Anyone Else But You... (23 page)

“Sounds cool,” Sahana replied. “What do you want to do?” she asked.

*

“Open the windows and let some
oxyzen
come in,” instructed Suraj Singh who pronounced the syllable ‘g’ with great difficulty.

The students controlled their laughter. It was funny the way Pocket Singh said things. The intonation, the pronunciation and his whole appearance, made matters worse.

“You know
oxyzen rezuvinates
your body…!” he declared. Siddhant scoffed on hearing this.

Unfortunately for him, Suraj spotted him with ease.

The last thing you’d want is to piss Suraj off when he’s giving one of his enlightening statements. He walked towards Siddhant and stood right under his nose.

“Stand up!” Suraj shouted.

Siddhant stood up without any protest.

“What’s your name?” he squeaked.

“Sir, Siddhant! Siddhant Dalvi,” came the reply.

“Siddhant Dalvi, what do you think of yourself?” Suraj asked.

There were names being called out in the background, in hush voices, the name
Aam chutiya
could be heard very clearly.

“SILENCE!” bellowed Suraj. “Yes, carry on…” he looked at Siddhant.

“Sir, I just scoffed. I didn’t laugh at you,” he replied with a straight face.

“You
zust
scoffed? What do you think I am a fool?” with a single movement, Siddhant’s pocket was now in Suraj’s hand.

“Sir, that shirt costs money. How dare you tear my pocket?” Siddhant sounded assertive.

“Aaah, arrogance! First mock a teacher and then reply back,” Suraj Singh rolled up his sleeves. He caught hold of the opening of Siddhant’s shirt and with a mighty heave, ripped open all his buttons.

Siddhant tried to protest but his strength was nothing when compared to Suraj Singh’s. Suraj dragged Siddhant out of his seat, holding him by his buttonless shirt.

The class was silent. None spoke. Even those who were making fun of Siddhant sat speechless, seeing the treatment being handed out to him.

There was a loud noise of Suraj Singh’s heavy hand falling on Siddhant’s face. “You shall never dare to scoff at me again!” he hissed.

Then came another loud thud on the other side of the face. “You left me no option but to use my hands you arrogant punk.”

Siddhant feebly tried to say something like
sorry
when Suraj’s left hand
landed hard on his face again. It was burning red by now. Suraj Singh then caught him by his sidelocks and dragged him across the expanse of the classroom. He caught hold of Siddhant’s hand and twisted it behind his back, Siddhant winced out in pain. “
You bloody scum,
tujhe mera aukaat
dikhata hu
.” Then he followed it up with a few more rights and left and then finally he pushed Siddhant out of his class.

There weren’t any cuts on Siddhant’s face but he was bruised badly. His face was blued in places, his hair disheveled, his shirt ripped apart and a swollen lip. He fell to the floor and started sobbing. His face hurt badly and his hands were all numb. Suraj closed the door on his face and went back into the class leaving Siddhant all by himself.

TWENTY-TWO

Rishav and Sahana sat near the entrance of their empty classroom. To sit in a class where the clitter clatter of the desks moving was missing, the students laughing out at random things weren’t present and the teachers were not trying hard to keep things in check, felt weird. They had become so used to all of it that a brief moment without it felt like something integral was missing.

They were talking about all that they would do when they entered college.  It’d be a new place, new people, almost everything would be new. And you could be anything you wanted to. A geek could be a stud; a rich spoilt one could be the uncool one. The girl with the braces could be the hottie; the fat guy could easily be the hunk.

It was a place to start afresh. To undo all wrong that you did in school, to be something you always wished to be, to be a new you.

But then going to school had its own charm. The assemblies, the bunks, the periods and the wait for the moment the bell would ring so that one could rush out of class and gang around in the corridors would all be missed by each and everyone.

Class eleventh would end very soon and thus it’d initiate the beginning of the end of a journey that had lasted almost every one- fourteen years.

Rishav had pulled a chair next to Sahana and their knees were slightly brushing against each other’s.

The touch of her skin made Rishav conscious of himself. He was careful not to move his knee too much in case he lost contact. It was the first time that they had been sitting so close and Sahana didn’t move away immediately. There was this urge to kiss her, to hold her close and tell her that he loved her. Rishav felt the warmth of Sahana’s skin; it was triggering off all kinds of chemical reactions in his body. All he wanted to do was hold her hands and just as his hands were crawling up to hers – they heard footsteps. Sahana immediately pushed
her chair back.

