they gushed for weeks afterwards.

Kaushik suggested these people places to visit in Mumbai and the country and showed them around the city when he had time. He was exhilarated with the whole thing. He met people from countries he was unlikely to ever travel to and learnt of those lands. He told them of India, although he got bored with repetition after a while. Gradually, he started to avoid showing them around the city, sick and tired of visiting the same landmarks, and let Suresh handle that part of the business.

Many times, he took them to Harbour View in the evenings and after a long day’s walking around, they relaxed and chatted. Some of Kaushik’s fondest memories of these people were formed there.

Surprises

The shrill, curt sound of the doorbell half woke Kaushik. Instinctively, he brought his left wrist close to his face so it touched the nose and tried to read the time. He always slept with his watch still wrapped around the wrist. It looked like 4 AM, but he couldn’t be sure without his glasses. He sensed it was still dark outside. Making no attempt to move, he allowed his woozy consciousness time to determine whether the sound belonged in this world or in his dreams. 4 AM wasn’t what one called usual doorbell ringing hour. Besides, if indeed it had rung, it would ring again.

It did. Kaushik started to get up but heard footsteps and the door unlock. He sank back into the softness of his bed, glad that he had, in Suresh, a flatmate who slept light and that he could now go back to sleep without being unduly disturbed.

He was out of luck. Soon, he felt someone shaking him by the shoulder. He heard Suresh’s voice:

“Hey man, wake up!”

“What’s the matter?” Kaushik mumbled, followed by an irritated click of the tongue.

“Wake up man! Your Mom and Dad are here!”

“What?”

“Yes, your Mom and Dad are here. Get up man!”

Kaushik got up wearily and dragged himself to the drawing room, his mind still largely vacant and unable to register what was happening. They were there alright, his Mom and Dad, instead of 500 kilometers away in Ahmedabad, where Kaushik expected them to be. The door was still open; a small suitcase lay across it. Outside, a man, shabby and unknown, stood peering in uncertainly, brushing his hair with both hands.

Kaushik’s Mom and Dad smiled warmly, thrilled to see their son, even though somewhat disheveled. Kaushik’s face contorted - eyelids flapping agitatedly over barely open eyes, forehead creased to help the eyes focus, cheeks stretched upwards to accommodate the extra skin the forehead demanded, lips gradually widening in an effort to resemble a smile and the cheeks stretching further as a result. It gave him the appearance of an indiscriminately overfed Oriental.

“Who’s that guy?” Kaushik asked.

“Oh, he’s Rajesh, the driver. Your Dad didn’t want to drive on the highway at night.”

“Why’s he standing there, then?”

“He’s a little sleepy, you know. We told him to come up with us. If you have some spare bedding, he needn’t sleep in the car.”

“Yes, we have it.” Kaushik said. He turned to Rajesh, the driver, and asked him to come inside.

Suresh, all this while, unsure what the appropriate thing for him to do was, stood in a corner shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He ached to go back to bed again; there were precious few hours left until he’d have to get up and ready for work.

“Suresh, you can go back to sleep if you want to.” Kaushik told him, half embarrassed. He knew the feeling; when Suresh’s parents had once visited them for a few days, Kaushik had hung around for a day before hastily packing a few things and moving to Ashish’s place for the interim.

“No, I think we should make two beds here. The driver and I can sleep here. You and your parents can rest inside. That way, I won’t disturb you when I wake up to go to office later.”

“Yes, we could do that. Let’s get the mattresses out then.”

The ritual of surprises had gone on for years between Kaushik and his parents. He no longer recalled when it had started. But he remembered dozens of them, over the years – on birthdays, his parents’ anniversary, new years, without reason even. On his mother’s birthday, Kaushik and his Dad would order cake and buy gifts in secret. They’d sneak those into the house when she wasn’t there and hide it in places where she’d be unlikely to stumble upon them. In subsequent years, since she now specifically searched for the packages, they kept it with a neighbor. At midnight, after pretending to go to bed much earlier, Kaushik and his Dad would lay the cake on the table and wake his mother up and they would have a small celebration. When midnight became too expected, they moved it to 3 AM and then later, until one on occasion, they didn’t wish her until the following evening, by which time she was on the verge of tears, convinced that her husband and son had forgotten.

The same custom was replicated on Kaushik’s birthday and his Dad’s, by the other two members of the family.

When Kaushik left home to study in Dhule, it appeared the ritual would slowly fade away from their lives. Instead, it gained in strength. Every once in a while, Kaushik would decide to bunk college for a week and board a bus to Ahmedabad, without informing his parents. He would reach Ahmedabad early in the morning, bleary eyed but excited, beaming with anticipation even before he’d knocked on the door. Inevitably, it was his mother, who opened the door, for it was still too early for his father to have woken up. She would squeal with delight when she saw him, kiss him on both cheeks and then rush to wake his father, shouting “He’s here! He’s here!”. His father’s reaction would be a little less hysterical. They would embrace and his Dad would comment that Kaushik should be using more deodorant.

Sitting inside, they could hear the snores of either Suresh or the driver from the other room. In Kaushik’s experiences, Suresh wasn’t much of a snorer and he, therefore, surmised it was the driver.

It was Wednesday. Kaushik’s Dad oversaw business in one of the hundreds of small manufacturing units run by enterprising Gujaratis in Ahmedabad. The unit was located in an industrial area and planned weekly power cuts shifted throughout the year. All the factories scheduled their weekly offs in accordance. At this time of the year, it was on Wednesdays.

