When a Lawyer Falls in Love (5 page)

It was a pleasant July evening, but the thoughts racing through Ankur’s head were far from pleasant. Just how did all this come about? Sonali was his best friend and if he could, he would even call her his girlfriend. Ankur had never been as close to any girl as he had been to Sonali.

Ankur felt betrayed. Agreed, over the summer vacation he had been busy and had not been very much in touch with her. It was mandatory for the third year law students to spend their vacation swimming in dusty files as they tried to ingratiate themselves to over-worked lawyers, beneath whom they slogged. The stupid girl obviously hadn’t considered their cheerful banter last semester, a proposal. All playful interactions ought to be banned, Ankur thought darkly.

‘You really should have asked her out,’ counselled Vyas wisely, late as he usually did. The bird had already flown the coop. Ankur remained silent. This simply couldn’t be true. And if it was, he would rearrange Rohit’s face and step into Sonali’s life. Even Hindi movies allowed that!

A group of pretty female juniors entered the cafeteria and one of them flashed a smile at Vyas who returned half a smile and politely averted his eyes. A girl should never smile at a guy, Vyas thought. The guy is left wondering whether the smile was actually directed at him or not. If yes, the male brain is left in a dilemma over whether it is safe to strike up a conversation after revealing his orthodontic wonders. But if the smile was not directed at him, the girl just might respond by striking something—his ego, if not his cheek.

Yet, since Vyas already had a girlfriend, who would periodically emerge from a graveyard of all places, he found it safer to look at the crumbs of samosa in the now empty plate, than at the waxed legs of the girls who had come dressed casually in shorts. That was one advantage of living on campus. A guy just needed to tumble into the canteen at any hour to see the cutest and daintiest specimens of womankind.

‘So how is Caroline?’ asked Ankur finally, when he realised he had been silent for too long.

‘We’ll be celebrating our third anniversary soon,’ replied Vyas and then regretted saying it for he could not have chosen a worse moment to make the announcement.

‘I mean…we keep having these fights…and you know Caroline…,’ Vyas hastily made amends.

Of course Ankur knew Caroline. The slender mobile pillar that had come climbing drain pipes and breaking into boys’ hostels. Thinking of her, Ankur was suddenly glad he was single. In fact the pity he was dousing himself with a minute ago, got transferred onto Vyas. They both had lost in love. Ankur had lost Sonali and Vyas had lost his head!

Back in the hostel with his head resting on a comfortable, stuffed cotton pillow, Ankur stared at the ceiling. In the three years that he had known her, not once did Ankur imagine that Sonali would actually go ahead and see another guy. In the sense, she hardly looked the kind. Perhaps it was just a rumour that had blown around and lodged itself in Vyas’s head.

Ankur had felt a surge of anger rise against his bamboo stick of a roommate, for even suggesting something like this. But then again, he knew Vyas. The guy was an idiot, no doubt, but not once had he ever character assassinated any one. There had to be some truth in what he had said.

‘How come Rohit Randhwah?’ thought Ankur. Even the male from a different species was preferable to the lazy backbencher, with his intimidating Punjabi swagger.

Wasn’t it Sonali who’d suggested that Ankur should start wearing contact lenses? Perhaps he should contact her and ask if she needed his old spectacles. Even a person with double hypermetropia would know that Rohit Randhwah was to be avoided. But here was a girl with normal vision refusing to see sense.

But then again, perhaps Rohit wasn’t such a bad guy after all, thought Ankur, as he tossed about uneasily on the rickety bed, in the stillness of the night.

Eight

‘Sonali, I think we need to talk,’ said Ankur hurriedly, walking behind her. One thing was clear. Since the beginning of the year, Sonali had lost a lot of puppy fat and she looked smashing. Ankur never thought he would actually be alarmed by this.

Sonali had barely managed to turn and look at him, when Rohit Randhwah materialised from nowhere.

