Like It Happened Yesterday (11 page)

‘No, Uncle. I have my history exam tomorrow,’ I said sadly.

‘Oh! Poor boy!’ he said. Then he put his hand over my shoulder and started rubbing the back of my neck. I felt a little awkward.

‘Where did you meet my father?’ I asked him.

He rolled his eyes, and then said, ‘Hmm … Beta, I met him at his office.’

Now, that was odd! My father had never worked at an office!

I clarified, ‘But mere Daddy toh office mein kaam nahi karte. He is a priest at the gurdwara.’

‘Oh, no … no,’ he immediately corrected himself. ‘I meant, I met him at
my
office. He’d come for some work. He is a good friend of mine.’ I noticed that he stammered when he said that.

My brain registered something suspicious, but I didn’t do anything about it.

As he was talking to me he slid his hand down my shirt and rubbed his palm against my back. I felt uncomfortable and looked back at him, wondering—What was he up to? I immediately tried to grab his hand and was about to ask him to stop, when, all of a sudden, he clutched me tightly. I couldn’t move—not a single inch!

His eyes widened, as he stared at me. I was shit scared! I froze. I was unable to understand what he was doing to me. My head was still, only my eyes moved.

It was dark outside the bus and it was dark inside it. Without any other passenger left, there was no one who
could see us. The sound of the bus and the engine had muffled every other sound.

The moment I felt his other hand on my cheek, I knew I was in trouble. I looked at him. He could probably sense the fear deep down in my eyes. When I didn’t move for a while and kept staring back, the anger on his face transformed into a wicked smile. His face looked very animal-like. His mouth was all red. His teeth were soiled black. Inside his dirty mouth was his red-black tongue, and the sight of it made me shut my eyes in horror.

For the next few minutes, I was his toy. He rolled his finger around my face. Some kind of petrifying fear didn’t let me revolt. I was scared of shouting. I thought, even if I shouted, the conductor was too far away to hear me. And even if he heard me, that old man would have done something to me before he arrived. He could have hit me or choked me to death. I was not in a position to think what exactly he would have done to me.

I felt vulnerable and helpless. My fear had surged to such a level that I wasn’t even able to pray to God. The old man slipped his fingers inside my shirt’s collar and ran them across my neck. My body shivered under his hands. I felt suffocated. My mind was losing its grip. I felt my heart beating really fast. In panic, the visuals flashed behind my closed eyes—of the dark movie theatre, of villains in the movie … I imagined his rough hands as they touched my body. Then I imagined how the villains had killed the two heroes in the
first half of the movie. They must’ve felt just as helpless as me. I panted. I was running out of breath and my fear was reflected in my pleas to the man, ‘Please … please … mat karo, Uncle [Don’t do this, Uncle] … please!’

I thought of my mother the same way as I had done on the first day of school. I wanted to run to the safety of her embrace. I thought of my father. I wanted him to beat up this old man. The faces of my parents raced through my mind. In a strange way, they gave me strength. And, therefore, I kept thinking hard about them.

As the minutes passed, I came to some sort of terms with what was happening. I knew I had to open my eyes—if not right at that moment, then eventually.

Just then, I felt the old man’s thumb on my lips. He rubbed my lower lip, and I was overpowered by a strong aroma of paan. His face must have been close to mine—very close. I felt he was going to do something ugly with me. I struggled to open my eyes. Something within me was changing. It must have been my fear, turning into anger. I started taking deep breaths now. I realized that every moment I was turning optimistic. I was secretly telling myself that this had to end and I needed to be strong, because my parents wanted me to be strong.

And then, a strange thing happened. The visuals in my mind changed. Scenes from the second half of the movie came flooding into my mind. The heroes whom the villain had killed in the first half had come back to life. They fought
back and killed the villain. I, too, wanted to fight back and kill my villain!

The old man had just moved his hand to my pants, when I opened my eyes. The fear in them had been replaced with anger. I screamed and, in no time, pulled out the pen from my pocket, removed the cap and stabbed him on his head with it. I narrowly missed his eye. The nib of the pen made a forceful contact with his face, close to the ear.

He lost his grip over me and almost slid down from his seat. He leapt to grab the seat in front in order to stop himself from falling down. He was taken aback by my rebellion. He obviously hadn’t expected me to do what I had done.

For me, there was no looking back. Some kind of madness had taken over my head. I continued to scream. With every scream, the spit from my mouth spilled out on to my lips and my chin. I was breathing heavily again. I attempted to hit him again, but he held my hands in his large palms. Then he covered my mouth tightly with his other palm and pulled me into his lap. He was obviously experienced at this game, because he had managed to overpower me. Nevertheless, I kept struggling hard to release myself from his grip. I even tried to bite his hand—that was my last resort! He managed to evade that as well.