“Yesterday evening, I came back home and we were thinking what we should do on my day off,” his Dad explained, “And your mother said we could go for a long drive early in the morning and return by late afternoon, and then maybe have dinner at a restaurant in the evening.”

His Mom butted in, “And then your Dad said how about starting for Mumbai yesterday evening itself, spending half a day with you and then returning to Ahmedabad.”

“Oh. So you are here for only half a day?”

“Yes, we’ll leave after lunch. Just thought it would be fun coming here like this.”

Kaushik laughed. He was, at that point, towards the latter half of his six month break from work. He hadn’t told his parents he’d quit for a long time, not even, when he’d travelled to Europe. It was on his next visit to Ahmedabad after he’d come back that he had eventually broken them the news. They had taken it better than Kaushik had expected. Nevertheless, as the days went by, they grew more anxious. Kaushik’s mother called him several times during the day on one pretext or the other, her heart aching that her son was spending entire days alone and unoccupied, although he insisted he was having a good time and there was nothing to be so concerned about.

This surprise visit, Kaushik sensed, was their anxiousness brimming over.

Kaushik’s Dad, now halfway through his fifties, was a dark, pot bellied man who had aged better than his peers. He still retained a head full of silken, largely black, hair and the lines on his face were yet to dig deep. A thick black moustache hid his upper lip almost completely. He must have been quite unremarkable in appearance as a young man, although the only evidence Kaushik had of this was in the grainy, black and white photographs he was shown. But at this age, while his friends struggled with baldness, rheumatic knees and weakening eyesight, he was fit and intact.

Kaushik’s Mother, on the other hand, must have been an attractive woman in her youth. She was still very presentable for her age, although she had put on a bit of weight and her joints creaked with arthritis. After marriage, she had to move to Ahmedabad; Kaushik’s Dad had migrated there in search of work half a decade earlier, leaving behind him the disintegrating West Bengal of the 1970s. Now, close to three decades later, she still spoke Hindi and Gujarati with a Bengali accent. She had never worked professionally, happy to make a home and raise her son, instead. Her world view was simplistic but she was capable of the occasional inspired observation, perhaps without being aware herself of just how inspired they were. She had once pointed out, about a year ago, how all of Kaushik’s friends had always been transient.

“You seek to befriend people who you think know more than you do. That is good. But you grow tired of them once you feel your knowledge and understanding has surpassed theirs. And then, you just move on”, she had said.

Kaushik was amazed by how accurate the observation was. even though it was put in so plaintive a manner. He wondered how she could be aware of this and yet look forward to and talk about his future marriage and life afterwards without the least bit of apprehension.

Although, he had continued the unannounced visits home through the years, Kaushik’s parents had never visited him before this. Not while he was in Dhule for four years, nor while he was in Lucknow for two. They had, of course, paid him the occasional visit but they had always informed him first. He had taken this as a sign of his parents’ acknowledgement of his having reached an age where he would begin to have a life beyond the one they knew of. That the number of secrets he kept from them could only increase in the future. Kaushik was immensely grateful to his parents for this; it had saved him the sticky situation of having to actually explain it to them. He had debated if he should stop his own surprise visits to them; acknowledge that they too had the right to a private life, but every time he did go, they appeared so utterly overjoyed, that he decided to carry on with them.

And now this. He wondered what to make of it. Was it that he had been mistaken all these years in presuming what he had and that the real reasons were merely logistical? Or was it that their perception of all the secrets he now kept from them, the life he now lived had gradually become so disturbing that they had to come see for themselves? They knew he enjoyed the odd bit of alcohol once in a while; he had told them himself. Since then, they had always quizzed him on how regular his drinking habits were. “How many times a month? More than once?” He always evaded a straight answer, aware that the true number, though sufficiently low to be a cause for even the mildest alarm was still too high for them. Perhaps they had decided to drop in like this to check? There was one empty bottle of beer on the kitchen platform, Kaushik found, when surveyed the apartment once his parents were settled comfortably into bed. The bottle was coated with dust. He decided there was no reason to remove it.

So then, why had they come? Hadn’t Kaushik himself thought a few moments before that it was because they were concerned he was lonely and despondent without work? Could it be that it was a combination of these reasons? Was he a little miffed that they had come? He wasn’t sure.

Possibly, in some corner of their sub consciousness, the odd misgiving had always lingered, without their having realized it. It may have played a part in their decision to come, but Kaushik knew that even if it did, it did so behind the scenes, moving surreptitiously between those other thoughts and emotions they could access. He knew they loved him too much to ever doubt him seriously.

As a kid, Kaushik had insisted upon sleeping by his mother’s side. He enjoyed the touch of her arms; warm from the wrist to the elbows, slightly colder above it. Through the night, he slept with one hand gently rubbing her arms. When he grew up a little, his parents suggested to him that he start sleeping on his own bed. He tried but could not. His mother would sit next to him until he fell asleep but he would wake up soon after she was gone. Kaushik would stare at the ceiling for a while, angry that his mother no longer loved him like before. Eventually, he would take his pillow and barge into his parents’ bedroom and tell them that there were cockroaches in the other room and he was afraid. Instead of sending him back and making him learn the hard way, his parents would, uncomplainingly, make space for him between then and he would lie there blissfully for the rest of the night.

Kaushik was into his teens before he finally rid himself of this habit. By the time he grew up enough to understand what this might have meant to his parents, how much it might have taken away from their own lives and needs, there was nothing he could do.

His parents smiled through this and other sacrifices and continued to love him. It did not even occur to them that they should hold it against Kaushik. Kaushik wondered if he’d do the same for his own kids, when they came around. He found it hard to believe that he would.

