Rahul give back my pen

“Rahul, give back my pen.”

“Nope. I won’t.”

“Rahul, come on. Don’t act like a kid. Give me the pen back.”

“But why?”

“Because I have to complete this stupid Analog Communication assignment and submit it, that’s why.”

“You electronics people work too hard, you know that. I mean look at us Mechanical students-we seem to be jobless half the time.”

“That’s because our branch is a lot more tougher than yours. We can’t afford the easy life you have.”

“Oh come on! You are in 2nd year. I don’t know what you are working so hard for. My friends in electronics have passed 2nd year too you know. And they didn’t find Analog Communication by Simon Haykin half as interesting as you do.”

“Maybe that’s because they were smarter than me but I need to do this assignment Rahul, so would you please stop acting like a 5 year old and return me my pen?”

I looked around to see half the study hall starting at us with bloated eyes and listening to our highly animated conversation.

“You might want to keep your voice down Anjali. It’s a study hall,” I said reprimanding her as if she was a 5 year old kid herself and then gave her a huge grin as she looked at me as if she couldn’t believe me.

“I hate you,” she mouthed to me as she tried to look away from the prying eyes of the rest of the occupants of the study hall.

“I know,” I whispered back to her.

“Ok look,” I finally said after she gave me a stare as if she was hoping I would just explode by just staring at me. “No one does assignments on their own here. This is Manipal Anjali. You are degrading the name of our prestigious institute by doing an assignment on you own. Just copy it.”

Her staring at me further intensified and I felt a little cared now thinking I could as well explode by just the way she was staring at me so intensely.

“Ok!” I said. “That wasn’t the best thing to say to you, was it?”

No answer. She continued staring. “Ok-ok! Look. I am bored. And I mean really bored. So can you do the assignment later please? Can we just do something fun and then get back to your assignment?”

She folded her hands and continued staring. “I thought you were in 3rd year,” she said. “You have placements coming up. Don’t you need to prepare for them?”

“They are still a semester away Anjali. It’s not like they are tomorrow. So will you please just stop reprimanding me like you are my mother?”

Her hands remain folded and the tip of her nose itched a little. “Alright,” she said haughtily. “What do you want to do?”

“First,” I said touching her nose, “I want you to unfold those hands and bring down the tip of your nose so that I know you are not angry with me.”

She kept her hands forded for a few more seconds before I caught a hint of a smile on her lips and then she slowly broke out laughing. I once again felt helpless as I saw her smile knowing fully well that I was almost surely in love with her. “Alright, fine,” she said closing the Analog Communication textbook with a thud. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Anything which has got nothing to do with books and which you would define fun.”

“Ahhhhhh…..that’s a tricky one,” she said.

“I know.”

We sat there for a few minutes thinking of what we could do with the evening when she finally said, “Alright. I have got an idea.”

“What?” I responded.

She gave me wink and said, “Follow me.”

So I followed her out of the Study Hall, down two floors and onto the parking lot where my Pulsar was parked in all its majesty. “Start the bike,” she said. I gave her a quizzical look for a few seconds and then got onto the bike and started it. She took the pillion seat and I drove my beak out of the parking lot. “Where to?” I asked.

“Keep driving,” is all she answered.

So I drove the bike through the college and out of the campus and headed straight for Sheela. She told me to turn left and I duly did so without asking any further questions. The road was downhill from here on so I slowed down the bike a bit. We want past CCD, which I thought could be one of our likely destinations but to my surprise it wasn’t. “Where are we going?” I asked unable to help my curiosity.

“Not far now,” she answered me back.

I continued driving down the road as we went past a few buildings, restaurants and shops in our journey whose destination I had no idea about. As we went Past Shambhavi Flats, I got a bit confused. There was nothing much left. Only 2 possible destinations after Shambhavi were Down Town, a local bar and restaurant, the most preferred destination of MITians to get drunk and Q-ball, a Pool and Snooker place, adjoined to Down Town. Once we went past Down Town, we would be reaching the end of Manipal and onto Barkala and there was no way we were going to Barkala. Unless she was planning to make me drive all the way to Mangalore which a further 90 minutes away. But then no one went to Mangalore in the evening unless you were planning to stay over and return the next morning. So Mangalore was out of the question. It slowly dawned on me that Down Town could indeed be our destination.

My hunch was confirmed a few minutes later when, as we reached Down Town, she asked me to slow down and eventually stop the bike.

“DT?” I asked in amazement as I got off the bike. “You want to drink?” I asked still amazed.

“No silly,” she said leading me by the hand into the restaurant. “We are not going to drink.”

“You really know how to break a man’s heart, don’t you?” I said in jest as we looked for seats in the over crowded restaurant.

