Anyone Else But You... (26 page)

Muskaan Kaur gulped her ego down the long esophagus and spoke again. “Ma’am,” she began. “What was done was done in the best interests of this institution, if news of Dalvi getting assaulted by a teacher was to be made public, it would only harm the school’s reputation and in a way,
your
reputation.”

Fumes came out of Kalsi’s nostrils as Muskaan continued.

“People fear Suraj Singh, not a single student will speak up against him. Do be rest assured about that and I got information that Dalvi boy was drunk when he died.”

Kalsi stopped fuming, “He was drunk?” She asked. “Who told you?”

“My sources,” replied Muskaan.

“Your sources?” Kalsi guffawed.

“From amongst those present at Dalvi’s funeral,” Muskaan added.

“Hmmm…” Kalsi nodded. “What’s the course of action then?”

“Simple, we stick by our official stand. Siddhant Dalvi was involved in a brawl and we add to that some family issues that drove him to commit suicide.”

“His father was the senior peon of our school for long. He even served my father, Mr. Chavan. We can’t do this to a DHS loyalist, we can’t defame his son,” Kalsi pronounced.

“Then you decide for yourself. What is more important to you – the reputation of your school and you or the image of a dead boy,” Muskaan smirked.

Kalsi remained silent for a while, “Fine, I trust your judgment. But this will be one final time, promise me Muskaan, you shall not take things into your own hands like this…
ever again
.”

“Yes, yes, for sure,” Muskaan replied in a hurry. “Now let’s talk about some other pressing matters, Socialact Wave, who are you inviting as the Chief Guest?” she asked.

Kalsi who was sipping her steaming cup of
coffee
, choked all of a sudden. “Socialact Wave?” she asked.

Both Neeti and Muskaan nodded.

“Are you sure we should host something like this?
Right after the death of one of our students?”

“He’s dead
na
….” Muskaan replied. “Why do you want it to lay any bearing on what we do with one of the biggest events in our school calendar? Aren’t you forgetting our commitments to our sponsors and all the people like Veer Chauhan, who’ve donated so generously?”

Kalsi didn’t speak which gave Muskaan further incentive to go on, “Our official stand rubbishes the claim that Dalvi was beaten up by one of the members of our staff. So let’s not try being over-sensitive, alright? Socialact Wave goes on as planned.”

“I have my doubts Muskaan, surely the sponsors can be told that the event has been postponed?” Kalsi enquired.

“No, they cannot,” Muskaan seemed to have
lost control and in an impuls
e spoke loudly.

Kalsi turned to face the large glass window overlooking her lawn. She slowly turned to face the two ladies again. “Fine, Socialact Wave would be on as scheduled. Now for God’s sake, let me finish my cup of coffee in peace.”

Neeti and Muskaan took their final bows and quietly walked out of the office. Kalsi ensured that her phone was off the hook. She pushed back her chair and enjoyed little sips of the hot drink.

It seemed the story of Siddhant Dalvi was disappearing just like those wisps of steam coming out of her cup and vanishing in thin air.

TWENTY-SIX

Suraj Singh was in between one of his routine discussions on the actual value of pie when a phone call diverted his attention. “
Escuse
me children,” he said, as he moved to one corner of the class to receive the phone.

“
Zi
Muskaan madam?” he asked.

“Why aren’t you in my office yet?” she demanded an answer.

“Ma’am, extremely sorry ma’am. But I didn’t get the message.” He silently waited for her reply.

“I don’t care, if you love your job, I want to see you here in thirty seconds,” she curtly said before hanging up.

A phone call from Muskaan Kaur did what years of orders from Singhal and Kalsi couldn’t do – it sent alarm bells ringing in Suraj’s head.

Without much ado and without telling a soul about where he was going and why was he leaving the class halfway, Suraj Singh made a dash for Muskaan’s office.

In about a couple of minutes, when he finally reached, he found the office to be abnormally crowded. Class representatives of all classes in the Senior Wing had gathered around the small coffee table that stood in one corner of Muskaan’s room (Madhuri’s old room).

“Come in quick,” Muskaan said, gently rotating her chair from right to left.

The other teachers who were already inside the room were discussing things in hush voices but on seeing Suraj, all of them fell silent. Now the attention moved towards the lady in the green saree.

