My initial assessment of Brahmi Sharma was deeply flawed. The furtive glances of my classmates weren’t because they found her beautiful or smart or like the warm sun on a winter morning but because they thought her to be strange. She sits alone, she eats alone, and she stays quiet until otherwise required, not because she is intimidating but because she has no friends. Like literally no friends, not even one. Isn’t that the most wonderful thing? It is the best thing one can do to oneself. I want to congratulate her on that. Why have friends and set them up and yourself for disappointment? Maybe even lead them to flooding their lungs. Didn’t Buddha advocate a life devoid of attachments as the only path out of suffering? Brahmi seems to have grasped it well because she glows like a halo’s lighting her face up. But what’s really getting my goat is where she disappears in the middle of the day, sometimes for consecutive periods. A little sleuthing told me she’s a part of a few academic and extracurricular groups, many of which she heads, thus wielding the power to call emergency meetings. Only that she’s never in those meetings.
This past week I have been praying to all seven of Baba’s gods—Ganesh, Saraswati, Durga, Kali, Kartikeya, Ram, Lakshmi—for a fresh batch of pimples on Brahmi’s face so I could be the hero with my handkerchief dabbed in Baba’s perfume.
Baba’s gods didn’t fail me.
Amarjeet Kaur ma’am made me sit with her today. Second bench, third row—that was our seat. Throughout the six periods, I raced her to the solutions of chemistry numericals, maths problems and grammar questions. She won 17–21. She not only had the home-ground advantage she was also blissfully oblivious of the academic battle going on between the two of us.
We will never be friends—I can’t afford to have friends and she doesn’t seem to want them—but we can be worthy adversaries. The only positive that has come out of the stupid change of schools is that I have new competition. Finally someone who can challenge my ruthless domination of merit lists.
When I got back home, curiosity got the better of me and I dug out Brahmi Sharma’s phone number from the telephone directory. It was not an easy task, Sharma being a common surname. Despite not wanting to remember, the number is now imprinted in my memory. I ran my fingers over the buttons on my landline. I want to call her but with calls starts the slippery slope of friendship, love and attachment, and god knows nothing good comes out of it. The last time I dialled anyone’s number from the phone was Sami’s. He hated long silences. Much to the chagrin of Maa who went (and still goes) through the phone bill at the end of every month with a fine-tooth comb, we used to talk on the phone every day after school. He always had so much to say.
Sami stopped being friends with me in death. Why else would he leave me with what he hated the most? Silence.
It’s well-deserved.
P.S. Rajasthali Apartments. It’s seven storeys, including the parking stilts. The guards are a little hard to get past but if you are in your school uniform they don’t stop you. The roofs of five out of the six buildings are locked and the keys are with the top-floor-flat owners. But getting to the sixth one is a breeze. Only problem? There are almost always children in the flat. But it wouldn’t be a problem late at night. A few seconds to touchdown and . . .
Just saying.
31 January 1999
The mystery of my sudden seat change has been solved. It wasn’t due to Baba’s gods but my guardian angel and the charmer of women—Dada. He had met Amarjeet Kaur ma’am and requested her to make me sit next to Brahmi Sharma because I was still traumatized from the incident in my last school and I needed new, intelligent friends. Amarjeet ma’am would have had to bow down to Dada’s panda-like eyes and his brotherly love. Dada’s like honey, diamonds and pink colour to women.
‘You said she’s a class topper, didn’t you? Didn’t she wish you on your birthday? So what’s the problem?’
‘You shouldn’t have done it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s wrong!’
‘What’s wrong in it?’
‘Because you can’t force things to happen.’
‘Whatever that means,’ said Dada.
‘And I don’t want anything to happen. She’s just—’
‘Oh, take a chill pill, Raghu. You can thank me for what I did. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you frown, how your voice becomes guarded when you talk about her, like you’re hiding something. Aren’t you?’
‘No, what would I hide?’
‘I don’t know what goes on in that head of yours.’
‘Nothing goes on in this head of mine.’
Dada might not have ever dominated merit lists like I have, but he’s sharp. Of all the lies I have told him, he found out about the little seismic shifts in my heartbeats whenever Brahmi’s name is taken. I have tried not to define the arrhythmia but now that he has mentioned the word ‘like’, it’s ricocheting in my mind. What are the conditions that need to be fulfilled for saying that X ‘likes’ Y? For example, one could have liked Brahmi Sharma’s face, her fluency in English, her impeccable report card, the smell of coconut in her hair, her handwriting and her long socks.
But for hypothetical purposes if I were to admit I like her, these above-stated reasons mean nothing.
The clincher for me is her being alone and being content with it. She doesn’t look wistfully at the other girls talking, laughing, and being with each other, wishing she were with them. She revels in her solitude. I like how she casually leaves the class, goes god knows where, and comes back like nothing has changed. How calmly she marks her missing attendance in the register. I like how her eyes trace the flying patterns of the pigeons outside, how she almost never laughs truly, how she fools everyone with her smiles, and how easily she convinces the teachers that she’s like everyone else. Darkness is her friend and her lover. Unlike me I am sure she has decided how she wants to die.
But what if I like her?
Eventually I will have to reveal myself to her along with my darkest secrets and she won’t like what she will see. And who knows what she’s hiding? It could be much worse. After all, her wrists tell a much gloomier story.
But staying away from her might be easier said than done. Unlike her, my relationship with sadness is fraught with fault lines. My sinusoidal curve today tells me I can do with a little bit of like and hope.