Soon, I felt drained of all my strength. I lay back, completely spent. But my eyes were wide open and there was still hope in them.

Right then I heard a voice that revived me further.

‘Yeh kya kar rahe ho!’ [What are you doing!] someone shouted.

I looked ahead in the distance. It was the conductor. He leapt up on the old man and pulled him away from me. He snatched me out of his grip. At the same time, he shouted at the driver to stop the bus and turn on all the lights.

The bus came to a dead stop as the driver applied the brakes, and the three of us were propelled ahead. The conductor held my shoulder against the thrust. The alarmed old man grabbed the roof bar for support. This time, I finally saw fear in his eyes. And there was anger in mine. The driver came running to the back of the bus, unaware of what was happening. The conductor shouted at the old man and asked him to get out of the bus.

The old man attempted to explain that I was like his grandchild, and that he was only showing his affection towards me. He said that that’s why he’d paid for my ticket as well. He cunningly tried to take this matter up with the driver, who was unaware of what had followed, but not with the conductor. So the conductor cut him short and asked him to leave. All this while, I kept looking at that man in rage.

When he stepped out through the front door of the bus, I slipped my hand into my pocket. I looked at him as he walked back alongside the bus. When he was close to the rear of the bus, where I sat, I took my hand out of the window and dropped a two-rupee note into the street, the ticket fare that
he had paid for me. He looked at me. I shut the window pane in response and looked away. The conductor was still holding on to my shoulder.

I hadn’t realized it, but I was shaking.

The driver started the bus. The conductor asked me a few questions, most of which I responded with a simple yes or no. He asked me not to worry and that he was there for me. I heard and unheard it. Inside, I was feeling a surge of emotions. As time passed by, I realized the anger within me was transforming into a sense of guilt and sorrow. It didn’t matter if I should have felt that way or not, but I wasn’t able to avoid it.

I looked at my watch. It was 7.45 p.m. when the bus finally stopped at the Burla bus stand. I got down and started walking towards my home. It was only when I was away from the crowd and the noise of the busy bus stand, and on the silent road to my house, that I realized I had been crying. I allowed myself to cry hard. I continued to walk, and the silent tears continued to roll down my cheeks. Through my wet eyelashes, the yellow light of the vehicles approaching me glittered. A lump kept forming in my throat and, time and again, I swallowed it.

I tried to console myself. I tried to tell myself that the old man had just touched me here and there, and nothing else had happened that I should cry for. I tried to pacify my rage with the thought that I had taken my revenge by hitting him hard on his face with my pen. But, for some reason, my own reasons felt unreasonable to me.

I walked silently along the quiet road with my schoolbag slung on my shoulder, a half-full water bottle in my hand and a thousand thoughts running through my mind. Every step I took towards home increased my worry. I was about to reach home. I wondered what I would tell my mother—How would I tell her about what had happened? It was all so disturbing.

At the same time, I was scared.
What if that old man had taken the next bus and was following me right now? What if he was hiding in that dark patch on the street approaching my house, ready to pounce?
I looked back in distress. He wasn’t there. I looked here and there. He was nowhere. But he was right there in my mind. The odour of his body and the smell of his paan were there in my nostrils. I wanted to throw him out of my mind. I wanted to run away from his smell. I wanted to undo all that had happened. I wanted to clean myself and wash my body, my back, my face, everywhere he had touched me.

Struggling with my fears, I managed to reach home. The moment I opened the door of my house, my father started shouting at me: ‘Kitthey siga ainni der tak?’ [Where were you for so long?]

His anger startled me. I was not in a position to handle it. I avoided looking at at him and walked towards my mother, saying, ‘I had called Rammi Uncle to tell you that I will be late.’

My father grabbed my hand and stopped me. ‘But tu late hoya kyun?’ [But why did you get this late?]

‘Picture dekhan chalaa gaya si,’ I replied softly, looking down and waiting for him to slap me.

Mom quickly pulled me towards her and caressed my head. She kneeled down and looked into my eyes. ‘Kitthey reh gaya si? Tu theek hai? Bhukh ta nahi laggi?’ [Where had you been? Are you all right? Are you hungry?]

Dad continued to shout at me. I looked at Mom. I wanted to hug her and tell her everything that had happened to me. I wanted to tell her how safe I felt when I was this close to her. But not a single word came out of my mouth. I simply kept looking at her till she took me in her arms and caressed my back. I went numb and my eyelashes were moist again.

Mom asked me why I was crying.

I told her, instead, how the exam had got cancelled. ‘Mommy, exam cancel ho gaya si. So we went for a movie and I got late.’

‘But what is there to cry in this?’ she asked.