“As you may know,” Muskaan began.
“We have a problem. And the solution to the problem lies in successfully organizing Socialact Wave.” This was followed by some murmurs that died down as soon as they started.

“Siddhant Dalvi’s death has shaken up the Principal,” she coughed. “And we all know who is responsible for it,” she looked at Suraj. “Nevertheless, I need to ensure that there is no unnecessary gossiping and wastage of time going on in this school because…” she got up from her seat and adjusted her saree. She sat down again, “the last thing I want is a God damn
revolution
in this school.” She clenched her teeth as she said it. “Is it understood?”

Everyone nodded. So, now we have the instructions for you, “There will be no subject teaching for th
e next couple of days till Wave officially gets over. The home-room teacher will stay with the students all day and ensure that none and when I say none, I mean none, is allowed to leave the classroom for any reason whatsoever.” Some more murmurs as she prepared to speak again, “It is a very sensitive situation for us right now, the Press will gobble us up if they get to know about this and any kind of new found unity amongst students will be catastrophic. Get the priorities straight, Socialact Wave is more important than your blessed lives.”

The teachers turned to face Ashish Dutta, the senior-most and the most respected teacher in the senior school. He weighed his words before he spoke, “Madam, I feel it is more advisable that we take some kind of action against Suraj…”

Suraj Singh got agitated on hearing this. So agitated that he shouted out an expletive, “What the hell
bhenchod,
Ashish
bhai
,
yeh tum kya keh rahe ho
?”

“What I say is correct, the outcome maybe worse you know? If we take some action against Suraj it will kill any kind of rebellious act that we are expecting…”

“Tch tch tch…Ashish, do as you are said. Please, my dear?” Muskaan pleaded in fakeness.

Ashish fell silent. “Is that all?” Muskaan asked.

The teachers were in a dilemma, they didn’t want to ask unnecessary questions and piss Muskaan off. On the other hand they knew how strenuous and crap-like it’d be to sit in class all day and be a watchdog for the students. Eventually, everyone agreed on principle that Muskaan’s instructions were worth
being followed and they left her room
like obedient school children
.

*

Runjhun Sharma was having her usual hectic day at work in the clumsily built office of DNN-IGN News
Agency
, when her phone rang.

A journalist’s life was never void of phone calls and people who seldom understood the idea of ‘beats’ appeared to be the ones who’d call incessantly. At times the calls would be desirable, like
information for
really interesting stories that could grab a huge number of eyeballs whi
le, at times the calls would be that of a lack-in-life call centre guy, ever readily wanting to get abused.
Runjhun generally took charge of the Lifestyle and Entertainment Beat and when at times there was a dearth of journalists, she
would be asked
to take care of the Literature section too.

Strangely, the past few weeks had been mellow by her standards. There were lesser number of phone calls: wanted and unwanted. The Editor seemed to be in a chirpier mood, her love life had taken a plunge and she wasn’t getting hold of a single path breaking story that could bring the pandemonium back in her life again.  And just when she was thinking of taking the rest of the day off, her phone rang. It was an unknown number but there was hardly any option other than to answer the call and find out the ‘mystery’ of the caller.

“Hi, Runjhun Sharma, DNN-IGN,” she said the moment she picked up the call.

“Hello, erm, Runjhun right?” the voice asked.

“Yeah, that’s right. Runjhun, this side,” you could feel the smile in her voice.

“Hi Runjhun, I got your number from your sister. I’m Rishav calling from DHS.”

“Hey Rishav, no wonder you know my sister, same class?”

“Not really, sections are different,” he replied.

“So tell me, how I can be of help to you?” she asked politely.

“See, it’s hard to tell it to you on the phone but I’ll try to explain it to you as quickly as I can. Ask me if you don’t understand anything.”

“Go on, I’m all ears…”

“Well, you heard about the recent mishap, the suicide of the DHS student named Siddhant Dalvi?” he enquired.

“Who hasn’t? Of course I did, sad thing to hear that he got drunk, pretty depressing life he had huh?”

“That’s not it, that is
not
the story. I’ve tried
telling this to others but there’s some kind of restriction imposed in school which is really making it hard to communicate.”

“Oh c’mon, it’s the age of Facebook, surely you can’t sell such excuses,” she chuckled.

“It’s something serious and perhaps I have too much on my plate already to take a conscious effort into solving this crisis. So I sought help from
real
people with real impact. And it led me to you,” he completed.