Of Course I Love You!: Till I find someone better… (13 page)

‘I’ll have a better job than you? Yeah, right. That’s easy for you to say. You will be employed in a matter of minutes.’

‘Oh, shut up. You are a blogger now. No one knows, your blog may become famous and all, you might end up richer than all of us.’

Avantika had created a blog on her mail account and invited me to write on it. She pestered me to keep writing and uploading stuff on it regularly.

‘Yes, how can I forget that? The blog, which I stopped writing after the first few blog posts. The same one you trashed!’

‘I didn’t trash it. I just said I felt that it was a little boring and dragged in parts,’ she laughed out.

‘Dragged? I wrote about my school life, damn it. I thought it was heart-wrenching and honest. Was that a drag for you?’

‘I am not sure what I have to say now,’ she said, biting her nails and yet winking at me.

‘Whatever you say, I got about forty-five comments on that post!’

‘Whatever, Deb! All your stupid comments are filling my mail box up. And I don’t really like it when you write about your crushes on your blog. I hated that blog post where you ranted about Surabhi, the girl you had an immense crush on. Even that silly blog post had like twenty comments.’

The blog had her mail ID on it. All the comments reached her ID, not mine, but I never had the drive or interest to change it. And I didn’t know how to.

‘Avantika.’ The placement coordinator shouted her name and called her in.

‘Best of luck.’

‘Thank you,’ she said and rushed in, brushing her hair again. She looked fabulous.

I prayed for her to do well. I knew she would get the job and felt a little sad about it. I felt left out. Avantika, Tanmay and Vernita were busy making something out of themselves while my future kept looking bleaker. I pushed out those negative thoughts and concentrated on the more important things in life. I looked around to see everyone dressed to entice, in short black skirts, stockings and stilettos. It helped calm my nerves.

I loved coming to SRCC. Avantika and I had spent a lot of time in its libraries, front lawns, Irfan’s and the cooperative store. I had more attendance at her college than mine. More people knew me here. I missed my own college fest but never missed hers—Crossroads. Avantika got me passes to every fest in Delhi University, a lot of those out of bounds for DCE students given
their history of getting into drunken brawls and getting the police involved. For a college full of nerds, we were surprisingly belligerent and short-tempered.

Her interview lasted only fifteen minutes.

‘Hey, how did it go?’ I hugged her as she came out of the room.

‘It went fine. What did you do all this time?’ she asked. I knew her interview had gone great. Had it not, she would have cried her way out. She was unbelievably child-like when it came to anything about her career. Even a bad rap at coaching classes would drive her to tears.

‘Nothing, just some bird watching. It’s not as if you are the only good-looking girl in SRCC.’ I winked at her. You would be surprised at how strikingly beautiful most of the girls studying at SRCC were. Most of them were stinking rich and dolled up every day before coming to college.

‘Bird watching, eh? That’s not very exciting to hear,’ she said, making a fake sad face.

‘You tell me. What did they ask you?’

‘The usual. They got stuck to Spirit of Living. The guy himself is a part of it, so it was pretty easy! Plus, I think they liked me. Now would you call me a slut too?’ she winked at me.

‘Obviously not. But that doesn’t make Vernita a
non
-slut,’ I said while looking at a girl who just stepped out of a car.

‘Who are you looking at?’ she asked, turning in the direction I was staring.

‘She is hot, isn’t she?’ I pointed out to the girl. She was dressed impeccably in a knee-length skirt, half of her face was covered with humungous shades, her hair was done up, and she walked quite comfortably in her bright red stilettos. I think it was a Mercedes or an Audi she stepped out of. All big cars are the same to me: big cages of metal I would never be able to afford.

‘That’s our senior. She works at Deloitte. Had a super-rich boyfriend, took her to Goa and stuff, so out of your league.’

‘What do you mean? You had a super-rich boyfriend and I ended up dating you.’

‘She
wants
her boyfriends to be super rich. Not a miser like you. Get the difference?’ she said, tapping my head.

‘I am not a miser. You never let me spend. Not my fault that you know everybody around. And certainly not my fault that my father doesn’t have huge cash reserves that I can indiscriminately spend on my girlfriends.’