The morning passed by cheerfully. They had breakfast together, chatted about this and that. Towards noon, they went to a pricey restaurant for lunch; Kaushik was eager to demonstrate to them the secure state of his immediate finances. A couple of hours later, they were on their way back to Ahmedabad, no more or less worried about their son’s future. Kaushik returned home to make up for the morning’s lost sleep.

A Smarter Man

Kaushik returned home around 8 in the evening. The journey back worked like clockwork. He and Ashish left office together at a quarter past six and walked to the railway station across the road. There they chatted for a few minutes until a train arrived and they exchanged curt goodbyes. They traveled in opposite directions. Kaushik changed trains a couple of stops later, walking to the end of one platform and crossing the tracks to another where the other train waited. An hour later, he was home. He’d been doing this for months now, the routine broken only when the odd bit of work kept him in office for longer.

The first thing he did when he reached home was switch on the laptop. It took a while for the machine to boot; age was catching up with it. While it did, he took a shower and changed into more comfortable wear. On most days, the woman who cooked food for them had already done so and left; she had a spare key. He checked what she’d prepared although he wouldn’t eat it until much later. His parents would almost certainly call before that and his mother would ask what he would have dinner. Sometimes, when the woman came in late, he asked her for a cup of tea.

He glanced through the list of friends online on his IM. Most of them were people Kaushik hardly ever talked to. He looked for the regulars - Rahul, a classmate from Lucknow, with whom he had the most outrageous conversations – they had developed a language all their own, which consisted of literal translations of Hindi sentences and phrases to English. Over time, it had evolved to a level where it almost sounded like code – if one didn’t have the key, one couldn’t even begin to decipher it. Sometimes, he also found Raakesh and they chatted about their latest efforts in reading or producing literature. Once in a while, he spotted a lady or two, of which there were very few on his list, and he debated whether he should attempt a conversation.

Kaushik’s first experiences in online chatting dated back to the early 2000s, while he was still in engineering college. Like most of his friends then, he had become a regular visitor to cyber cafés. There, he had chosen a ludicrous screen name for himself – a grandiose epithet prefixed to his name. He’d tried King and Royal and Greatest and Macho and found those were already registered. Eventually, he’d settled on Emperor. He thought it quite elegant. Every time he logged in, he had scrounged public chatrooms for females, sent messages to all of them and then waited with growing desperation for one to respond. Whenever one of them did, his face broke into a smile and he turned to his friends on adjacent machines and boasted about it. Those that were out of luck for the day then huddled around him and they all chatted to the girl together. Over time, they developed newer techniques of soliciting responses; the simple ‘Hi’ and ‘How are you’ having long since stopped working.

By the time he went to B School, those days were behind him and he was too embarrassed to share the ID with anyone. He later discovered he needn’t have been, for there were several others in the same boat. Ashish, it emerged, had managed to lay his hands on Greatest. Nevertheless, Kaushik created a fresh, more presentable account name so he could laugh at everyone else.

With or without epithets, Kaushik always preferred chatting over phone calls. The chat window redefined Time. A response could come or be sent five minutes later and still qualify as a response. A bunch of such responses strung together could become a legitimate conversation. He needn’t suffer the dismay of thinking of a suitable repartee too late. His friend Shrinivas, geeky and entertaining, had once told him there was a word for it – ‘esprit de l’escalier’. There could never be an esprit de l’escalier on a chat window. He could construct far more convoluted sentences than could ever be done face to face. He could quickly search for information and quotes and reproduce it as if from memory. It allowed him to be wittier. It allowed him to be many different persons at once. With Rahul he could make a mess of two languages, with Raakesh he could discuss the greatest works of literature, with the girls he could show off his command over language and humour, all at the same time. Chats made him feel cleverer than he actually was.

An hour of chatting later, he usually watched a film. Occasionally, if the film turned out to be bland and boring, he went back to the IM, while the film played itself out in the background. Today, it was a good one.

The Community Centre

Like other Saturdays, as the shadows lengthened, a curious stillness gripped the campus. On other days, this was the time when the place appeared most alive - the health conscious ventured out in appropriate gear for their evening jog, excited voices and the sound of studs thudding against the earth rose from the football field, a steady flow of bikes whizzed in and out of campus and the canteen and the coffee shop benches remained full.

Come Saturday, it all appeared muted. A significant number were asleep in their rooms, in preparation for the long night ahead. Several others were engaged in assignments and project discussions in the library and meeting halls, the usual past midnight schedules for such activities brought forward. Those going out to the city had left much earlier, eager to return before the clock struck ten.

The Community Centre, a short white building, stands about 50 meters from the Students’ mess. It was intended to serve as a facility for mass addresses, cultural programs and lectures, as evidenced by the raised platform at one end. It is, however, rarely used as such. Instead, it has become the venue that hosts the ‘Insti Party’.

Around 10 PM, the place started to fill up, although it wouldn’t start overflowing until near midnight. Kaushik, as ever, was amongst the earliest. Most of his close friends, the ones he went to the party with, were non-alcoholics but spirited revelers. When the music started to blare and the whiskey started to flow, they too would prance around, like everyone else, with wild abandon. Kaushik found this utterly weird; he could never do that until he was well outside the confines of sobriety. The ladies always came in late, letting enough time pass for the place to fill up entirely, so they could get resounding receptions.

The alcohol was stocked in staggering quantities, vodka and whiskey, and it was free. It was distributed in transparent plastic glasses that made wonderful crunching sounds when they were crumpled after being drained off the liquid they held. The expenses eventually did get added on to their monthly food bills, but since they would be added whether or not they partook in the plunder, it hardly mattered.

