When a Lawyer Falls in Love (2 page)

The tall and lanky Vyas, on the other hand, resembled a eucalyptus tree in motion, under whose soothing presence, one could stop to rest for a while. Together, Ankur and Vyas were the Laurel & Hardy of the college.

They had walked some distance and had reached the road beneath the yellow streetlight that led to their hostel, when Ankur finally spoke. ‘Listen, don’t mind me saying this, but your girlfriend seems a little spooky. I mean, how does she know the graveyard so well?’ Ankur asked, his long sentence puncturing the eerie silence.

‘She haunts the place every night,’ replied Vyas with a hollow laugh.

Ankur pretended to look amused.

‘You people actually meet in a graveyard? The romance is simply killing me!’ said Ankur, with playful sarcasm.

‘I don’t believe in ghosts. I mean, all of us have to be laid to rest one day, right?’ replied Vyas, in a profound tone.

Out of nowhere, right then, the duo heard footsteps behind them.

For all the pearls of wisdom from the young lawyer’s mouth a nano-second ago, Vyas suddenly looked tense.

Ankur meanwhile, was the kind of guy who always prepared for any eventuality. He didn’t particularly know any life-saving prayer by rote, so instead he firmly gripped the one weapon that was to see him through the day of the Armageddon—his rusty old umbrella.

‘Wait up boys,’ said a deep, masculine voice that the lawyer duo weren’t exactly eager to turn around to. But the voice sounded familiar. Perhaps it was a recently dead, male relative on a visit, thought Ankur, as all the saliva in his mouth receded to the deepest depths of his oesophagus.

‘Hello sir,’ said Vyas finally, as he recognised the bermuda wearing ghost to be their criminal law professor. Professor Prakash Mahapatra was by far the youngest faculty in the law department and was known for the full attendance his classes got, especially those that had a majority of female students. For once, Ankur didn’t mind bumping into the much-liked professor while still dressed in his pyjamas.

‘Going for a pre-dinner walk, are we?’ asked Professor Mahapatra, smiling. Pre-dinner, that was nice. Ankur considered any thought about food to be rather pleasant.

Feeling relaxed, Ankur blurted out, ‘Sir we were just returning from a trip to the graveyard.’ Only to wish he hadn’t.

‘Graveyard!’ repeated the professor, as though he had been poked with the butt of a rifle.

‘What on earth warrants a trip to the graveyard at this hour?’ he asked, sounding shocked. Having dealt with legal terms all his life, words like ‘warrant’ had become a part of conversational speech for the professor. Ankur half expected him to use the words ‘habeas corpus’ and ‘mandamus’ next, in explaining the legal consequences of venturing without any proprietary rights, into the land of the dead.

Vyas, who had been standing and impersonating a mannequin, suddenly found himself saying, ‘Sir, I have a girlfriend who is not allowed to meet me…’

‘So you’ve already made plans of meeting in your afterlife?’ asked the young professor, sounding quite amused and cutting short his pupil’s fumbling defence.

‘No, sir…,’ protested Vyas, suddenly blushing. ‘She visits this graveyard every Friday for her dead grandmother, and leaves a note…’

‘For you or for her grandmother?’ asked Professor Mahapatra, suddenly enjoying teasing his lovesick pupil. ‘I must say, student stress levels have reached the stratosphere. Imagine hanging out in a graveyard!’ said the professor, almost laughing. For the rest of the walk back to the hostel, Ankur was content listening to snatches of Vyas’s love story, even as he enjoyed for the first time, the cool night wind, blowing their way.

Vyas had met Caroline in some vague psychology course, a fact that Ankur seriously doubted, because he knew Vyas could barely spell the word correctly. But since the Goan Caroline showed really innovative degrees of insanity, it was probably true. All the same, Vyas told the professor a greatly edited version of his love life, neatly forgetting to make any mention of the gift or of his birthday the next day.