‘I know it’s not your fault,’ she said. I knew she didn’t mean to hurt me. I was a poor kid by her standards. Some of her friends never even dated someone who didn’t have a car of his own.

‘Then I guess you should go to your senior’s ex-boyfriend. Maybe he will take you to Goa and dump you. Won’t you be so happy?’ I said irritably.

‘Aww, I am sorry. I love you and you know that. There is nothing that could change that, Deb. I am addicted to you. I have dated rich guys before and they are jerks, trust me on that. Moreover I like doing the little things that I do with you. I don’t wish to go to Goa or some fancy dinner place; I just want to sit at a roadside joint and listen to all the nice things you always have to say about me,’ she said while pulling my cheeks and thus putting things back in order.

‘You have some really hot girls in your college.’

‘If you say anything good about the other girls in my college one more time, I am not going to talk to you. Ever. Again.’

‘Okay, fine,’ I said and we laughed out.

‘But you do have a point, Deb. I never noticed that,’ she said.

‘But then I didn’t expect the girls at DCE to be like the one that just passed us by.’

‘Let’s just say all engineers are terrible-looking. I think that’s a fair enough generalization,’ she winked at me.

‘Oh, that’s not totally correct. There is a reason for it. The rich kids take commerce and humanities. The poorer ones take up engineering. That explains the good-looking-bad-looking phenomenon. Makes sense?’

‘No, it doesn’t. I don’t get the
poorer ones take up engineering
crap,’ she said, stationing both her fists on her waist, visibly pissed off.

‘It’s quite simple. The rich kids tend to take up commerce and humanities because they have a lessened sense of responsibility. Career isn’t the be-all and end-all of everything for them. So they take up something that allows them to have more fun and eventually, in most cases, join their father’s businesses or get married.’

‘Lessened responsibility? People around here have an equally bright career as you, Deb.’

‘But this wasn’t the case five years back when you actually took up commerce. It’s just been two years since the placement cell started in your college. There were no companies that were hiring commerce graduates five years ago. You only had a career if you had an engineering degree.’

‘You do have a point there. But I still don’t agree with your rich is equal to good-looking funda.’

‘That’s an easier one to grasp. If you are rich, you have access to better clothes, better accessories, better shoes, better places, so you learn more and you implement more. Most people here may not be inherently beautiful. But they dress smart, bathe in expensive creams and you have a legion of girls who look as if they just stepped out of the cinema screen.’

It was obvious logic. Also, the richer the girls get, the sexier they are. The sexier they are, the better guys they get, who invariably are more desirable and attractive. Better guys who are better in bed lead to superior craving. Once they have already tried it, they are more liberated and assertive about their needs. More assertive is what is often wrongly labelled as being horny. Just because a girl knows what she wants doesn’t make her horny or lustful or vile. If it were the case, the entire male species is vile.

Anyway, what we just derived is that rich is sexy, but what matters is that
rich is invariably lusty
too. You never say,
poor horny
housewives; it’s always
rich horny
housewives!

‘Okay, I lose, but that doesn’t mean you are right,’ she said, easing up.

‘The list is out.’ The placement coordinator shouted out.

‘Please, please, please, please go and see. I can’t,’ she clung to my arm and squeezed the place to pulp where I would have had biceps and triceps if I ever went to the gym and worked out.

‘As you say.’ I loved the jostling and pushing around. I was the only guy in the crowd shoving around in a sea of great-smelling women.

Why was I not surprised? Predictably, her name was the first on the list! I was incredibly happy and sad at the same time. And then I was just happy.

‘Have I been selected?’ she said as she tried to look for a smile on my smug face.

‘Yes, you have!’ I shouted and we hugged furiously. They had selected just three out of the eighty students they had interviewed. The one I sat in took fifty students out of the hundred they had interviewed and I still didn’t figure in their list.
Opposites
attract! She was immensely intelligent while I was a smelling turd of stupidity.

‘Thanks, Sri Guru,’ she whispered.

‘What?
I
was the one who was praying for you and your Sri Guru gets the credit. I don’t know how you can believe in hideously bearded, stupid god-men.’