‘Sonyi baby…we have a date, remember?’ said Rohit, winking at Sonali even as Ankur cringed. Without a doubt, Rohit seemed a little unhinged. Sonali flushed and giving Ankur a cursory smile, moved away. Ankur stood there baffled.

The Sonali he knew, would have imprinted her footwear on the cheek of a man who dared to make such a suggestion. It was this that had acted as a major deterrent for Ankur himself. In fact it was precisely her leonine nature that made Ankur feel safe when she was around characters like Rohit. Yet now it seemed as though Rohit was playing a double role. He was a hero cum villain. Bollywood had yet to create a place for a personality like him.

The next couple of weeks passed in a blur. In Ankur’s mind, he had lost a friend, his life, everything. The entity that answered his roll call every day in class was just a zombie who would collect his law degree after two painfully long years and then, simply vanish. Vanish at least from the horizon of Sonali Shah and into a world where nothing remotely Gujarati would ever touch him. In fact, Ankur was toying with the idea of giving up milk, since dairy farms were, after all, largely situated in Gujarat. Indeed, if idiocy was ever to be patented, Ankur would win the rights for it hands down!

Meanwhile, Pavan Nair had problems of his own. Like not knowing which girl to eye at which time. He thought he had seen his soulmate, a beauty with large eyes fluttering for his arrival by the crowded water cooler, where she stood patiently waiting for her turn. Since Pavan had not seen her before, he presumed she was a new student. Hence he strode up to her gallantly and offered to fill her glass. Perhaps if it was a few millennia ago, she would have been standing with flowers in her hair and an earthen pot, coyly tucked beneath her arm, offering him water. But in a slight reversal of roles, Pavan heroically elbowed his way to the approving lady with a stained stainless steel glass, overflowing with water.

Standing next to a water cooler, very close to a drainpipe, watching the pretty water guzzler before him, Pavan decided he had arrived at the most romantic spot ever. Since he had parted the Red Sea a minute earlier with the precious glass, he had no intentions of parting with the pretty young lady now. The lady of course had other plans. She asked Pavan, in a voice laced with indulgence, the year that he belonged to. Pavan promptly launched into a monologue, convinced that the young lady was a fresher, desperately in need of being enlightened on the subject of college, the endurance-testing lecturers and the pathetic mess food.

The young lady’s expressions oscillated from amusement to horror, the latter emotion however, soon transmitting to the suddenly startled Pavan, for standing before him was the newest faculty member of the department. A fact she made him aware of, after he had given her a lengthy biography of the ‘lullaby artists’ who taught their classes.

Just why did water coolers exist? If only someone would dig a well, Pavan Nair would have gratefully jumped into it!

Nine

‘What a nice white shirt! Can I autograph it?’ asked Sonali playfully, one afternoon. It had been more than two and a half months since Ankur had actually spoken to her and Sonali had finally noticed. The speed of her observation powers was truly astounding.

Ankur remained silent. If nothing else, he still had the privilege to sulk.

‘So the lawyer can’t laugh!’ said Sonali giggling and nudging him with a pencil.

‘I don’t think your boyfriend will like it, if he sees you flirting!’ Ankur retorted, the hurt in his voice clearly showing.

It was Sonali’s turn to become silent. Her smile had suddenly vanished. ‘I was not flirting!’ she replied, in a tone both defensive and surprised. ‘And Rohit is not my boyfriend…I mean…not really.’

Really? Ankur wanted to ask. How about telling him a few things that were really ‘really’!

‘So what is he?’ asked Ankur, the thoughts in his head moving faster than his tongue. He was almost tempted to switch over to Marathi. It is always easier abusing someone in one’s mother tongue.

‘God! I didn’t think you would be so jealous!’ snapped Sonali, her voice rising in pitch. It is always a dangerous sign when a girl does that. What follows is usually a flood of tears or a tight, matter-of-fact slap. Ankur wanted neither, so he softened his stance, ‘You have been ignoring me these days…,’ he said, in a tone that made him sound like a whining housewife.

