Civilisation has
now reached that peak of perfection where real people can impersonate
animated characters to engage in indelicate chat with lonely women from
all over the world — though they may admittedly be of indeterminate
age and, sometimes, gender.
Owing to the circumstances
in which I write this piece, it occurs to me that this existential proclamation
is perhaps the most useful thing I can offer to my readers. Let me,
however, revert to good behaviour, and provide an introduction.
I would say, if
I were to be optimistic, that I’m a Could Be, though it’s
possible I’m nothing more than a May Be. I have written a book,
but I have yet to start looking for publishers. I am making a commercial
website, but it’s a long way from being finished. I have written
two anime scripts, but they are still being judged in the competition
they were written for. I’ve got admission for a part-time Masters
in Economics, but classes haven’t started. I have a decent job
in the Indian Holy Grail of software, but I have yet to get fired. I
am living in a wonderfully, indulgently, gratuitously, falling dew-drop
moment of life. My father expresses his worries frequently.
 |
| |
It
was the summer of 99. My hormones had begun their riotous proselytising.
Unfortunately, I was placed at a good, Catholic, boys-only school,
whose adherence to Western values extended solely to those of
the Victorian era |
Such circumstances,
it might be argued, would lead the most stoic pragmatists to philosophy,
but I maintain that for me it was the other way round. I like to wander;
I think it is the only responsible thing to do. I don’t say this
simply for the oxymoronic effect — though it is rather delicious
— but out of a series of logical steps arising from the premise
that life is a transient, fleeting, irrecoverable bundle of poker chips.
I believe I am correct.
Also, I don’t
seem to be able to attract women, and idle hands encourage an idle mind.
If I were to self-psychoanalyse
further, which I happen to do obsessively, I would claim that a lot
of what I am can be traced to the fact that I travelled a lot as a child.
My father is in the civil service, and we lived in a different state
capital every two or three years. I was born in Mangalore, and was shifted
to Srinagar, carried to Ranchi, dragged to Delhi, transported to Manchester,
returned to Lucknow, transferred to Bangalore — after which, out
of my own volition, I took a scholarship to study in Singapore. The
last still continues, and every Friday or so I can’t help feeling
it’s the worst move I’ve made, pun intended, though it almost
certainly isn’t.
Around this point
I should probably get on with the incident that I’d actually planned
to share. I’ve already provided enough background for my readers
to decide whether they want to stalk me or not, and I don’t really
think I can stretch it any further without sacrificing elegance. So
let me begin.
It was the summer
of ’99.
My dear yet hateful
hormones had begun their riotous proselytising. Unfortunately, as is
the fate of millions of poor, upper-middle class children in medium-large
town India, I was placed in a good, Catholic, boys-only school. Though
this excellent institution bid us to wear stringy ties in the baking
heat of the Lakhnawi summer, and made us recite their prayers in every
assembly, their adherence to Western values only extended to those practiced
in the early Victorian era. Strangely enough, their stand accords well
with those of other radical groups in India.
Thankfully though,
to counter this there was coaching.
I am not a reminiscer.
That’s not a real word, and that’s not what I usually do.
I don’t really remember what she looked like. I don’t sigh
and moon and think of her. I only remember that she was one of the two
girls in my coaching institute, and that she wore a lot of surprisingly
sweet-smelling hair oil, and that she had large eyes, and that there
was a time when I would really, really have liked to have known her
better. I don’t mean this with any sort of innuendo. People think
that teens are a bunch of cunning, lewd jackals, but that’s not
true. That comes later. Men and women don’t discover their ulterior
agendas before their early 20s.
Teens are romantics.
The only, true, absolute romantics. Nobody else has the right mix of
hormonal buildup and mental naiveté to be so.
So it was that
when I passed on from Class ix to Class x, and she joined a different
coaching group, that it occurred to me that under normal circumstances
I would never really be able to meet her again. I was in fevered dilemma.
I’d asked for her number once, but either she’d lied or
I remembered wrong. Either way, calls to that number were unsuccessful.
But I wasn’t defeated that easily. I was an ingenious, foolish
13 year old. I managed to get her number from a kid in class whom I’d
never much spoken to before, nor did after. Then came my moment of glory.
I was afraid of
what would happen if someone from her family answered the phone. I didn’t
trust Lucknowites and, besides, I had all the worldliness of a test-tube
puppy. I decided I must have a plan.
Now, my voice still
hadn’t broken fully, or at least I was in that embarrassingly
low self-worth phase of adolescence when I thought I still had pretty
much a child’s voice. Using my amazing deductive abilities, I
concluded that my voice must therefore sound quite like a girl’s.
I chose a name for myself from an issue of Stardust I found lying around.
Neha, I baptised myself. Then I called. Her grandma picked up.
Women tend to really
get going sometime around their 40s. They reach the peak of their nonchalant
confidence around their 60s, just around the time, coincidentally, that
men are getting ready to die. I, at 13, having never even ridden a cycle
on the main road, could not, even as the respectable Ms Neha, have fooled
a baby, much less a grandmother.
But that was fine.
I had actually thought of that. After all, what would they do? I had
their number. All they knew was that I was someone who probably wasn’t
Neha.
Fate is cruel to
me, however.
Apparently they
had caller id installed. I was obviously not their daughter’s
only admirer. They called back. I answered twice, but I was shivering
with fear, and it was odd for me to keep picking up the phone. They
called again, and again. My mother picked up eventually. In true UP-ite
fashion, they informed her that they would break my limbs if they ever
saw me. It was, I felt, a somewhat dire threat for adults to make to
a 13 year old, but that’s part of that semi-barbaric land’s
charm. My mother was very upset. She also couldn’t help laughing
once or twice, as I, spouting terrified and angry tears, explained the
back story to her.
That was my only
Indian crush. In Bangalore, I joined the very geekiest of schools, and
worked hard to distinguish myself. Then I left India. It wasn’t
because of this incident, it was economics.
My mother, these
days, fervently wishes I would return. I don’t know. I have no
great liking for the political division of my birth, and I believe patriotism
is for the religious. But I am slightly bored here. I haven’t
stayed in one place for so long in my life.
To conclude this
semi-narcissistic account, if you, reading this, happen to be one of
those who once wished to break my legs, I can only say that I’m
sorry. I was stupid, but not malevolent. All I can say is that I hope
you exercise the same care for her welfare when you are choosing the
groom for her arranged marriage. I’m sure you think you will.