‘Bahot bhukh lagi hai … Daddy gussa ho rahe hain …’ [I am very hungry … Daddy is so upset with me …] I murmured, and held back the real reason.

Mom wanted me to promise her that I would never be late in coming home ever again. In my mind, I recalled the horrible evening when I was making that promise.

That night, I slept badly. I woke up several times, and kept tossing and turning in my bed. That old man and my experience in the bus took the shape of multiple bad dreams in the night. I remained disturbed even when I got up in the
morning. As a result, I screwed up my history exam. The only date and event I remembered was what had happened the previous day. I just about managed to pass the exam.

But the impression it left stayed with me for longer than that. Now I was scared to get on to a bus—something that I had to do twice every day. I became paranoid. Every time I stepped into a bus, I would make sure that I didn’t see that devil’s face again among the passengers.

As time passed by and I grew older, my memories of that day started fading.

Thankfully, I never met that old man again in my life.

It was the second week of December. The half-yearly exams were in the past tense now. The results were due in the future—early January. We were left with a pleasant month on our hands that had Christmas, the New Year’s day and a week of winter vacation in between these two holidays.

But what made December special for me was the school’s Annual Day celebration. The peon brought a notice register and English Sir read out the notice for everyone.

He announced the date of the Annual Day for that year. It was the twenty-fourth of December. He also read out the list of the various events that the teaching staff had planned for that day. There were quite a few interesting events such as theatre, dance and mime.

‘Interested students can give their names to—’ he spoke
out the names of the teachers-in-charge after mentioning each event.

I think about 20 per cent of our class loved the Annual Day celebration because they enjoyed participating in the various exciting and creative events. The remaining 80 per cent of the class loved it as well, but for the concept of the last period being zero period. This meant that, for about two weeks till the day of the event, all the last periods in school were cancelled. The event participants were to use this period to practise, while others were allowed to go out and play games.

The whole atmosphere in the school changed during these weeks. It was a lot of fun for everyone since studies were minimal. The Annual Day was followed by vacations, so there was a lot to look forward to as well.

I belonged to that 20 per cent of the class who got excited about the Annual Day events, and who, from Day One, start dreaming of the applause that they would get after their show on stage, in front of everyone. That was a high point in my life.

I initially wanted to opt for the bhangra event, but then, the role of being an anchor for the Annual Day turned out to be the most tempting of all. The English Sir in our class had announced that the English Ma’am from the primary school was in charge of the anchoring part of the event. Auditions were to start from the next day. But my daydreaming started from the very moment Sir made that particular announcement.

Late night, at home, I prepared for my audition. I had drafted a few lines for what I was going to say. In the morning, after taking a bath, I rehearsed my lines in front of the mirror.

‘Respected chief guest, teachers and my dear friends, this evening I welcome you …’ I started by holding a virtual mic in my hands and a towel wrapped around my waist.

Mom looked at me and asked me what I was up to. I told her not to disturb me. So she gave me sufficient time to play it out in front of the mirror.

In the zero period that day, I turned up in the computer lab room. This was the room that had been allotted for the compèring auditions. I found that my competitors were already there—five boys and four girls, all from different classes. Strangely, there was no one else from my class. All the aspirants were making full use of the free computers. Some of them were busy playing Pac-Man on the machines, while others were fiddling with the screen savers flashing on various other machines. I looked back at the door. I wanted to know if I had to compete with only those nine people, or if there were more students coming in. Thankfully, no one came. But, just to be sure, I shut the door and led myself to a vacant seat.

The next time the door opened, I couldn’t help but smile.

She was yet again there in front of me—the love of my life, the primary-school English Ma’am. And soon she and I were going to talk to each other. She looked even more
beautiful that day! Perhaps because she had left her hair open. It was thick and black.

‘Yes, students, so you are all here for the audition?’ she asked.

Everyone replied in a loud ‘Yes!’ There was excitement in the air. I replied after everybody had answered in unison. I wanted to stand out from the others.

‘All right, so let us see what have you prepared,’ she said and took her seat, right next to me.

Oh boy! Her hair smelled so good.

Her presence so close to me had made me anxious. This happened to me every time we were close. I would become so aware of her that I would go numb. I was sure I would have frozen at her mere touch! Such was the effect.

It was amazing how much I wanted her to be near me and how the same nearness paralysed me, so much so that I would find it difficult to deal with it. I found it difficult to speak. Forget about speaking out aloud, it was impossible for me to even hide the flush on my cheeks. I was always eager to present only the best of me in front of her, but, with those cold hands, chattering teeth and stammering speech, it was difficult to appear even normal.

I had already expected these sorts of things to happen to me. Hence, to be better prepared, and to handle that chill in the air-conditioned room in the presence of English Ma’am, I had already drunk enough water and also been to the bathroom. I felt fairly confident.