The music was as an extraordinary mixture of Punjabi Hip-hop, Hindi film songs and heavy metal. Even Pink Floyd and The Doors made an appearance. Kaushik couldn’t ever fathom how one could use ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ or ‘This is the End’ on the dance floor, but when those songs played, as they inevitably did, he too shook a leg and sang at the top of his voice. The crowd favourites were Metallica and The Guns N Roses. Everyone seemed to remember their songs by rote. And whatever bits they did not, they filled with hysterical shrieking. Right next to the enormous speakers, a bunch of boys and girls, their legs spread apart, stood with their eyes closed, their waists and necks shaking violently, evidently to the music. By the time the night ended, they would be up on the platform screaming and singing and drowning out the actual songs.

At some point during all this, Kaushik managed to break away from the group of friends he’d arrived with. They were not the people he was looking for when his head swum. And so, he gradually extricated himself from the bunch, moving around the place in widening circles that eventually took him outside, away from the noise and the strobe lights. He sought out Raakesh, the lanky long haired fellow from Tamil Nadu, and they set off for a cup of coffee.

Raakesh spoke little Hindi. Before Lucknow, he had never ventured outside Tamil Nadu and had, therefore, never had to use it. In his time at Lucknow, he picked up a handful of popular Hindi slang and decided it was as far as he would like to get himself acquainted with the language. He harbored ambitions, well founded, of becoming an author one day but rarely managed to produce anything beyond a page or two. It is this shared goal and abject failure in achieving it that, in a way, brought together Kaushik and Raakesh. That, and the pleasure they derived out of deriding people in general.

“Just need to get the Booker off my chest man! Once that’s out of the way, I can start concentrating on writing without pressure”, they would quip.

“Yeah…after that the Nobel is only a matter of time, I guess.”

And so it went.

Their walk to the coffee shop inevitably turned into a walk around the entire campus. Coffee cup in hand, they would stagger on ahead, the cool breeze of the night wafting through their perspiring bodies. The thump from the woofers followed them for a time, beyond which, only the constant buzz of insects remained. The road, more deserted than ever, led away into the darkness, dissipated by the feeble glow of the yellow street lamps. During the winters, when a dense fog descended thickly over the campus, the lights appeared like hazy blurbs in the distance, as if one was looking at them through teardrops.

They talked of literature. They were both still in that phase where they had not yet ventured beyond the early 1900s – and so, they spoke of Dostoevsky and Faulkner and Woolfe and Kafka. When Kaushik would reflect on those conversations later, or whatever little he could remember of them, he found it strange how little they actually discussed. Their conversations simply sifted carelessly through a maze of novels, each naming one and then waiting to name another. They were conversations that were two parallel monologues spoken to a wall.

“Just finished with Notes from Underground.”

“You liked it?”

“Yes, it was awesome, wasn’t it?”

“Oh yes. I’ve nearly finished The Way of All Flesh, by the way”

“Hmm. Will borrow it from you after you’re done.”

“Sure. I’ll complete The Castle after this. Been lying around half-finished for a while now. Might as well get it over with.”

“Yes”

It was a pattern that Kaushik would later find replicated in his conversations on films with Ritankar and Ashish. He wondered if this was because they could not or because they were simply too wrapped up in their own thoughts for other opinions to matter.

An hour later, they returned to the Community Centre. Most of the people had exited by now; they sat on the road and on the concrete near the entrance, smoking and chatting. From a distance, Kaushik, much sobered but with eyes still glazed, peered hard but couldn’t identify individuals. He suspected they couldn’t recognize him either. They waved to each other and smiled broadly anyway. Inside, bland white lights had been turned on. A few lay scattered about the floor, still grooving softly to what remained, in their heads, of the music that had long since stopped playing.

A year from then, the novelty of the ‘Insti Parties’ would have worn off considerably. People would make only brief appearances. Some would skip it altogether. A few would even have project discussions during those hours. Only a faithful few would trudge to the Community Centre, Saturday after Saturday. Kaushik and Raakesh would be among those.

Coffee & Cigarettes

Kaushik woke up first, as he usually did. He opened his eyes but didn’t yet look for his glasses, which he kept under the bed when he slept. He could hear the sound of rain outside. The stale aftertaste of wine and cigarettes still lingered in his mouth. He turned towards the window. The view outside seemed grayer than usual. On clear days, although his vision still couldn’t create definite shapes unaided, he could differentiate between the white & grey of concrete structures from the green hazes of trees. Today, everything was covered in an unwavering shade of gray. He closed his eyes and remained motionless for a while. With the rain as heavy as this, Café Ideal was out of question and he didn’t need to hurry the others up.

On the bed next to his, Suresh slept without sound. The crows at the window were quieter than usual. He thought about walking up to the window with his arms flailing to scare them away but decided not to. Finally, he put on his glasses.

It poured so hard Kaushik could see the wind blowing through it, ruffling the rain like it would, a curtain. The sky was uniformly dark, perhaps darker at the edges. It would be a long rainy day.

In the other room, Ashish, Ritankar and Kartik slept soundly on the mattresses on the floor. They wouldn’t wake up till much later. Empty packets of wafers lay on the floor. The wine bottles and glasses were neatly placed on the kitchen platform. Kaushik had made sure they were outside the reaches of the unconscious limbs of his friends before he went to sleep the previous night. The wineglasses, in particular, were dear to him. He’d bought them for fairly cheap at a departmental store that did not specialize in glassware. He had browsed through several other stores unsuccessfully before he found these. They were round and huge with cavernous mouths and, as he had learnt on his visit to the vineyards in Nasik, meant only for red wine. Buying separate sets for red, white and sparkling wines was, however, out of question and these were used, irrespective of the drink, including even whiskey and beer on occasion.