Ankur, meanwhile, could only think of all things edible as they neared the hostel mess. It was a good thing this rendezvous-with-the-dear-departed was over and done with, thought Ankur. Graveyard and gastric juices simply didn’t gel!

Two

The creaking ceiling fan, spinning efficiently above the half-dozing heads of the motley crew, was the only thing that seemed to be audibly protesting the droning lecture on civil law.

It was the afternoon session and everybody was in different stages of somnolence. The lecture on constitutional remedies seemed specifically designed, amongst other things, to enable even insomniacs to curl up and fall asleep.

Ankur lazily scanned the room. Sitting on the first bench was Sonali Shah, whose sweet voice and swift movements could well qualify her as an alumnus of some dance and music academy. She had shoulder length hair and petite features with a tiny nose right in the centre of her round face. Upon the dainty bridge of this nose, sat the silver-coloured rims of a pair of spectacles, making the miniature lawyer look incredibly cute. Sonali was hypermetropic, which probably explained why Ankur felt rather hyper when around her.

It was an open secret, that Ankur had fallen for this straightforward Gujarati the day he had laid his myopic eyes on her. At various levels, Ankur felt that Sonali was his female equivalent. While he was fat, she was pleasantly plump. He was short, she was petite, and while arguing cases, his reasons always sounded intelligent while her reasoning was intelligently sound! If only he could gather enough courage to ask her out on a real date, thought Ankur.

Right next to Sonali sat Jaishree Subramaniam, the class beauty. With almond shaped eyes and a complexion that was a result of frequent, vigorous applications of freshly set curd, Jaishree could easily have guys eating out of her dainty hands. This qualified Bharatanatyam dancer, who made very little use of her vocal chords, had every male in the class doing a courtship dance of his own. With her waist length hair, her admirers were almost grateful that she sat on the first bench. Particularly one Mr Souvik Bose, who sat right behind her.

Souvik, with his curly eye lashes and dreamy gaze, seemed a little out of place in a law school. He looked as though he might have been better off penning love stories and poetry beneath a banyan tree. Yet, his were always the most well-researched and well-argued cases. The only argument he had yet to resolve was convincing his conservative Bengali family that he wanted to set up home with a Tamil Brahmin classmate.

Next to Souvik sat Pavan Nair, a guy, it was said, with a mind the size of a mighty star. When viewed from the earth, that is. His painfully obvious observations made those around him want to develop homicidal tendencies. His north-south parental background meanwhile, gave him the linguistic advantage of getting into a verbal duel with a wide range of people in the subcontinent.

Then, of course, there was Vyas, who would whisk off the very reluctant Ankur for nightly picnics in graveyards. The only major grouse that Vyas Rao had against humanity was that while taking attendance, the professors would insist on calling him ‘Vilas Rao’, which made him sound like a Maratha chief in some Pre-British confederacy.

The rest, like Rohit Randhwah and others, comprised the flat characters in the class, who Ankur didn’t know about, didn’t think much of and frankly didn’t care.

The shrill ringing of the bell over the class intercom, served more as an alarm clock for the sixty odd third year students of All India Universal College, popularly known as AIU College.
All Idiots of the Universe
was a better suited version of the acronym, thought Ankur, as everyone filed out of the room, sleepily.

It was February 3. Vyas’s birthday. Which meant he was an Aquarian. It also meant that he was loony, moody and inquisitive, as also friendly, helpful and generous. Ankur, Vyas and half a dozen others were seated under the cool shade of a tree, which keeping in sync with the general atmosphere around, seemed to have lazily stretched out its branches. The makeshift restaurant with bird droppings on bright red plastic chairs, was what most students referred to as their ‘college canteen’.

Quite naturally, Vyas the birthday boy, was giving a treat. And even more naturally, there was full attendance. Besides, Ankur couldn’t imagine not hanging out at the canteen. He genuinely loved the place. It was at this very canteen that Vyas of the long legs had been made to ride an imaginary scooter on Freshers’ Day, two years ago. Worse still was, he was actually supposed to stop and ask unsuspecting souls if they wanted a lift!