She looked around to see who would like to present first. Her eyes rested on me.

‘Ravinder, would you want to go first?’ she asked.

My name sounded so sweet on her lips!
I smiled. I was on cloud nine, simply because of the fact that she had remembered my name. But I was still nervous. I rubbed my palms together in an attempt to calm down.

I took a deep breath and, when I was ready, I began. ‘So ladies and gentlemen, tonight we are here to celebrate …’

And everyone laughed. I could not figure out why they were laughing. I looked at English Ma’am.

‘Ravinder, the boy has to do the anchoring in Hindi.’

I felt like I’d got a cardiac arrest. I looked at everyone. My dream had been broken, my confidence had just been shattered. There was complete silence in the room, followed by some giggling.

‘You are delivering your lines in English, which is to be done by the girl,’ Ma’am clarified.

‘Oh, is it?’ I asked.
Now, when was this piece of news broadcast?
I thought to myself, rubbing my fingers on my forehead.

‘The notice that had been circulated yesterday had this point in the end,’ a girl added.

Of course, it would have been there! But how come I never noticed it? Because I hadn’t listened to anything after I’d heard English Ma’am’s name on that day! What an idiot I had made of myself!

The plane of my audition had crashed—dashed to the ground even before it had taken off. The feeling of not being able to make it in this round made me feel frustrated and helpless. I went back to take my seat.

The teacher called the next boy in line. He delivered a few lines. He was good with them. I hated him—not because of his good speech, but because of Ma’am’s sudden interest in him and his speech.

‘Very good!’ she said, and then clapped. So the rest of the folks clapped too!

Except me. I wanted to be different from the others.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked him.

Now what is there in his name?
I wondered. Okay, fine, he delivered a good speech, but then asking his name was a bit unnecessary. To be honest, he wasn’t exceptional. Just a little more than average. And I could have done a better job than him, if only … I cursed myself for not having listened properly. I cursed myself for daydreaming at the mention of Ma’am’s name and not listening to anything beyond it. But what could I do now!

There he was, the star of the moment.

‘Ma’am, I am Paarth,’ he said softly.

I looked at his legs. I wished he would break one of them.

One by one, everyone delivered the speeches they had prepared. The boys did theirs in Hindi and the girls did theirs in English.

When the bell rang, Ma’am announced that she
would reveal the names of the selected ones in next two days.

For a stupid mistake, I felt, I had lost everything. But, then, everything was fair in love and war—and now I had another idea!

From the very next morning, I started making my case to English Ma’am. I had prepared a brand new speech, this time in Hindi. All I wanted her to do was to hear it. Initially, she did not want to listen. But, when I encountered her for the third time in the day, she promised to give me five minutes of her time.

Twice in the past, I had fallen off her expectations. So this was going to be a do-or-die situation for me. She called me to the same computer lab in the recess.

I was there on time. To my surprise, so was she. It was nice again to be so close to her, more so because, this time, there wasn’t anyone to distract her interest. I had all her attention. She was there just for me! I felt special.

As I entered, the air-tight door blocked out all the sounds from the world outside and we were left in a lovely silence. Only the sound of the AC in the lab made its presence felt.

I took her permission and switched off the AC. I did not want to feel cold. There were a thousand things about her, especially at that moment, which could have bothered me. But I kept my focus on what I was there to do.

And I spoke once again … this time in Hindi.

No one can be unlucky for a long time. Just like it happens in our movies, no matter how difficult the start is,
by the end of the movie, all the dots connect and everything falls in place. Well, this day turned out to be one such ending of a movie for me, and the beginning of the next! Unlike my previous two encounters with English Ma’am, this time I rose, from my own ashes, like a phoenix. I delivered the speech perfectly!

It was another story that, the day before, I had made the Hindi teacher from my old school in Burla write the speech for me. I had taken her some of the famous gulab jamuns from Ram Bharose, in order to gently coax the best out of her. By morning, I had mugged up the speech by heart, ready to reproduce it without a single mistake.

And I had done exactly that!

The inclusion of some heavy-duty Hindi words such as ‘shrimaan’, ‘mahodayaa’ and ‘vidyaarthi’ managed to have a lingering effect on her mind.

‘Fabulous, Ravinder!’ she gushed, clapping with joy as she stood up.

How I liked that smile on her face, and loved it more because I was the reason behind it! The next moment I felt her hand on my shoulder.
That was it!
I was about to faint. That was the best moment of my life so far.

‘How did you do that?’ she asked me.

‘It was quite easy for me!’ I showed off.

Then I asked her if I could get the boy’s role to do the compèring in Hindi. She asked me to wait till she announced the result in the official notice later that day.