He wrapped the leftover food and the wafer packets in newspapers and deposited them in the trash can outside. On the sofa, he found two packets of cigarettes. One contained two sticks and the other, ashes of the rest. He lit one and sat watching the rain. Sometime later, he checked mail on his laptop. Nothing of consequence had arrived. He hadn’t expected anything either since he’d checked it only the night before. For a quarter of an hour, he played Bridge online, while his computer downloaded pirated films he’d queued. Then, he went downstairs to breakfast at the untidy little restaurant just outside the apartment premises.

He called home from there while he sipped coffee, after the morning snack was tucked in. His Mom and Dad were thrilled to hear his voice this early in the morning since to them this was probably a sign of no alcohol the previous night. Kaushik chuckled to himself after he disconnected the call. His conversations with his parents were mostly repetitive – the same answers to the same questions. They often complained to each other about it, although both sides were aware that there wasn’t much that could be done to alter the situation. The rain persisted. In a couple of hours, the others would be up and they’d spend the day indulging in interesting and inconsequential conversation. They would discuss a film and then another and then an actor or a director, draw comparisons. With Kartik around, they would bitch about legends of the Indian film industry – people that they respected greatly but loved bitching about anyway. Eventually, even these conversations ended up being the same. Kaushik didn’t tire of these, however. Not yet, anyway.

Picasso's Studio

They came back to their hotel room at around 8 in the evening. From the lovely little park across the hotel floated in the carefree sounds of children at play and old men’s banter while they played chess and carom on the park benches. Lovers walked casually and without purpose holding each other close, oblivious of distractions.

It was Kaushik and Ritankar’s last evening in Paris. They were tired and exhilarated. They had made up their minds to not use cabs and had, therefore, walked an incredible number of kilometers. In the mornings, their limbs woke with the sweet ache and soreness of the day before. It made the warmth of the morning baths more soothing than any other they could remember.

Their room was damp and unventilated, an attic of sorts converted into a room with two beds and a wooden shelf. A single bulb lit the place enough for them to find their way around. The smell of cigarettes hung thickly in the air. They had found the place by pure chance. They had stopped at a café to ask where they could find one and had been told that there was one available there itself. The man at the counter had then taken them through a door at the back which opened onto a disheveled courtyard strewn with discarded bricks and cement slabs. In one corner, an iron ladder made its way up to a door. This door led into the room. The room contained no attached toilet; there was one in the courtyard, inexplicably Indian style.

They weren’t spoilt for choice or finances and had decided to take it, forty Euros a night. The next day, they had paid the forty Euros and asked if they could keep the place for the next two nights. The man at the café had agreed.

“We’re staying for three nights. No discounts?”

The man had shrugged expansively.

“It is cheap”, he said.

“Room is small”, they countered.

They had exchanged smiles and left it at that.

“So, what do we do now…finish the beer and sleep?” Kaushik asked.

“Yes, we could do that. Or, we could go out a little later and have some food”

“Yes, we should eat something, I guess.”

“Anyway, let’s finish the beer first.”

They opened their cans and lit a cigarette. Kaushik walked to the small mirror, built over a decaying wash basin, and appraised his hair. He wasn’t pleased with what he saw and spent the next few minutes trying to sort it out with his fingers. Both had forgotten to bring their combs for the trip. They had decided against buying one when they were told at a store that it would cost them eighty cents.

“Fifty rupees for a comb!” Ritankar had exclaimed. “Fuck it.”

Ritankar leafed through the enormous Lonely Planet while Kaushik stared at the mirror.

“It seems Picasso’s studio is not very far from here”, he said.

They were in Montmartre. They couldn’t believe their luck when they realized that they were, when they got off the metro from the Airport, at Barbès – Rochechouart, near where they had booked a hostel room. The hostel had, expectedly, deemed them no-shows by that time, they being six hours late after missing their connecting flight to Paris from Istanbul. And therefore, the room in the attic.

“It is shown on the map?” Kushal asked.

“Yes, right here.”

“If we’d done that walking tour Ashish told us about, we’d have seen it.”

“Yes. No matter, we did well enough without that.”

They sipped their beers thoughtfully.

“We could still go there, if you want” Kushal said.

“Yes, it is an option”

Suddenly, their eyes lit up.

“Yes, let’s do it! Let’s find Picasso’s studio ourselves!”

“Check the map! What’s the nearest metro station? We’ll get there and then walk!”

“Its Blanche, just three stops from Barbès.”

Forty minutes later, they were at the underground station of Blanche.

They climbed up a flight of stairs that from the bottom looked like it opened onto a regular sidewalk. It did not. It opened almost directly in the middle of a boulevard onto a small space for those on foot to wait. Asphalt flanked them on both sides. And on the right, towering above them was the astonishing spectacle of the Moulin Rouge. So unexpected and resplendent was the sight that they stood speechless for a good minute or two.

“Oh my God!” Ritankar finally managed to break the silence.

“I don’t care if we don’t find Picasso’s studio now. This is enough as far as I am concerned!”

The giant wheel swung gracefully around tracing a path of vivid reds and yellows. The famous name shone a bright red on the semi circular façade. Rows of small windows on the upper storey hid modestly behind the dizzying display of light, submerged in the deep red hues. Hundreds of people stood in line at the entrance, waiting for their turn to enter. A faint whiff of music drifted out from inside. They thought of Nicole Kidman.