A head peeped into the classroom, “Rishav, right?” the boy asked in a tone of urgency.

“Yes, yes, I am Rishav,” he said. Sahana turned to look at the boy. He was someone from Vanya’s class.

“Come quick,” the boy said. “Why?”

“Your friend, Siddhant needs your help!”

“What?
Kya hua?
”
Rishav asked. “Just come, okay?” saying this, the boy turned around and made a dash for his section.

“Sahana, wait here, I’ll be back,” Rishav Sen made his way across the hallway towards the Commerce sections.

*

Muskaan Kaur studied Siddhant carefully. She narrowed her eyebrows and peered deep into Siddhant’s eyes. Hers were as cold as it could get, they contained no expression other than that of spite and hatred towards any student
who she deemed to be unfit of being a
Delhite.

“You scoffed at one of the members of my staff? How dare you?” she said.

Siddhant chose to remain silent. Even speaking hurt his jaws.
Why the fuck doesn’t this lady get that?
He said to himself.

Suraj Singh stood at one corner of Muskaan’s palatial room, hands on his hips – displaying great quantities of mock indignation.
It was like one of those famous Hindi lines,
kuch bhi karne ka lekin Suraj Singh ka ego hurt nahin karne ka!

Muskaan walked in exact concentric circles around Siddhant while she delivered a monologue on how important it was to respect ‘her’ staff.

“I got beaten up ma’am,” Siddhant protested.

“Well you deserved it!” “You thi
nk you could get away by being bold
enough to scoff at a respected teacher? You are a moron and you rightfully deserve this treatment. I don’t want you to whine to every other teacher about
how badly you were beaten.  Is that clear?”

Yeah right,
Siddhant thought.

“I want to hear it loud and clear Dalvi. You are not supposed to go and whine alright? You should know I have a lot of influence in this Managing Committee and Suraj has the right phone numbers in his contact list. You better be careful next time if you don’t want to jeopardize your career.”

Siddhant wanted to scream out in frustration. He wanted to tell them how big cunts they were but all that he managed was a faint
yes ma’am.

Suraj Singh chuckled.

“You may leave Siddhant, Suraj can I have a word with you in private?” she asked.

“
Zi
Ma’am, why not? Sure,” he replied courteously.

As Siddhant turned the door knob,
Suraj
,
who
was within his hearing range hissed something that sounded similar to ‘aam-chutiya’. Siddhant turned a deaf ear and silently walked out.

*

Jai Chauhan smirked his way to the Physics laboratory. He found Suraj Singh sitting in one corner instructing a few students about how to go about verifying the Ohm’s Law. In between he was also making mentions of how he knew the bra sizes of X and Y heroines in the Telegu Film Industry.

“Morning sir,” Jai said.

“Mourning
beta,
mourning…not
morning!
” Suraj replied letting out a deep breath of air.

“Hahaha…I heard what you did to that nut. Good one sir!”

Suraj flashed a lopsided grin, “Thank you
beta
– it wasn’t a big deal at all.”

“Won’t his parents complain or anything?” Jai inquired.

“Arre
nahin nahin,
his dad has been dead for years now and his mom runs a small restaurant. They won’t want to get into this mess you know.”

“His mom runs a small restaurant? Wow. She paid a handsome ten thousand bucks for Socialact Wave yaa!” Jai exclaimed. “Surprising to know about this…”

Suraj interrupted, “Besides that, Muskaan ma’am has issued an order of suspension against Siddhant for fighting in the school premises
. We’ve noted that these bruises are a cause of that.”

“Students sir? Students…? They saw it all happen. The entire school knows,” Jai replied.

“Yes indeed. They also know the big people I have association with. They will not utter a word against me.
Dekh liyo
.”

Jai nodded. He admired Suraj’s guts. “Bindu ma’am knows about this?”

“Of course she does. She knows how I stopped this fight from happening and Veenu
is busy fixing her makeup, she took a half day and left and she’ll be back only tomorrow and then be off again
,” he chuckled.