Anyone Else But You... (14 page)

THIRTEEN

‘Lunch today?’
Rishav scribbled on a piece of paper, stuffed it inside the cap of his blue Trimax gel pen and casually dropped it on Sahana’s desk as he walked past it.

Sahana who was deeply engrossed in her talks failed to respond to Rishav’s futile attempt. To make it look less obvious, Rishav went straight down to the far end of the classroom and sat besides Tarun Saini who was in one of his hormone drives.

“Pee-shove Hen,” Tarun exclaimed on seeing him.

“Hey!” Rishav said as he positioned himself to get an unhindered view of Sahana. She was
yet
to turn around and spot the lonely pen cap lying on her desk.
Urgh,
Rishav scowled in his head.

In the meanwhile, Tarun Saini had started muttering stuff like how press
urized the modern youth was. To
top that, he composed an impromptu song and started humming it under his breath,
Pressure, pressure everywhere – no pressure when we shit! We shall bust pressure with our busty chests and this idea is a HIT!

Saini’s insanity added to an anxious Rishav’s woes. It had been a good fifteen minutes or so, since he had left that well-disguised note and Sahana seemed least interested.

Rishav looked at the heavens,
kill me O’ Lord!
Tarun took cue and started,
Kill me, thrill me, kiss me but don’t forget to fuck me, ah huh ah huh…

Irritated, annoyed and anxious – Rishav got up. He walked upto Sahana and stood beside her for a few seconds. She failed to acknowledge his presence. He lifted the pen cap and shook it violently in front of Sahana’s eyes and in the process disturbed her and broke her flow of conversation in which she was vaguely explaining the nuances of mountain climbing.

“Uff! What the hell are you doing?! Get away!” she screamed.

“I am bringing to your notice that this pen cap has been lying on your desk for the past
fifteen minutes
!” Rishav exclaimed.

“So?” she replied.

“So, see what it’s about!”

“Get lost, I am busy. I will see it later,” she was sharp and merciless in her tone of reply.

“Just see it atleast?” Rishav’s tone on the contrary, reflected desperation.

“Can’t you get it once?” Sahana sounded cross. “I don’t
want
to, now go…!”

“Why you getting pissed
yaar
?” Rishav asked. “I just wanted you to see what was inside,” he mumbled.

Her brows burrowed in a frown, she made an expression reflecting distaste and disgust and turned to face her friend again.

Rishav
stood there for a moment or two, before dragging himself back to where Tarun Saini sat.

“Crack some of your jokes man!” He said, quite frustrated.

It was one of those moments when anyone would be dying to say,
oh dear earth dig a hole and bury me inside it
.

Saini’s funny jokes didn’t sound funny anymore and with no other alternatives left, Rishav placed his head on the desk and tried to fall asleep when something terribly hard struck him on the head with force.

He got up startled; he s
aw a pen-cap lying next to him
on the floor.

He lifted it and took out the crumbled piece of paper. There was a sense of excitement, anticipating what could be Sahana’s reply. And much to his dismay, the note read:
NO.

What the hell!
He kicked himself. Now that was the second time, he was being refused directly or indirectly.
Enough is enough
, he thought.

The queerness of humans is that there’s a lot of disparity
between
what one thinks and how his actions follow up his thoughts. And so was the same, in case of Rishav.

*

“You wanted dirt, I have dirt!” Hardik exclaimed proudly.

Jai
sat in his zone at the far end of the school ground. He was surrounded by two-three of his other ass lickers. Stubbles and disheveled hair, the royalty wasn’t really at his best that day. He looked at Hardik for a few seconds. His icy cold stare read the twitching of every facial muscle of Hardik whilst he spoke.
Jai
had his arms folded and legs crossed, “What’s the dirt bitch?” he asked.

“A girl,” Hardik replied.

People around
Jai
started laughing.

“A girl?” Jai mocked Hardik’s incoherent tone.

“Yes, Sahana. Sahana Vajpai.”

“Sahana?” there was a drastic change in Jai’s expressions. “
That
Sahana?” he reconfirmed.