To one side, a large circular platform stood elevated about two feet from the ground. The top was covered with strong meshed rods. It was possibly an air vent for the metro lines underneath. On it, young women strode up one by one, goaded by their friends and boyfriends, to do their own versions of Marilyn Monroe. A bunch of policemen stood to one side, laughing and occasionally whistling with the crowd gathered around whenever a skirt rose more than intended.

Shiny Happy People.

Next to the Moulin Rouge, a dark street travelled into the innards of Montmartre, climbing eventually to the magnificent Sacre Coeur, as all streets in Montmartre did. The map led them through this street in search of Picasso’s studio. They had spent nearly an hour outside Moulin Rouge, gazing at everything they could. They’d debated whether they should go inside; the seventy five Euro entry charge had been instrumental in their deciding not to. Walking for a few minutes through the street, the chatter and noise slowly receded, replaced by a silence unusual of Montmartre.

They turned a corner and spotted a café. Three or four young men, friends, were engaged in conversation outside. They leaned with their backs against the wall and occasionally squatted and stretched their arms – unmistakable signs of pleasant drunkenness.

“Bonjour” Ritankar greeted them.

“Bonjour”

“We are looking for Picasso’s house or studio here. Do you know where it is?”

“Picasso?”

“Oui”

They didn’t know the place. Kaushik showed them the map and the spot they’d encircled. The men studied the map intently and consulted with each other. Their English was inevitably poor and they offered directions with their hands, repeating “This way” throughout. They didn’t look very confident.

They asked several others on the way, climbing towards the summit all the time. The streets remained vibrant. Brightly lit cafes appeared at every corner, animated and beautiful people inside and outside them. More walked them by on the street. They spoke in loud voices and broke into dance, if they heard a song they liked, while passing by a café – the spirit of Bohemia alive and kicking. Nobody, however, knew where Picasso had lived. Montmartre, apparently, had forgotten one of its most famous residents.

On their way back, well after midnight, they lost their way and walked around in circles for an hour before a policeman offered them directions. The joy and abandon of the streets and alleys did not spill out on to the main boulevards. They were empty and lonely. Neon signs shone above shuttered windows. Near their hotel, a group of black guys played football on the street. When they spotted the two figures walking past, they stopped their game and greeted them. Kaushik and Ritankar smiled and nodded their heads in acknowledgement. In their room, they finished the rest of the beer, warm by now, and smoked a couple of cigarettes. Towards dawn, they drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, they were woken early by the alarms they’d set. They checked out of the hotel before nine and walked through Montmartre one last time. It had drizzled during the night and there was a slight chill in the air. Puddles of water glistened between the cobblestones as did stray beer bottles and piece of broken glass. Old men sat reading newspapers outside shops, not yet open. Perhaps they knew where Picasso’s studio was.

The Radical

Kaushik knocked, entered his boss’s cabin and made his way to the plush sofa in the corner.

“You wanted to talk to me Saurabh?”

Saurabh, a genial middle aged man who was beginning to discover the discomforts of a rapidly growing paunch and graying facial hair, turned towards him.

“Yes. Just give me a minute here.”

Kaushik waited. He thought he knew what this was going to be about and was prepared for it. He had been working with the guy for nearly a year. In all that time, he had hardly been any good use to his boss or the organization in general. Both knew this. In the beginning, they had tried hard to meet each others’ expectation of work and working styles. In a few months, they were doing their best to not get in each others’ way, comfortable in their independent existences.

While that hadn’t affected Saurabh too badly for he had other people to work with, Kaushik had grown increasingly disenchanted.

“Yes, so”, Saurabh said, turning to Kaushik again. Kaushik looked up from the magazine he was reading.

“The film seems to be doing alright.”

“Yes, looks like. Congratulations for managing its promotion so well. The film itself was good too, I guess”

“Yes”

Saurabh nodded his head, unsure how to continue.

“I, sort of, had something to discuss with you Kaushik”

“Before that, I have something to tell you”

“Alright, go on”

“I am quitting”

Saurabh stared at him intently.

“You are? That’s a, well, surprise”

Kaushik shrugged.

“You have found another job then?”

“No. I will look for one now”

“Oh”

That evening, he went to the pictures with Ritankar and Ashish. He told them afterwards during dinner. They did not comment. Just nodded and concentrated on the food. He had of course hinted at this for some time now. That didn’t mean they had believed him but now that he had done it, they couldn’t very well act shocked.

“You should’ve held out for a bit dude. There aren’t many jobs around at the moment…”

“We’ll see. The worst that can happen is I spend the next few months without work. Eventually, something has to come up. Obviously, I am not going to starve to death.”

“Of course”

“So anyway, now that I have some free time, I was wondering if a trip to Europe makes sense”

“A trip to Europe? Now? What about money?”

“I checked my accounts. I have enough for a two-three week trip and to get by for a few months after that”

“Hmm”

“Well then, you two care to join me?”

Ashish would not. Ritankar would. A month of planning and paperwork later, they would be on their way.

Later that night, he lay in bed and reflected on the day. The next day in office would be marvelous. He imagined people cowering inside their cabins when he walked in. He would amble around like he owned the place and nobody could touch him. Their powers over him wouldn’t mean a thing anymore. He also thought about how he should set about getting out of the potential mess that he had maneuvered himself into. He had often discussed with Ritankar and Ashish how one day they’d have to do something like this if they were indeed serious about their aspirations of making films and authoring novels. He had taken the first step now.

