‘We are not brutes like the northerners.’
Dada had laughed and said, ‘What about the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946?’
‘That’s ancient history,’ Baba had butted in.
Dada had laughed again and said, ‘You teach him about Ghor and Ghazni and Aurangzeb. That’s not ancient history?’
‘What had happened?’ I asked.
‘Thousands of Bengalis massacred each other. Men were cut up, burnt alive, women raped.’
Baba had argued, ‘The Muslims did it. They wanted Pakistan. We didn’t do anything.’
‘We?’
‘We! The Hindus. We never attack first. That’s our weakness,’ Baba had said.
25 September 1999
She had waited until late to tell me.
Like the past nights, we were roaming the streets on her borrowed scooter. She drove past Tamarind Court where earlier this year a model had been shot dead by a powerful man, and past IIT Delhi and AIIMS, which were the only two colleges worthy enough for the Gangulys. We came to a stop at Nizamuddin railway station, where we ate fried rice from a stall outside. Every night seemed endless till it was time to leave. And the next night, eons away. Time’s plasticine, malleable; when love’s in the equation, it’s as relative as Einstein theorized and was understandably lauded for because every fool in love wants a scientist to back what they feel.
‘Vedant has found me a job,’ she said when it was time to leave.
‘It had to happen,’ I said more to myself than to her.
‘Yes.’
‘I will miss you, Raghu. I will miss this.’
‘I will not miss bandaging you,’ I said.
‘I will not miss you threatening to murder my Tauji.’
‘I’m not promising anything. Is that why you insisted to pay for everything today?’
‘I’m going to be a paid professional,’ she said. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
‘When do you leave?’
‘He will call me and tell me. He has asked me to be ready. His friends are staying over at his place and he wants them to leave before I come.’
‘I will have to figure out buses to Gurgaon,’ I said.
‘That’s something I wanted to tell you, Raghu. I don’t want you to come there very often. You will have to concentrate on your studies. I wouldn’t want you to take your academics lightly and I don’t want to be guilty of that.’
‘Oh please, don’t overestimate your importance in my life. You’re probably the tenth most important in the list,’ I said.
‘You’re the first in mine.’
‘And that’s why you’re going so far?’
‘Raghu—’
‘I’m sorry, I apologize. That was needless.’
‘Come here,’ she said.
