Agastya
The Approach (Part I)
The lightning looked like fireworks in the sky; a welcome relief from the searing Delhi heat. I walked out from my room to the common balcony to enjoy the breeze and the view better. There were several other people who were out there, smoking their illegal cigarettes and their more illegal joints, the football and hockey teams swigging fluorescent orange energy drinks after their practice sessions; all grateful for the imminent rains.
An unfamiliar figure walked out to the balcony.
His long wavy hair fell carelessly on his eyes. He was probably very athletic at some point. He was tall, yet bent and thin and seemed to be unsure of his new surroundings.
He responded to my polite smile, walked up to me. I noticed he had a rather unusual shuffling gait.
“Agastya”, he smiled and introduced himself.
“Dhrubo”, I said.
“Third Eco”
“Second Eco”
“Bengali?” he asked.
“You?”
“No. Raipur.”
We listened to the thunder.
“I’ve moved to U16.”
“Awesome. I’m in U19.”
“Any noisy neighbours?”
“Not now. The guy in U15 had huge speakers and was a fan of Himesh Reshamiyya. He got thrown out for making out in the parking lot.”
He smiled, and offered “Quite a romantic spot!” as an explanation.
Another bright burst of lightning, followed by thunder.
The first drops of rain started to fall.
The dinner gong sounded.
“Dinner?” I asked him
“No. Have to meet a couple of friends. You carry on.” he paused for a while; “What are the mess timings anyway?”
“Breakfast is at eight, lunch at half past twelve and dinner at seven-fifteen. Try to get in for the first shift if you want clean plates.”
The Acquaintance (Part II)
I met him again the following night. We sipped chilled water from our bottles and hoped the uncomfortable heat and humidity would end soon. Lights started to go off in the service and teachers’ quarters. A child playfully ran around her parents while they puffed and panted through their post-dinner walks. The watchman finished his usual check of locks and gates and settled down next to the shack that served maggi and insipid tea during the day. We finished our introductions.
He had finished his schooling in one of the boarding schools in the hills. He chose economics at Stephen’s because he didn’t make it to the IITs. He was quite happy with this forced choice. He enjoyed the discipline, complained against the increased use of mathematics to prove truisms, but was exceedingly comfortable with the levels of abstraction, and in fact, admired it to some extent. He had strong views on the caste system, enjoyed cricket and supported Liverpool and the Netherlands in football.
The watchman started sounding his whistle, and the shrill sounds grew weaker with every attempt.
“Drunk?”
“Probably”, I replied. “Rum from his locker in the dhaba”
He laughed.
“Cigarette?” he offered.
“No, thanks. Be careful though. The dean might throw you out of residence if you get caught. He’s in a vile mood these days.”
He lit his cigarette with a match. We watched the glowing end for a while, mildly hypnotized.
“You’ve been studying a fair bit.”
He smiled, “No, I’m not a nerd. I’ve my Cambridge interview tomorrow.”
“Oh. Didn’t know you had applied there. What programme though?”
“The second undergrad.”
“Why?”
“More mathematical. Better chances to get through. Equally good chances for the graduate programme.” As an afterthought, he added, “The HoD wouldn’t give me a recommendation for the M.Phil.”
He stood up to leave.
“I hope I wake up in time. Not that I can fall asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.”
I raised my eyebrow.
“Girl trouble”, he replied. “Sleepless nights since we started dating.”
He walked into his room and switched the lights off.
The Alarm (Part III)
Birds twittered and chirped and marked the start of what was going to turn out to be a perfectly hot and beastly day in Delhi. I rubbed my eyes, convinced myself that any day, hot and beastly or otherwise, needed getting out of bed and reached out for my phone.
Agastya had sent me a message asking me to wake him up at ten.
I gazed moodily at the newspaper. The weather columns predicted that the monsoons would be delayedand confirmed that it would be a perfectly beastly day, and a perfectly beastly week to come.
At ten, I knocked loudly on Agastya’s door and added to the general din. A minute later, I was in his room, pulling his curtains apart in an effort to convince him that it was indeed ten in the morning.