The thing about Down Town was although it was a restaurant cum Bar, it was more of a Bar than a restaurant. Or a lounge, if you wanted to call it that. There were tables assembled through out the place. Loud music blared at almost full volume through the speakers which were housed near the entrance of the restaurant so much so that you had to almost literally shout so that the other person could hear what you were speaking. Down Town was always dark, the lights were always switched off and the only source of light came from the bar located at the end of the room. The ambience of Down Town was often regarded as the best you could get in a hangout spot in Manipal with its loud music, the songs that blared out of their music system and the darkness adding an electric effect to the place and it was easy to see the reason why college students frequented this place so often. Down Town was almost always crowded during the evening. As we found a seat in the restaurant, the music system changed tracks and ‘It’s My Life’ by Bon Jove started playing. Some of the crowd went wild while the others acted as if they could care less. As long as they continued playing these rock songs no one really bothered with the music. Neither did me.

“Alright,” I said as we sat down. “You brought me to DT but we are not going to drink,” I said stating the facts. “What’s up?”

“You said you wanted to have fun,” Anjali answered as she soaked in the ambience that only DT could provide. “So- we are going to have fun.”

“Fun?” I questioned ambiguously. “Fun in DT without any alcohol,” I said. “Something must have happened to Manipal.”

“Yeah,” she responded over the sound of the music. “It’s getting better,” she said smiling.

“I hope so,” I replied. “Anyways, what fun are we going to have here?”

She waited a few moments before slowly smiling at me and saying, “We are going to play a game.”

I repeated the words she had said in my mind looking for a punch line somewhere. This had to be a joke. She brought me all the way to DT to play a game? If she thought I was going to sit here and play Rock, Scissor, Paper with her-then she was seriously going to get it from me today. Unable to find out what was supposed to be the catch line in her phrase, I questioned, “Say what?”

“I said,” she replied clearing her throat rather vigorously, “we are going to play a game.”

“Please tell me you are kidding,” I said almost pleading to her.

“Nope,” she said shaking her head. “Am totally serious.”

“What game?” I asked. I hope she didn’t come up with some obscure version of a game we used to play in 5th grade.

“I never,” she said simply.

“I never what?” I asked in bewilderment.

I couldn’t even haphazard a guess to what was going on in her mind right now.

“I never” she repeated. Seeing the look of disbelief on my face, she started explaining. “Very simple game actually. We will have a tequila shot in front of us. Then each of us would take turns saying things that they have or haven’t done. If the person hasn’t done the aforementioned thing, then he picks up the tequila shot and gulps it down. If he has or she has, then well-the shot stays put.”

I kept quite for a moment letting the words sink in. Then I said, “I thought we weren’t drinking tonight.”

“We aren’t,” she replied.

“But didn’t I just hear you say ‘tequila shots?’” I questioned.

“You did,” she replied.

“Ok,” I said drawing myself closer to her. “When was the last time tequila didn’t imply alcohol?”

“Ahhh…” she said lying back on the sofa. “But we won’t be drinking tequila.”

Then?”

“Instead of tequila shots, we’ll use the good old Mountain Dew,” she said.

“But why?” I asked.

“Because,” she said now drawing herself closer to me and whispering, “Darr ke aage jeet hai.”

“Funny,” I replied sarcastically.

“It is,” she said laughing. “Look,” she then said straightening up, “the point of the game is to know things about each other which we don’t usually ask. It isn’t getting drunk. So whether we use Tequila or Mountain Dew, it really shouldn’t make a difference.”

“You have a point there,” I said smiling at her.

“Alright then,” she said rubbing her hands as if in anticipation, “let’s order the drinks.”

We called the waiter and ordered two bottles of Mountain Dew. The waiter seemed surprised for we didn’t order anything else. He brought the bottles a few minutes later and kept it in front of us. As he was keeping the bottles on the table Anjali gave me a huge smile as if she really was expecting to unearth all my darkest secrets. I smiled back at her, half in anticipation, half in confusion.

“So? Shall we begin?” Anjali said as the waiter left.

“Sure,” I replied.

“Alright,” she said, “I’ll go first.”

She thought for a few moments before saying, “Alright. Let’s begin with a simple one. I have never touched a cigarette in my life.”

I immediately picked up the mountain dew bottle and took a sip. “Guilty as charged,” I said.

“When?” she asked.

“In 1st year. Got caught away with the whole smoking is cool in college thing. But didn’t continue for long. Quit in like a month or something,” I said.

“Hmmm….good,” she said. “Now your turn.”

“Ok…ummm….yeah~I have never completed an assignment on my own.”

I grinned at her. She smiled wryly, picked up the mountain dew bottle and drank from it. The game continued.“I have never slapped or gotten into a fight with anyone in my life,” she said.