Sonali had been made to do a Gujarati folk dance without music and Ankur had been packed off with a noisy bunch of female seniors, to propose to a grazing cow at the far end of campus. Truly, the humble canteen with its tin roof, and alternately full and empty crates of aerated drinks, held memories galore.

‘Graveyard?’ Sonali shrieked, when the previous night’s adventure was narrated to her. The very mention of the word had the same effect on all of them.

‘Wow! That’s some love!’ she added, grinning.

The others didn’t seem to agree with her. ‘How can you expect your girlfriend to visit a graveyard?’ asked Souvik, amazed.

‘Especially when she is not dead?’ said Pavan, nodding and wanting to contribute to the conversation.

Jaishree giggled. Pavan always managed to find a more ridiculous angle to an already ridiculous situation.

‘I mean, it’s dangerous!’ Souvik asserted.

‘You mean, for the people in the graves!’ said Ankur, laughing.

‘But seriously, you could have collected your gift in the morning y’know. A morning walk is a lot more pleasant unlike…,’ Sonali was saying, as the food arrived.

‘Morning walk?’ smirked Vyas. ‘For me, it is always sleepwalk.’

‘Hehehehe!’ Ankur laughed, exaggeratedly. ‘If I try waking up this palm tree at five in the morning, he’ll get up only in time for his next birthday.’ There was a collective laugh.

‘It’s so romantic to be born in February,’ said Jaishree, speaking for the first time. Souvik turned red, as though the remark was directed at him.

‘Caroline…I’m missing her so much,’ said Vyas, suddenly putting his head in his hands. ‘Her moronic relatives from Dubai always have to descend around this time.’

‘You are such an Aquarian!’ declared Sonali, fiddling with the straw in her cold drink, a faraway look in her eyes. You actually find it normal to meet in a graveyard!’

‘What has that got to do with being an Aquarian?’ asked Ankur, both irritated and intrigued. Sonali made dating in cemeteries, sound like an Aquarian personality trait.

‘Everything, actually,’ said Sonali, suddenly perking up. ‘A person’s star sign always corresponds to the bio-rhythmic processes of the body and therefore affects his thoughts.’ There was a moment of awed silence.

‘Okay, what about me?’ asked Ankur.

‘Umm…,’ paused Sonali. ‘In your case, I know you are an Arien, with your moon in Capricorn. That means you are a double masculine sign, with a fire element…,’ Before Sonali could complete her sentence, the party erupted into a teasing yell.

‘I always knew I was a stud, man!’ said Ankur, shrugging his shoulders modestly even as Vyas slapped his back with gusto.

‘So what does that actually mean?’ asked Souvik, clearly interested.

‘It means that being a man’s man, even while demonstrating affection, he will have a touch of violence,’ Sonali explained. That was indeed true, thought Ankur. Though he hadn’t minded accompanying Vyas to the graveyard the previous night, a repeat suggestion for another such excursion would lead to Ankur lovingly wringing Vyas’s neck.

‘You should become a professional astrologist y’know,’ remarked Ankur, still gloating. ‘Your only capital investment will be an orange turban and a green parrot!’

‘I can hardly wait!’ replied Sonali, laughing in mock seriousness.

‘So tell me the kind of girl I should find. I’m a Libran,’ asked Souvik, his curly eye lashes blinking with interest.

‘A Gemini girl should do for you,’ said Sonali in a tone that suggested a medical prescription.

‘I’m a Gemini!’ Pavan declared, as though expecting Souvik to go down on bended knee.

‘She can even read palms,’ said Jaishree softly. ‘She told me I’ll have an early marriage.’

‘Wow!’ said Pavan, activating his vocal chords again, ‘That means you will be palmed off to a curd rice eating groom, very soon.’

It was meant to be a joke and everybody laughed politely. Ankur however, avoided looking at Souvik who suddenly appeared greatly interested in the intersecting designs of the tablecloth.