Truly Madly Deeply (2 page)

“Sahil, meet Rahul. He has done his schooling in India and from now will be continuing his studies in the States. He has joined our school and as both of you will be sharing a classroom from now, I would want you to show him around the school and acquaint him with our rules and procedures. Is that clear?” Mrs. Wilson had commanded him from behind thick round glasses in her cabin a few months ago. He had merely nodded and exited the cabin as quickly as possible, not noticing that Rahul had followed him rather lazily, as if he was least bothered about faking respect for a lowly mortal like a high school principal.

Rahul Kapoor carried a ‘not to be messed with' look on his handsome and uncaring face ever since he stepped inside the school boundary. Sahil had sensed his lack of interest and ‘balls to rules' attitude while going through the customary new student induction program.

It was Sahil's job to familiarise new arrivals with the code of conduct, the various assignments that needed to be completed and submitted on time, the important days that deserved high-octane celebrations, the long-winding corridors of the school, the playgrounds that stretched ahead, and on a more informal note, also warn them about the people not to be messed around with. Sahil attributed the task being assigned to him to his Indian origin. Perhaps, Mrs. Wilson believed Indians understood their countrymen better, which was a fact Sahil disagreed with as he was a true advocate of global humanity and believed that colour, caste and creed were no parameters for judging people.

After all, God had shaped all human beings alike and did not create sub-species in the class of Homo sapiens itself, at least not in this evolution chain. He would voice that statement in all essays he wrote and in all debates he participated in. Sometimes it got him brownie points while at other times he would blame the chair for their ‘lack of judgment and biased mentality'.

Sahil had hoped the Indian-ness would make it easier for him to break the ice and become good friends with Rahul. He was secretly pleased and sent out a thanksgiving prayer to the skies for sending him a friend from India. He wanted to learn about the culture and traditions of his mother's native land – something that he had only a vague idea about, thanks to his mother's prolonged ‘westernisation' – but it wasn't to be and Sahil learned close to nothing about India from Rahul, who clammed up whenever Sahil mentioned India. Sahil thought Rahul would eventually warm up to him once he got used to his new environs.

They would sit beside each other on neighbouring chairs and Sahil would often notice Rahul twisting and turning his stationery, writing things in the air or scribbling on the last page of his notebook, when the professor would be dictating notes or browsing through the text orally. Very often, he would peek into his notebook to notice him drawing incomprehensible pictures. The very moment he thought he was getting it, Rahul would notice him looking, throw him a scorching glare, and shut the book. He would often see Rahul lost, and occasionally even caught him mumbling to himself. Initially, he had thought that the new Indian chap was demented and hence avoided him for some days. But gradually things began to fall into place; and Sahil began to like Rahul (he was so much better than the Indian loud-mouths he had encountered earlier).

***

Sahil was sure that Rahul would approach him sooner or later to ensure his creature comforts in the school. Surprisingly, Rahul did not follow him, neither when he missed lecture notes nor when he needed directions to reach a rescheduled class. Rahul preferred to stay alone, just coming to school and going back to his abode in the hostel.

Outside school, no-one had seen him doing anything else except walking alone along half the Algon Avenue before turning into Benson Street and taking a right to reach Frontenac Street and finally bringing his steps to Castor Avenue where the school
was situated.

While going back, Rahul could be seen at the nearby bus stop, waiting for the SEPTA 59, the bus that would drop him back near his hostel on Teesdale Street, at some distance from Algon Avenue.

He had found it strange, getting accustomed to the shiny, isolated lanes of Philadelphia after spending his formative years in the noisy, dirty bylanes of Mumbai where one would be tormented by street urchins and stray dogs if not, the potholed roads. He would not pause to admire the trees that lined the roads or the flat-roofed row houses which stood out behind them. He would let his feet sink in the snow on the pavement and yet manage to drag himself ahead. Somehow the feeling made him feel that he was not a stranger in this land.

Sahil heard from Rahul's roommates, who happened to be students of the neighbouring division, that Rahul climbed his bed very early in the night, woke up to the twittering of the birds at dawn, and then usually went for a walk after doing the morning necessities. They also told Sahil that he kept muttering things in his sleep. Once in the middle of the night, they had reportedly seen him missing from his bed but just when they were thinking of reporting the matter to the heedless warden; Rahul had walked into the room, looking every bit as nonchalant as his mood.

In the mornings, he came to school and sat in the class lost in his own thoughts, staring into empty spaces until the lunch break, when a woman would bring him his tiffin, which he ate in the canteen.

“Who's that lady?” Sahil asked him over lunch, one day after noticing the act.

“Maid,” Rahul replied.

“Your family sent a full time maid to cater to your needs?” Sahil asked, trying to glance in Rahul's tiffin.

“Uncle,” Rahul grunted, munching on the hardly edible morsels.

Sahil never noticed him going to visit his uncle and he rarely heard of him making phone calls back home. He once spotted a cell phone in Rahul's room when he had gone to the hostel to return a borrowed book; the only point was that it was still packed in the box, which had the original seal unbroken.

“Wow, it's a Blackberry. Why don't you use this beauty?” Sahil asked him in disbelief.

Rahul just looked towards him and shrugged, shaking his head.

***

The only time Sahil would get to talk to Rahul freely would be the lunchtime when Rahul would quietly head to the canteen and Sahil would follow, hoping he would find him open up. The rest of the time – like the one when school ended for the day – Sahil would hardly get a chance to see Rahul disappear out of the gate. The dialogue strangely remained one-sided and except for the occasional grunts and nods and usual stares, Rahul preferred to remain as mute as the gargoyles shooting out from the school's foundations.