He pushed himself out of bed and in several incoherent sentences conveyed to me that he had to meet Nandini by noon.
“I can’t go there with a hangover. She’ll murder me.”
“Don’t go”, I offered by way of suggestion.
“Shut up. Be useful. Help me think. There was something else I was supposed to do.”
“Brush?”
“Never mind. I’ll be back in ten minutes. If I don’t get there by noon, she’ll have my limbs ripped apart and thrown in four directions.”
“You’re assertive, aren’t you?”
“You’re very helpful, aren’t you?”
He raced out to the showers, persuaded the guy in the showers to do a shorter version of his prayers and get out, and then, ran back to his room. A few seconds later, he walked out to the balcony.
It was a sight I would never forget. He wore a white sleeveless vest with what I thought was a colourful sheet around his waist. Words failed me.
“Plans of breaking up or does she dig men in lungis?” I asked.
“It’s a sarong. Anyway, my clothes are with the dhobi.”
“So?”
“Get them for me, please?”
“Of course not”
Frustrated, he walked off. From the balcony, I saw him walking towards the dhobi’s. I couldn’t miss this for anything. I ran down and caught up with him near the football field. He acknowledged my presence with a sneer. I hadn’t stopped laughing.
The dhobi sat outside, contemplating the heat with a beedi, carelessly letting the ash drop on the heap of clothes by his cot.
“Rajeshji, clothes?” he asked.
The wise man, despite his ignorance of the language, surmised the situation by looking at his attire, and led him inside.
Agastya looked at his watch, muttered a curse, put on his jeans, took off his sarong, pulled a shirt from the pile upsetting the rest of Rajesh’s labours and ran out, waving the shirt at an astounded rickshaw-puller.
The Application (Part IV)
“Hey, I need a favour?”
“What? Can’t hear you!”
“Aargh! Noisy auto. Can you hear me?” he yelled.
“Yeah. Aren’t you late? Nandini is going to kill you!”
“No. She’s with me. We’re going to Khan”
“Is this a ‘rescue-me’ call?”
“No! I want you to go online and submit my Cambridge acceptance form.”
“Right away?”
“Yeah. Go online and call me.”
“I am. Cambridge website?”
He directed me to his email account, and from there to the application portal.
“What’s the password?”
“b-a-r-b-i-e-d-o-l-l”
“What?”
“Nandini created the account. Stop laughing!”
I heard Nandini giggle loudly in the background. I cursed the lucky bugger.
“Okay. Now what?”
“Just submit it”
“Hang on. There’s a section you haven’t completed.”
“Umm… The declarations and opportunities bit?”
“Yeah”
“Complete it then, you idiot. What’s in it?”
“Let’s see. Have you ever been declared bankrupt or ever been the subject of bankruptcy court?”
“What?”
I patiently repeated the question.
“No! Hurry up, please. Nandini has promised to spare my right arm if this gets done in five minutes.”
“Okay. Are you a cheat?”
“No!”
“A criminal?”
“No”
“A rapist?”
“Stop fooling around. Is there anything important?”
“That’s a yes, then. Okay, a lunatic?”
“NO!”
“You shouldn’t be lying in these forms, you know.”
“Will you please move on?”
“Are you plotting against the state?”
“No.”
“Are you a terrorist?”
“No. Please, Dhrubo.”
“Okay. Chill out. The opportunities section. Let’s see; Race-brown outside, white inside. Sexuality-bi, of course.”
He sighed patiently.
“That should be all, Agastya.”
“All right. Submit it.”
“Done”
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll go tell the rest about Barbie doll.”
The Alien (Part V)
We walked up to the bar carefully avoiding tipsy Cambridge academics. The bar man, a fellow Stephanian, had helped himself generously.
We queued up behind an Indian explaining the intricacies of the caste system to a German friend. He stopped, ordered their beer and rummaged in his pockets.
The bar man asked, “Are you from College?”
The expert on caste looked up, bewildered. “What do you mean?”
The bar man smiled condescendingly. “Never mind. That’ll be twelve quid.”
The expert on caste borrowed the aforementioned sum from his listener, paid up, gathered the beer and left.