“Yes dude.
That
Sahana.”

“Fuck!” Jai got up, unnerving his pals in the process.  “This is fucking insane man, now I get to get back at
both
of them!” he laughed.

“Don’t you have history with her?” Hardik asked.

“Yes I do, she was the one who beat me blue with her water bottle in the
junior
classes when I
accidentally called her a stale tomato!” Jai scratched his head. “And then, a few years later, she tried to report me to Madhuri for misusing my powers as the class monitor. Although Madhuri ma’am didn’t do anything to me, but I still have some resentment towards that bitch!”

“Well then…” Hardik said. “…she’s the bitch Rishav is after. Seen them loads together you know. Library, canteen, games periods, everywhere they’ll be seen together. It’s the Rishav-Sahana show.” He added.

“Have they been seen doing any hanky panky?” Jai started moving up and down with people following him as he did that. “Stop following me
bhenchods
,” he shouted.

“No hanky panky, Rishav has played it safe. He doesn’t want to screw up his reputation.”

“Hmm… I see. So you imply that if I intimidate the chick, the cock will do something unsavoury?” he deliberately said
cock,
much to the delight of his mates.

“I guess as much,” Hardik said.

“Then we shall do that, we shall do something to unsettle Sahana and provoke that
Bengali
bitch.”

“As you say, what do we have to do?”

“I will call you in the evening and tell you what needs to be done, it’s of utmost important that we do this. And that too, successfully,” Jai thumped his fist on his shoulder.

Too excited about provoking Rishav,
Jai
forgot that he was taking on the very girl who turned him into a state in which even his mom failed to recognize him, exactly 6 years back!

FOURTEEN

Rishav had given up trying to make things work and arrange for a lunch with Sahana on a sooner date. Everytime, she came in front him, he wanted to have a chance to talk to her about “stuff
.”
But despite his repeated tries, it didn’t work. Not much worked when it came to Sahana, really!

He looked down at his watch and saw that it was almost two. He was already out of class.
I am not going back
, he said to himself.
Even if it means not seeing her go and not seeing her for two days
, he thought.

He went to the canteen, hung out with some random people and headed towards the exit, after that. He walked slowly with the scorching sun on his back. He looked up and saw a lonely figure standing there. Black bag, blue stripes on it – a girl.
Is that Sahana?
He thought. Now, the last thing he wanted was to get his hopes up and running unnecessarily.

He reached the gate, walking slowly because there was a little glimmer of hope inside him. He looked at the girl, carefully from the back.
Yes it was
Sahana!

Act cool, act cool Rishav
, he told himself.

“Hey,” he said in a not so enthusiastic though not too mellow manner. She smiled. “How come you’re here? Don’t you go by bus?” he asked.

“Yeah, missed my bus,” she replied.

“So how do you plan to go then?”

“I have no friggin’ clue!” she exclaimed.

“Rickshaw?” Rishav asked.

“Need money for that. And if I had it, wouldn’t I have been at home by now?” she did her little thing with the eyes.

“Okay, then,” he replied to that. “You can take the money from me. Return it to me later,” he added laying emphasis on the last part.

She hesitated, shifting from one foot to another. “I can’t, because if I go home now, they’d scold me for missing my bus.” “And if I go home and make an excuse of a stay-back, then they’ll scold me for not informing them before hand!”

“Call them from the Reception area,” Rishav suggested.

“Yeah,” she said still thinking. “Okay, let’s go to the Reception then,” she said.

He was surprised that she actually let him come with her.

“Cool,” he said in a state of subdued excitement.

She walked with a haste he hadn’t seen before.

“So your aunt and uncle are really strict, huh?” he asked trying to talk while they ran and walked at the same time.

“Strict would be an understatement,” she replied.

“Oh, okay!” he said. He wanted to ask a lot of questions but figured that it’d be just too rude to be all probing, so he kept silent.

“You’ve been in this school all along?” he asked.

“No, I was also in DAV Shimla,” she replied.

“Ohh, I just
love
that place. I lived there for a year or a little more.”