The next day, he talked to Kartik. Kartik had worked as a scriptwriter in his office. The two had become good friends, instantly picking each other out for their common interests in film and its making. He was a heavyset dark man with curly hair and a loud voice. None of his scripts had ever been made into films by the company. Exasperated, he too had quit recently.

“Damn man! You quit too! Who’s going to sponsor all the booze now?”

“We still have Ritankar.”

“Anyway, let’s discuss this over drinks at Pop Tates tonight?”

“Sure, let’s.”

Pop Tates, in Andheri - a wealthy Mumbai suburb, is a popular hangout during the last days of a month for boys and girls with rich dads, when their allowances begin to run out. Off late though, it is increasingly flocked by members of the earning upper middle class in search of high life. The bar, noisy and claustrophobic, is tucked into one corner of a busy street. The noise of automobiles from the street mingles with those from the loudspeakers. In the midst of all of this, people sit at tables and have intimate conversations at the top of their voices. The draught beer is excellent.

“So, you want to assist a director now?”

“Yes, if I can. I understand you know a few. You should get me in touch with them”

Kartik nodded.

“I can do that. But really, assisting a director? Fuck man! What will we do if IIM grads start getting into all this shit? “

“If I am to make films, do I have an option?”

“You know, assisting a director’s not a permanent job. When a project ends, you got to search for another. And even on a project, you get barely 20K a month…that must be peanuts for you. Can’t even imagine how much you get paid…used to, in that shithole”

“We’ll see.”

A month later, the trip to Europe happened. When he returned, Kartik introduced him to a few important men in the film industry, acquaintances of his. Kaushik spoke to them with interest but found himself unable to discuss opportunities to work with them. All the while, he continued to consume dozens of films and literature a week, unoccupied as he was throughout the day. He wrote several scripts, even novels, in his head and made a few entries in his blog.

By the time he found another job, one that paid as much as the one before, half a year had gone. In all this time, he realized how comfortable he was with a life like this. If the money didn’t run out, he could live like this forever.

Drawing Parallels

Kaushik woke just after six to the cawing of crows sitting on his bedroom window ledge. Off late, his body seemed to have timed itself to wake up at this time. There was still a long time before he needed to get ready for office.

Outside, sunlight was still frail. The sky was clear but ashen. It would take a brighter sun for it to become blue again. It had just turned June. One of these days, he would wake to a sky, grayed by monsoon clouds. A train honked (not many whistle these days) as it passed by on the tracks next to his building. From where he sat, he could see into the compartments. A few passengers sat scattered between empty seats, mostly milk and newspaper men, he surmised. In a couple of hours, there would be hardly any space inside these same compartments and he’d be sitting in one of them.

The newspaper lay obediently outside the apartment door. He picked it up and deposited it on the living room table, after having cursorily glanced through the headlines. There wasn’t much in it that interested him. The novel he was reading lay on the dining platform where he’d left it the previous night. The dining platform, a thick glass sheet held in place by two clamps on the wall and a thick steel column under it for support on the outer side, stood between the living room and the kitchen. The absence of a wall between the two created a pleasant illusion of more space than there really was. By the French windows in the living room were placed two large cushioned chairs, part of a sofa set. On one of these, Kaushik lowered himself and began to read. He liked the place. It wasn’t his of course – apartments in the centre of Mumbai were for Billionaires to own. He and Suresh had rented it together.

Suresh only woke up when Kaushik was almost ready to leave, more than an hour later.

“Yes Suresh, feeling better now?” Kaushik asked, grinning widely.

The previous evening, bored with lying around for several hours and unable to find alternatives, the two had decided that whiskey was the most appropriate response to the problem. Ashish and Ritankar had left in the late afternoon, having spent the day watching an Iranian film and then discussing it, after they’d come back from Café Ideal. So, anyway, a bottle of whiskey had been ordered, finished in due course and another ordered. This too was well on the way to being emptied, when Suresh’s stomach eventually gave out and poured out its contents through the wrong end.

The conversation had been interesting too.

“You know, my sister is coming to India for her summer break next month. I’ve asked her to get me a cell phone.” Suresh’s sister had enrolled for a Doctorate program in the United States, the previous year.

“Hmm. You’ve asked for a specific model?”

“No”

“Then? How will she know which one to get?”

“I told her to get any phone that slides or flips open”

“Ah. So that’s what you like, eh? A bit of style in front of the women?”

“No man. That’s not my style. That’s not my idea of coolness.”

“What is your idea of coolness then?”

“You know man”, Suresh shrugged, “Just like that”

Kaushik found the one hour train ride to office quite pleasant. He travelled, first class, on a low traffic route which meant he could almost always find a place to sit, often by the window. The IPod sang faithfully into his ears – eclectic music from around the world. Each week, he spent time on the internet searching for new artists and downloaded music from the most promising ones onto the IPod. Over a period of time, he had built up an enviable collection of alternative independent music this way. He was astonished to find how much of it came from Sweden. He also carried a novel with him – usually something light and breezy - there were too many distractions on a train for serious literature. At some point during the journey, he would close his eyes and doze off.

His office was a large elaborate building covered with tinted glass on the outside. It was lonely where it stood; there weren’t any structures of comparable dimensions around it. It was located a little outside Mumbai where the intense development of the city fell away into a more serene, intimate environment. They called the town New Mumbai. Kaushik worked on the topmost floor, the ninth. From it, he could see clusters of small barren hills on one side. They would be covered in green once the rains arrived. A month hence, on a clear day after a spell of monsoon, he would see the clean blue of the sky dotted with white fluffy clouds behind these hills, lush green then, and think of Tuscany. In another direction, he was also afforded a view of the creek which separated Mumbai from its poorer cousin. He liked to think of it as Mumbai’s Bosphorus. He’d never seen the real one and could only visualize it as much as his imagination and Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul permitted.