We ordered our whisky. He poured them out and repeated his question. “Are you from College?”
“Yes. We’re from College.”
He smiled. “Your whisky’s on the house then!”
We marvelled at how clever his screening was. We gathered our whisky, and walked away.
We contemplated the whisky in silence.
Agastya took a sip, held it for a while in his mouth before swallowing it contentedly.
“I wonder why people think of us Stephanians as snobs?”
The Adieu (Part VI)
“How’re you feeling, Agastya?”
“Much better. Calmer.”
“You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
“Yeah!”
“Go on.”
“I don’t know how to start.”
“At the beginning? Usually works.”
He smiled.
“Dhrubo, you’re my closest friend.”
“You’re my only friend!”
He smiled again.
“You know what I’ve been through these months.” He told me about his department, his teaching, the lethargy, the fear, his shrink, his medication, his ‘vacation’ and his counselling. “I wish there was some other way, Dhrubo.”
The last sentence confused me. “Agastya, you’re delirious again?”
“No”, he said slowly. “I must control my thoughts. My career and my life depend on this.”
“What do you mean?”
"You said I was your only friend.”
“Yes”
“I trust you, and turn to you when I need help the most.”
“I’m glad to have been of help”
“I think you should go away”
“What do you mean?”
“Please stay away from me.”
“You’re asking me to get out of your life?”
“Yes”
“Because your shrink asked you to?”
“Yes. And for the sake of my work, for my family!”
"What of the fun we had? Starting from our days at Stephen's?"
He sighed wearily.
"Your room, U16, was the cleaners' cupboard. And, no Dhrubo did Economics at Stephen's."
The silence that followed was long. It appeared as if he was trying to quell a huge fight in his head.
"You really think this would help?”
“I don’t know. Please, Dhrubo. I don’t want to lose everything.”
“Please tell me you’re joking?”
“It’ll be unbearably painful for me. I wish there was some other way.”
I stood up slowly. There was no other way. Agastya would be accepted only if I got out of his life, only if I ceased to exist.
The lightning looked like fireworks in the sky; a welcome relief from the searing Delhi heat. I walked out from my room to the common balcony to enjoy the breeze and the view better. There were several other people who were out there, smoking their illegal cigarettes and their more illegal joints, the football and hockey teams swigging fluorescent orange energy drinks after their practice sessions; all grateful for the imminent rains.
An unfamiliar figure walked out to the balcony.
His long wavy hair fell carelessly on his eyes. He was probably very athletic at some point. He was tall, yet bent and thin and seemed to be unsure of his new surroundings.
He responded to my polite smile, walked up to me. I noticed he had a rather unusual shuffling gait.
“Agastya”, he smiled and introduced himself.
“Dhrubo”, I said.
“Third Eco”
“Second Eco”
“Bengali?” he asked.
“You?”
“No. Raipur.”
We listened to the thunder.
“I’ve moved to U16.”
“Awesome. I’m in U19.”
“Any noisy neighbours?”
“Not now. The guy in U15 had huge speakers and was a fan of Himesh Reshamiyya. He got thrown out for making out in the parking lot.”
He smiled, and offered “Quite a romantic spot!” as an explanation.
Another bright burst of lightning, followed by thunder.
The first drops of rain started to fall.
The dinner gong sounded.
“Dinner?” I asked him
“No. Have to meet a couple of friends. You carry on.” he paused for a while; “What are the mess timings anyway?”
“Breakfast is at eight, lunch at half past twelve and dinner at seven-fifteen. Try to get in for the first shift if you want clean plates.”
The Acquaintance (Part II)
I met him again the following night. We sipped chilled water from our bottles and hoped the uncomfortable heat and humidity would end soon. Lights started to go off in the service and teachers’ quarters. A child playfully ran around her parents while they puffed and panted through their post-dinner walks. The watchman finished his usual check of locks and gates and settled down next to the shack that served maggi and insipid tea during the day. We finished our introductions.