‘Ankur, I…I need to tell you something,’ said Sonali, pushing a strand of her silky hair behind one ear.

‘What?’ asked Ankur, intrigued. He fervently hoped she’d say something he wanted to hear.

‘During the last internship, Rohit and I…,’ but before Sonali could complete her sentence, Ankur butted in with a loud, ‘No! Stop!’ He knew what was coming. The very mention of Rohit Randhwah could make him cheerfully commit murder

‘No listen!’ Sonali asserted. ‘The reason I hang out only with Rohit these days, is because…I’m deeply…obligated to him.’

Obligated?!! Now this was new. Obligated for what? For the shade his huge frame provided when he walked beside her, constantly?

‘For my internship I had to work under this sleazy lawyer… luckily Rohit was around…’

It suddenly became very clear. Ankur almost let out a sigh into the ionosphere. So this was the deal.

‘So you two are not seeing each other?’ enquired Ankur, more out of formality, expecting a vigorous no. Sonali remained silent. Ankur panicked. Rohit had saved Sonali from a sleazeball to become one himself. Perhaps he had decided that he could play the role better.

‘I hope you realise, that Rohit himself is a rather shady character,’ Ankur chided. He would have liked to think of more synonyms to drive his point home effectively.

‘I don’t know Anks, Rohit is a nice guy,’ Sonali replied, thoughtfully. Ankur hated being called ‘Anks’. Each time Sonali did that, she expected him to agree with her.

‘Do what you want…,’ replied Ankur, injured as he walked away.

Ten

Zero, it is said, was invented by an unknown Indian. Souvik had a vague suspicion that Pavan could be the culprit. Souvik and Pavan had been paired off to do their internship together, like all the others. At the end of it, Souvik was thrilled that his talkative classmate could spell the word ‘Law’, without any serious spelling errors. Pavan Nair, was basically a nice guy and could make a good lawyer someday, provided he didn’t go about shuffling crime records and stopped asking the judge not to interrupt while he was busy accusing the defendant.

It had been a hectic summer for Souvik. Except for the two weeks that he took off to attend his elder brother, Aurobindo’s wedding. His brother was made to sit in a mandap with what looked like a white pyramid on his head—a successful conspiracy by old ladies who stood around the mandap. Shortly, these ladies formed a semicircle around the bridal pair and made threatening sounds by wriggling their tongues, which were more like an ominous warning to the groom for a tough life ahead!

Souvik was all the more determined not to marry anyone within his community. Yet looking at his traditional
boudi
, Souvik knew that his nieces and nephews would be brought up on a steady diet of
roshogulla
s and
mishti doi
. His own kids, he suspected, would be pure vegetarians eating curd rice every day. Quite possibly on a banana leaf. Souvik hardly met Jaishree Subramaniam these days, but his heart still pined for her.

Ankur and Jaishree literally spent the summer together, and Souvik never quite forgave Ankur for that, even though the two young lawyers were slogging in a musty sub-divisional court. Even a dusty bench shared with Jaishree would have satisfied Souvik’s romantic soul.

Souvik caught up with Jaishree, her long hair braided, as she was walking towards the girls’ hostel one evening. ‘Err... hi there!’ Souvik mumbled, when he was within hearing range. Jaishree smiled her hello. ‘We hardly get to speak in class, so…how’s life?’ asked Souvik, in an effort to make conversation. ‘Fine,’ said Jaishree, with another shy smile.

When one was around Jaishree Subramaniam, it would help to know sign language. Since only monosyllabic answers came forth, one might feel more comforted talking to oneself.

Souvik stood racking his brains thinking of something intelligent to say, before they reached the gate of the girls’ hostel.

‘Jaishree, I was just wondering…,’ said Souvik suddenly. Jaishree turned her serene face to look at him. Each time she did that, Souvik’s Bengali brain found it hard to synchronise his grammar, syntax and pronunciation, and he could not form a single intelligible sentence, without fumbling.