Kaushik hated his colleagues. There was not one in the entire lot that he could ever strike up an enjoyable conversation with. He’d tried it initially and failed miserably. Since then, he’d limited himself to short functional verbal exchanges with them.

“Hi”

“How was the weekend?”

“Was good. Enjoyed”

“Anything interesting?”

“Not really, just relaxing.”

It didn’t matter which side said what.

Ashish worked in the same office. After a couple of hours of taking care of the most pressing issues at hand, Kaushik descended to the fourth floor, where Ashish sat. The two of them spent some time at the cafeteria, undisturbed, for nobody else seemed to use the place during office hours. They exchanged notes from the remainder of their Sundays, cribbed about work and discussed ways of getting out. As always, the discussion eventually veered to Europe and its many charms; they recounted incidents from their brief visits to the continent.

Kaushik left office at six in the evening, leaving behind him another uneventful day. The Ipod sang and he read. Back home, he ate dinner with Suresh while watching TV. Later, he watched a film – a wonderful French film called ‘La gloire de mon père’ – (My Father’s Glory, translated in English), while Suresh continued watching TV. By midnight, he slept.

Two Lives

Kaushik, less heavy than he would be two years hence but still sufficiently stocked up for post-apocalyptic survival, went to Business School in the summer of 2006, two years after he’d finished his Bachelors in Engineering. The two colleges were of vastly differing statures, so much so, that he was perhaps the only human being in history to have studied in both. The Business School – IIM Lucknow, was considered amongst the best in the country, having mass produced future wearers of double-breasted suits for over two decades. The Engineering College, on the other hand, was a rather more modest affair, its greatest achievement being that it was the best of three colleges in the sleepy town of Dhule, located near the middle of the country and of nowhere, miles from any city of significance. In years to come, this would become the object of much friendly banter from his more illustrious Business School mates.

But, as he never missed an opportunity to point out to them, they were there and so was he. When his cab, led and followed by a continuous stream of other cabs, entered through the gates of IIM Lucknow, he felt he had left behind him an entire history of mediocrity and nobodyness. Understandably, it was the happiest Kaushik could remember himself being in a very long time.

There was a touch of apprehension too. He didn’t know if he actually fit in. In the months that led up to the start of the session, filled with self doubt and a need to lab test himself before plunging in, he had spent hours on Social Networking Sites, searching for would-be classmates and seniors, urgently pursuing conversations, whenever he found someone. The exercise proved inconclusive; most of the chit-chatting was amicable, even pleasant once in a while, but essentially cold. Like him, everyone else was testing the waters too – curious but wary, clinging to the safety of commonplace subjects. Kaushik slyly mentioned the existence of his blog. It was read and politely appreciated. A few years later, Kaushik, his tastes evolved manifold, re-read the material and was embarrassed to find how utterly juvenile it was.

And so, he carried his apprehension with him to Lucknow. The first couple of days, he wandered around the campus with his parents, as did most others. It was a large, lush place - narrow alleys leading up to short, pretty red brick buildings, widely spaced and surrounded by slender trees towering over dense undergrowth. A single tar road circled around the entire campus, bordered by a footpath dotted with cozy wooden benches. One could spend hours sitting on these benches, undisturbed and isolated, apart from the odd motorcycle whizzing past or a couple of students on a rejuvenating walk. The sense of peace and desertion was complete; it was difficult to believe there were nearly a thousand people inhabiting the place.

He was allotted a room in one of the newly constructed hostels. It would be a ten minute walk from there to the academic block, he surmised. Over the course of the two years he spent there, he realized it was more like a frenzied three minute sprint to reach the classroom in time. His room was small, clean and unimaginative, as hostel rooms are. There were scribbles on the walls and the doors, ranging from rants of megalomania to declarations of love, mostly copied from 70s and 80s rock songs. There was a small balcony too, although its effect was greatly reduced since his room was at ground level and all he could see outside was wild foliage. A solitary window opened onto this balcony from the room. It was covered with fine meshed wire to keep out the insects and mosquitoes, of which there were millions. Two shelves, hollows in the wall, a chair & desk, and a wooden bed. It was a five star suite compared to what he’d lived in, in the other college.

He met a few students, fellow hostellers; the conversations from the online chat rooms reinitiated face to face. A three day official induction began – the batch, three hundred of them crowded into a large hall, were told how special they were to be sitting there. They were told what they would go through in the two ensuing years and where that would lead. Intense rigour and competition were hinted at. Their dreams, already plump, were bloated further. They cheered.

The parents trickled out gradually. The session began. They learnt of the idiosyncrasies of their professors along with the obligatory legends and anecdotes. The pretty girls were spotted; courtships begun. Life became regular. It was then, that friendships were finally formed. This was when Kaushik first met Ritankar, Ashish and Suresh although they wouldn’t become close friends until much later.

In one lecture, every student was asked to make presentations on various topics. Kaushik waited his turn nervously. When it came, he walked onto the platform and started to speak. Somewhere in between, he cracked a joke, even as his palms and underarms sweated. It came off well and the class applauded. That was when he finally decided that he did indeed belong.

In later years, Kaushik often reflected on how little he remembered of those first few days. There were hardly any actual incidents and images his mind could recreate, just a vague, muddled sense of the time and place. All his concrete memories were from much later, when the lines between his friendships and casual acquaintances were firmly drawn and he knew where he stood.