He had finished his schooling in one of the boarding schools in the hills. He chose economics at Stephen’s because he didn’t make it to the IITs. He was quite happy with this forced choice. He enjoyed the discipline, complained against the increased use of mathematics to prove truisms, but was exceedingly comfortable with the levels of abstraction, and in fact, admired it to some extent. He had strong views on the caste system, enjoyed cricket and supported Liverpool and the Netherlands in football.
The watchman started sounding his whistle, and the shrill sounds grew weaker with every attempt.
“Drunk?”
“Probably”, I replied. “Rum from his locker in the dhaba”
He laughed.
“Cigarette?” he offered.
“No, thanks. Be careful though. The dean might throw you out of residence if you get caught. He’s in a vile mood these days.”
He lit his cigarette with a match. We watched the glowing end for a while, mildly hypnotized.
“You’ve been studying a fair bit.”
He smiled, “No, I’m not a nerd. I’ve my Cambridge interview tomorrow.”
“Oh. Didn’t know you had applied there. What programme though?”
“The second undergrad.”
“Why?”
“More mathematical. Better chances to get through. Equally good chances for the graduate programme.” As an afterthought, he added, “The HoD wouldn’t give me a recommendation for the M.Phil.”
He stood up to leave.
“I hope I wake up in time. Not that I can fall asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.”
I raised my eyebrow.
“Girl trouble”, he replied. “Sleepless nights since we started dating.”
He walked into his room and switched the lights off.
The Alarm (Part III)
Birds twittered and chirped and marked the start of what was going to turn out to be a perfectly hot and beastly day in Delhi. I rubbed my eyes, convinced myself that any day, hot and beastly or otherwise, needed getting out of bed and reached out for my phone.
Agastya had sent me a message asking me to wake him up at ten.
I gazed moodily at the newspaper. The weather columns predicted that the monsoons would be delayedand confirmed that it would be a perfectly beastly day, and a perfectly beastly week to come.
At ten, I knocked loudly on Agastya’s door and added to the general din. A minute later, I was in his room, pulling his curtains apart in an effort to convince him that it was indeed ten in the morning.
He pushed himself out of bed and in several incoherent sentences conveyed to me that he had to meet Nandini by noon.
“I can’t go there with a hangover. She’ll murder me.”
“Don’t go”, I offered by way of suggestion.
“Shut up. Be useful. Help me think. There was something else I was supposed to do.”
“Brush?”
“Never mind. I’ll be back in ten minutes. If I don’t get there by noon, she’ll have my limbs ripped apart and thrown in four directions.”
“You’re assertive, aren’t you?”
“You’re very helpful, aren’t you?”
He raced out to the showers, persuaded the guy in the showers to do a shorter version of his prayers and get out, and then, ran back to his room. A few seconds later, he walked out to the balcony.
It was a sight I would never forget. He wore a white sleeveless vest with what I thought was a colourful sheet around his waist. Words failed me.
“Plans of breaking up or does she dig men in lungis?” I asked.
“It’s a sarong. Anyway, my clothes are with the dhobi.”
“So?”
“Get them for me, please?”
“Of course not”
Frustrated, he walked off. From the balcony, I saw him walking towards the dhobi’s. I couldn’t miss this for anything. I ran down and caught up with him near the football field. He acknowledged my presence with a sneer. I hadn’t stopped laughing.
The dhobi sat outside, contemplating the heat with a beedi, carelessly letting the ash drop on the heap of clothes by his cot.
“Rajeshji, clothes?” he asked.
The wise man, despite his ignorance of the language, surmised the situation by looking at his attire, and led him inside.
Agastya looked at his watch, muttered a curse, put on his jeans, took off his sarong, pulled a shirt from the pile upsetting the rest of Rajesh’s labours and ran out, waving the shirt at an astounded rickshaw-puller.
The Application (Part IV)
“Hey, I need a favour?”
“What? Can’t hear you!”
“Aargh! Noisy auto. Can you hear me?” he yelled.
“Yeah. Aren’t you late? Nandini is going to kill you!”
“No. She’s with me. We’re going to Khan”
“Is this a ‘rescue-me’ call?”
“No! I want you to go online and submit my Cambridge acceptance form.”