‘Hey, don’t you dare say anything about Sri Guru. If you don’t like him, keep that to yourself. He is family for me. It’s because of him that I am what I am right now. I don’t want to get into this discussion again. You won’t understand what I have been through, so you have no right to say anything about him.’

‘Okay, I’m sorry.’ I wasn’t. ‘Anyway, the basic point is, I need a treat now that you’re going to be a big investment banker. And you need to tell me how an investment banker is different from a cashier at the bank I go to. It’s all the same to me!’

‘That’s not funny, Deb.’

‘Aw.’ I hugged her, but seriously, I had no idea what an investment banker does. All I knew was that they wear expensive suits and shoes, drive big cars, and take home a fat paycheque.

I was very happy for her, even though I felt like a complete loser. I had spent a year at home trying to get through an
engineering entrance exam, spent four years in engineering and there she was, a commerce graduate,
just
a commerce graduate, who would end up having a better career than I would. I hated to be envious and not give credit for what she had achieved because after all, getting into SRCC was almost as tough as getting into DCE.

‘Hi, Shawar,’ Avantika said as we were leaving college and looking for a rickshaw to Kamla Nagar, a market where the entire Delhi University used to hang out.

Just as we left her college, her phone rang. It was Shawar and she took the call and put it on loudspeaker.

‘Hi, Avantika. I heard you got through with that interview you had today. Who are you with right now? Debashish? Stay there. I want to meet you and him. After all, there are too many things I have to congratulate you on.’

She looked at me almost pitifully as I wet my pants. We both knew what
meeting
me meant. The last time he
met
a guy, the guy ended up in a hospital bed with six stitches, a broken jaw and a couple of broken ribs. I was a big guy but I wasn’t a fighter. I have tried to stay out of scuffles after one of my adversaries left me with a chipped tooth. I had not thrown a punch in fifteen years.

‘Shawar, he has to rush. I am sorry he can’t stay.’

‘Why not? Give the phone to him. I need to talk to that bastard.’ He didn’t sound friendly to say the least.

‘He is drunk,’ Avantika whispered in my ear.

‘Hey, dude. Where do you have to go? Too busy to meet me, eh?’ Shawar said.

‘Yes, kind of. I have an exam tomorrow and I have to study for it.’

‘Ohh, do you? Both of you think I am a fool, don’t you?’ he bellowed.

‘No seriously, I do have to leave. I can’t meet you right now.’

‘Just wanted you to know that I called Vernita up and she told me everything about the two of you. And you don’t have an exam. That means you have a choice. Either you meet me right now or I will see you at your place. It doesn’t seem too appropriate that
I beat you up in front of your parents. The
choice
is yours to make. I am reaching Delhi University in ten minutes.’

He disconnected the line. I wish I could
choose
to be invisible.

‘Damn, I am so dead. Will he actually beat me up? What did Vernita tell him?’ I was petrified.

‘I don’t think he will let you off easily. Let him come, I will try to talk to him. And I agree. Vernita
is
a slut, after all.’

‘What do you think he will do? Is he big?’

‘He is half your size. He’s really short.’ She punched me.

‘Is that supposed to be a joke? I haven’t fought since forever and I know I suck at it.’

‘No, seriously, he is half your size, but he won’t be coming alone. He will come with his hooligan friends for sure and they love getting into fights.’

‘Thanks for the consolation. Can’t we do something? Go some place. The police? Some
hawaldar
? What do you say?’

‘The last guy who tried to do something ended up in bed for four months. Calm down. It’s just a street fight. You will be okay.’

‘Calm down? You’re not getting your ass kicked, I am! Yes, sure. Street fights? That’s pretty okay, too. Don’t you know that’s what I do for a living?’ I started walking around in circles, wondering how fast I could run …
could I possibly tire him out?

It was too late for that, the Chicken McGrills and the chicken buckets had taken their toll on my body. Damn McDonalds and KFC! I had always assumed I would die of obesity, not of a smashed head.

‘You want to call the cops? Go ahead. But what will you tell your parents? And yes, he owns the Shababs’ chain of restaurants. That incidentally makes him rich and powerful beyond your imagination. He can bribe the whole police department, for god’s sake. Just calm down. Let me handle him when he comes here.’