“Which city in India?” Sahil casually asked taking over his lunch box next to Rahul in the half empty school canteen.

“Mumbai,” Rahul said tersely.

“Oh, I have a couple of relatives in Mumbai. My mum's younger sister's husband's brother-in-law… if I'm correct! I had gone to India once but I was very small then and all I remember from that trip was that I had a throat infection due to the dust and pollution around. And of course, there was this white coloured round sweet delicacy called racegola which I had stuffed in my mouth by the dozens and I still miss it. Unfortunately, mom doesn't quite know how to make it. Not that she didn't try, she did once but it tasted more like raw rubber than the memorable sugar syrup dripping dessert we ate once,” Sahil said nodding to himself looking at Rahul who gave no sense of acceptance of that fact.

“What's your last name again?” he asked him, gathering a club sandwich from his lunch box.

“Kapoor,” Rahul answered after a pause.

“Oh, are you by any chance the brother of that handsome bloke Shahid Kapoor?” Sahil asked, wide-eyed.

Rahul eyed him and he thought Sahil got the answer.

“No? Shakti Kapoor?”

Rahul flared his nostrils, making Sahil shift in his seat.

“I was just trying to show that I do watch Indian movies sometimes. My cousins from India do send over DVDs of good flicks once a while. I particularly remember enjoying the one called ‘The Turning Brain' ...it was an awesome story, the two blokes did a wonderful job...”

Silence accompanied by another glare.

“Are you a Punjabi fellow?” Sahil asked next.

Rahul looked up from his lunch-box and met Sahil's eyes and placed down the spoonful of soup back into where he took it from.

“Gujarati?”

Nothing.

“Bihari?”

Indifference.

“Bengali? Tamilian? Maharashtrian?” Sahil went on trying to remember the ethnic races of his motherland.

Rahul glared at him fixedly.

“Then, what are you? An alien?”

“Human being!” he said in just a pitch higher than his usual low tone.

Sahil merely nodded and kept quiet for a while before his brain started functioning again. The answer made him happy somewhere.

Sahil would get him home cooked food sometimes. His mom concocted excellent Indian sweets, a result of her Indian culinary training and he would get extra servings in his lunch-box to share it with Rahul. The only thing he disliked about his mother was that she did not know the recipe of the syrup infested racegolas they had devoured in India but the rest of the sweets from jalebis to gulab jamuns came out delicious. He would push them Rahul's way, hoping he had a chance to push it down his throat but he was much too scared of that unnerving glare, to even attempt that stunt. Rahul specifically liked carrot halwa, Sahil surmised, because when he would bring the same to school, Rahul would not decline it the same number of times he would decline the other sweets, before accepting.

***

“So how many people back home?” Sahil asked him one day outside the library in the dull grey coloured corridor.

“Two,” Rahul replied.

“Mom and Dad?”

Rahul merely nodded.

“What do they do?”

Rahul looked towards the oak tree outside the big glass windows in the school park as if it held the answer.

“Woodcutters?” Sahil asked, narrowing his eyes.

Rahul glared at him with a deadpan expression.

“Earn a living,” he said after what seemed like hours.

Something would always fascinate Sahil about this character. There was a certain enigma surrounding him, a certain sense of mystery encircling his actions. After two weeks of avoiding him since the start of the term, he had resumed talking to Rahul like he used to, although a bit warily. He tried to coax him out of his depression, to prod into the unknown depths of his mind. When Rahul would end a dialogue abruptly that most persons would respond by giving a brief history of their lives, Sahil understood. He would give Rahul his space and then, the silence would stretch on.

***

Rahul completed his homework regularly and his was always the first completed assignment on the professor's desk. Once during an Algebra lecture, Prof. Quinn put up a particularly difficult question to the class.

“Now tell me folks, barring the last two numbers between zero and hundred if you count the digits of the remaining numbers, what would be the figure you'll arrive at?” Prof. Quinn surveyed the class with his eagle like eyes. With each passing sweep of his sight, the smile on his face began to widen as students started shifting in their seats, staring back blankly at him. He repeated the question twice to some erudite students in the front who seemed to be furiously scribbling something in their notebooks.

“Sir, do we have to count the extreme two numbers as well?” one of the front benchers put up his hand.

“Yes, my dear. Including zero and hundred, how many?” He peeked into their books but with a frown of displeasure soon looked away.

“Yes, Mr… Kapoor , is it? Yes, so tell me your answer!” Prof. Quinn had caught Rahul staring out of the window with the same disinterested look pasted on his face.

“What would you…?”

“189!”

“So… Sorry?”

“189, sir! The number of digits,” Rahul answered casually.

“Oh! Good, sit down,” Prof. Quinn said turning back to the board, not bothering to notice that Rahul had never stood up.

Sahil slyly glanced in Rahul's open book to check his working note but the pages just reflected his state of mind.

***

Rahul would not laugh at jokes in the class nor would he digest the cheap humour Sahil would attempt on him, resulting in visible embarrassment to his only acquaintance here. Rahul would remain indifferent to his absurd shenanigans. Sahil would even try self-deprecating farcicality, often lowering himself to the depths of his sense of humour but all he would get in response was a cold stare fixed on a still face that neither galvanised nor addressed anyone.

“What do you get when you combine big boobs with a pretty face, a dull brain and boring speech?” Sahil asked him one day in between their History lecture while the professor was busy looking at her notes and scribbling a schedule on the board.

Rahul continued to look into his textbook and Sahil was sure he was not reading.

“Mrs. Brookes,” he said pointing to their History teacher, stifling a laugh that erupted from his already burgeoning tummy.