“Right away?”
“Yeah. Go online and call me.”
“I am. Cambridge website?”
He directed me to his email account, and from there to the application portal.
“What’s the password?”
“b-a-r-b-i-e-d-o-l-l”
“What?”
“Nandini created the account. Stop laughing!”
I heard Nandini giggle loudly in the background. I cursed the lucky bugger.
“Okay. Now what?”
“Just submit it”
“Hang on. There’s a section you haven’t completed.”
“Umm… The declarations and opportunities bit?”
“Yeah”
“Complete it then, you idiot. What’s in it?”
“Let’s see. Have you ever been declared bankrupt or ever been the subject of bankruptcy court?”
“What?”
I patiently repeated the question.
“No! Hurry up, please. Nandini has promised to spare my right arm if this gets done in five minutes.”
“Okay. Are you a cheat?”
“No!”
“A criminal?”
“No”
“A rapist?”
“Stop fooling around. Is there anything important?”
“That’s a yes, then. Okay, a lunatic?”
“NO!”
“You shouldn’t be lying in these forms, you know.”
“Will you please move on?”
“Are you plotting against the state?”
“No.”
“Are you a terrorist?”
“No. Please, Dhrubo.”
“Okay. Chill out. The opportunities section. Let’s see; Race-brown outside, white inside. Sexuality-bi, of course.”
He sighed patiently.
“That should be all, Agastya.”
“All right. Submit it.”
“Done”
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll go tell the rest about Barbie doll.”
The Alien (Part V)
We walked up to the bar carefully avoiding tipsy Cambridge academics. The bar man, a fellow Stephanian, had helped himself generously.
We queued up behind an Indian explaining the intricacies of the caste system to a German friend. He stopped, ordered their beer and rummaged in his pockets.
The bar man asked, “Are you from College?”
The expert on caste looked up, bewildered. “What do you mean?”
The bar man smiled condescendingly. “Never mind. That’ll be twelve quid.”
The expert on caste borrowed the aforementioned sum from his listener, paid up, gathered the beer and left.
We ordered our whisky. He poured them out and repeated his question. “Are you from College?”
“Yes. We’re from College.”
He smiled. “Your whisky’s on the house then!”
We marvelled at how clever his screening was. We gathered our whisky, and walked away.
We contemplated the whisky in silence.
Agastya took a sip, held it for a while in his mouth before swallowing it contentedly.
“I wonder why people think of us Stephanians as snobs?”
The Adieu (Part VI)
“How’re you feeling, Agastya?”
“Much better. Calmer.”
“You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
“Yeah!”
“Go on.”
“I don’t know how to start.”
“At the beginning? Usually works.”
He smiled.
“Dhrubo, you’re my closest friend.”
“You’re my only friend!”
He smiled again.
“You know what I’ve been through these months.” He told me about his department, his teaching, the lethargy, the fear, his shrink, his medication, his ‘vacation’ and his counselling. “I wish there was some other way, Dhrubo.”
The last sentence confused me. “Agastya, you’re delirious again?”
“No”, he said slowly. “I must control my thoughts. My career and my life depend on this.”
“What do you mean?”
"You said I was your only friend.”
“Yes”
“I trust you, and turn to you when I need help the most.”
“I’m glad to have been of help”
“I think you should go away”
“What do you mean?”
“Please stay away from me.”
“You’re asking me to get out of your life?”
“Yes”
“Because your shrink asked you to?”
“Yes. And for the sake of my work, for my family!”
"What of the fun we had? Starting from our days at Stephen's?"
He sighed wearily.
"Your room, U16, was the cleaners' cupboard. And, no Dhrubo did Economics at Stephen's."
The silence that followed was long. It appeared as if he was trying to quell a huge fight in his head.
"You really think this would help?”
“I don’t know. Please, Dhrubo. I don’t want to lose everything.”
“Please tell me you’re joking?”
“It’ll be unbearably painful for me. I wish there was some other way.”
I stood up slowly. There was no other way. Agastya would be accepted only if I got out of his life, only if I ceased to exist.
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