Anyone Else But You... (16 page)

“Your parents scold you for eating junk?” a follow up question. This time from Neeti Chopra whose gloominess had disappeared after supposedly being infected by the Veenu Virus.

“Yes ma’am they do.”

“You fight with them?” Veenu asked.

Rishav’s head swiftly turned to answer the question, “Yes ma’am at times.”

“Haaaw, naughty boy!” her tone wasn’t the best.

Kalsi
sat there, with her palm covering her face. The expression of hers was hardly noticeable but it wouldn’t really take knowledge of rocket-science to know how irritated she was seeing the discussion go awry.

Rishav looked out for another question. Maybe one asking whether his motions were clear or not, but nothing as such came.
Kalsi
could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

“If your questions are done…” she hissed. “…may I ask Rishav a final question?”

Everyone nodded in unison.

Kalsi
kept an eye on Veenu all the while she spoke her sentence, “If not Head Boy, then what post shall you want to have?”

Rishav straightened his expressions; he was absolutely read
y
with his reply. With confidence oozing out of his voice, “Ma’am, I believe that if I ask for anything less than what I deserve then I deserve even less.”

This time around a genuine smile reflected on
Bindu
’s face. She took the comment in very good light it seemed, “All the best!” she said.

*

Sahana sat next to the balcony door, lost in the world of her thoughts.

She thought how she could escape the hell-hole of her life. She travelled through all the possibilities, thinking of all the places she could run away to. She just wanted to be alone.

She smiled sarcastically at the irony of the fact that she was alone in that house yet not alone enough to cry. She feared that it would warrant unnecessary attention to her. And the last thing she needed was her uncle to blame her for distracting her cousin again!

Sasha was a good person, so knew Sahana. She was bright enough just that at times Sasha lacked the determination. She took things too lightly.
Anyway
, Sahana thought.
I need to just stay here for a few months more and that’s it!

She tried to not think about what she had done a few days ago. It was so because if she looked at the angry red marks on her thigh, she would be tempted to do it again. When she was angry or upset, she just wanted the pain to go away. Hurting herself was one way to turn the mental pain into physical pain. The physical pain, according to her was easier to handle.

She often thought about why
she
lived
at all
. She was good for nothing. She wasn’t good at dance, music, majorly sucked at public speaking and was just fine in studies. With what her uncle told her about the world out there, she would never get a job which could earn her her meals.

She took in a deep breath. She wondered, who’d remember her after she died. Who would care enough to remember her after her funeral? - None other than her parents, so she thought.

She rested her head against the door. She was sick and tired of everything surrounding her life. She wanted to start afresh. And college was the one place, where one could be a whole new person. But again, that was a good two years away. She longed to be nice to all; she wanted everyone to be happy; because she couldn’t be happy if somebody else was
unhappy
. No matter how farfetched it sounded, but that was the way it was for Sahana. She put others happiness first.

Anyway, get over with the brooding bit,
she forced herself to feel this way. …
if you think anymore, you’ll probably end up doing something that you’d regret and the scars wouldn’t fade away for long
.

She got up, took her mobile, plugged in the earphones and switched on the radio with full volume. She grabbed her books and started studying.

A lot of times Sahana thought. A lot. But thinking according to her was not good. So she slept to not think, read books to not think, watched TV to not think.

But always, there was one second of the day when she thought of not living. She refused to like anyone. Boys spelled trouble and she could not at any cost, afford more trouble.

She thought of
him
. However, a little pretentious & blowing his own trumpet like he was, he was genuinely a nice person. At times, the thought of him as something more came to her mind. But she quickly dismissed it. She convinced herself not to like anyone and that meant
anyone
. A few people in the world were genuinely nice and according to her, he was one of them.

But they would just remain friends right?
No need to get into all this relationship crap – boyfriend and girlfriend complexities!

She knew that he was trying to talk to her. It satisfied her
vanity. She could see everything that he was thinking, read everything on his face. She could sense when he was trying to lead the conversation to past relationships. She could sense his desperate yet failed attempts to fix a meeting outside school (which he did
,
largely due to coincidence).

She didn’t want all that and she was going to make sure he knew that pretty soon. He deserved the right to know, what all she thought about these sappy and crappy relationships.

SIXTEEN

Sahana walked towards her
tuition
s with much anticipation. It was the time she got away from that house where she lived. A house. Not a home.

She climbed up the stairs and saw that the
peon was reading the newspaper
with his legs up on the desk. Sahana raised an eyebrow. She wondered at the incongruity of his posture in the
environment where the English
teacher had particularly ordered
them
to maintain discipline.

“Aaj Sir
kahan hai bhaiyya
?”
asked Sahana.

“
Tuition
cancelled
hai
,”
he replied without looking up from the paper.

Sahana hurried down the steps.  For the first time in so many months, the teacher had cancelled a class. She was really happy about not studying for once. 

She took out her phone and stared at the screen for long.

Whom should I call?
She thought.
Vanya can’t come. Nobody else would bother to come for an hour and then go back.

Rishav would, of course!

Would he?

She dialed the number nonetheless. She would ask him where he was. If he was at his home and free only then will she tell him to come.

She wait
ed for him to pick up. One ring…two…three…f
our.

“Dammit. Pick up, you ass,”
she said.

The number you have dialed is not answering this moment. Please try again later, the sing song voice said.

“Great. Nowhere to go
,”
she said to herself.

She started walking towards her home when her phone vibrated.
It was Rishav’s number.

“Why didn’t you pick up when I called you?”
Sahana asked in an offensive voice.

“Because I didn’t want you to waste your money. Mine is postpaid
, you see,”
Rishav replied jokingly.

“Whatever. So tell me. Are you free
vaise
?”
Sahana said choosing her words carefully.

“Yes. Why?”
Rishav asked, excited that they were going to talk on the phone.

“Umm
…
My
tuition
’s cancelled and I didn’t want to go home. So I called you
,”
Sahana replied with a little hesitation.

“Oh cool. So we can talk.”
Rishav said, while sitting upright on his bed.

“Actually, umm… I was thinking that you could umm… come here. Like you know it’s not that far. My
tuition
s I mean, from my home. So it couldn’t be far from your home,  youknow”Sahana said.

“Oh. Umm”
Rishav jumped up from his bed as he tried to look for something good to wear in his wardrobe.

“If you don’t want to come it’s okay… Like really
…
”
Sahana said sensing his hesitation.

“Oh no no…
I want to come. Just tell me where exactly your
tuition
is
,
”
Rishav replied hurriedly.

Sahana gave him the directions of her
tuition
s.

“See you in ten then.”
Sahana said, with a hint of excitement in her voice.

“Yeah.
Ten.
Bye
,
”
Rishav replied while trying to not show too much of enthusiasm.

Sahana sat on a bench in a very t
i
ny park. The grass was overgrown an
d yellow. She sat with her legs
folded on the bench afraid that some insect or lizards m
ight
be crawling
in that
thick jungle of grass.

She played
SNAKE
on her mobile for 15 minutes until a voice interrupted her game.

“Hi.”
Rishav said while panting.