I looked at her thinking where all this was leading to. She didn’t say anything so I duly picked up the mountain dew and repeated the exercise. She didn’t register any surprise at the revelation that I had been into fights.

“How many?” she asked matter of factly.

“Lost count,” I replied.

“Ooooohhhhh,” she said. “So you had a gang or something? Riding on your bikes, a bunch of bad boys and looking for fights.”

I laughed and said, “Nothing like that. But you just tend to get into fights. When someone talks too much and refuses to shut up, then well, using your fists is a sure shot method to shut him up.”

“Oooohhhhhh,” she began again. ‘Aren’t you the bad boy?”

“Yeah, totally,” I replied.

“Ok, your turn.”

I thought for a moment as to what else I could say here. I wanted to know a lot about her but at least in the beginning I had to keep it simple. “I have never seen the Taj Mahal,” I said without realizing if this question was even valid

She raised her bottle of mountain dew much to my surprise.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yup,” she answered drinking from the bottle.

“That’s unbelievable,” I stated. “I mean who hasn’t seen the Taj Mahal,” I said emphasizing on the statement as if it was the biggest crime not to have seen Taj Mahal.

“I haven’t,” she said answering my unintentional question.

“How come?” I asked still surprised.

“Never got the chance to,” she answered. “But don’t worry. I plan to. It’s on the top my of to-do list.”

“It better be,” I quipped.

We went back to the game. Statements flowed in thick and fast. She always seemed ready with her next statement while I had to think what to say next. It was as if she had come armed with questions about me, leaving me exposed in her presence and vulnerable. The statements were mostly harmless though and one that I didn’t mind drinking mountain dew to. We never really touched serious issues, keeping personal stuff away from the game lest anyone of us got offended. Most of the statements were like ‘I have never copied in an exam’ or ‘I have never shouted back at my mom’ or ‘I have never woken up on time for an 8’0 clock class in the morning.’ Stuff like that. Harmless and one which no one would mind answering. Most of my answers were often followed by her sweet anecdotes. Like when I admitted I had gotten into quite a few arguments with my mom, she looked as if she was going to skin me alive and then reprimanded me for arguing with the most important person in my life. “How could you?” she said as if I had just murdered someone. “She is your mother Rahul. Don’t you have any respect for her?”

I acted as if I was annoyed with her anecdotes but then in all honesty I loved them. I loved the way she would scold me like I was a 5 year old kid and at times I would pout up my face as if I was about to cry just to play along. But then I did have some serious questions. I knew they were personal and that’s why I tried to resist myself from asking them but after a while my curiosity began to get the better of me and I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist for long.

And then finally came that moment where my resistance broke and I finally took the plunge of trying to get my inquisitiveness answered and praying that she wouldn’t be offended.

I looked down at my bottle of mountain dew for a while, desperately trying not to look at her as I spoke, “I have never had sex.” I didn’t dare to look up. I just hoped, pleaded and prayed to God that I hadn’t crossed the line. I slowly raised my head to gauge her reaction, fearing that if I had hurt her then I would never be able to forgive myself.

When I looked up to se her reaction, I just saw a straight face without a hint of expression on it. I searched her eyes, looking for even a hint of a reaction that I had hurt her, but there was none. She just continued sitting there without batting an eyelid. For a moment it crossed my mind that she wasn’t reacting because she wasn’t supposed to. She was supposed to drink the Mountain Dew only if she hadn’t done the thing that I had mentioned and if she had, then she just waited before she continued the game. Somewhere I felt a pinch in my heart. But then she slowly raised the bottle of mountain dew to her lips and took a sip from it. It was like a truck load of weight had been shifted off my heart. I felt relieved for perhaps the thing that I had feared most hadn’t happened. 

I don’t know why I felt so. For the fact that I myself wasn’t a virgin meant that I had no right to judge others or think lesser of them if they weren’t. And thought it wouldn’t have made a difference at all towards my feelings for Anjali, somehow I just felt happy. Even relieved to an extent. So she hadn’t got to that level of intimacy with Mohit. But then I expected it. Her dreams, her simplicity, her innocence meant that she believed in those principles which I seemed to have long forgotten. And that one sip of mountain dew confirmed that simple fact-she remained as I had imagined her to be, the picture that I had of her remained untainted-pure and untouched.

Yet the awkwardness of the moment didn’t slip by any of us. We both didn’t say anything for a while. I was aware that I had embarrassed her a bit and myself too but my bigger concern was that I hadn’t hurt her. So far though I looked to be safe. 

I almost saw a hint of a smile on her face. As if knowing that I wasn’t a morally corrupt person eased her of a burden I wasn’t aware of. I hated lying to her. Yet somehow, the truth would be far too painful than a simple lie. And so I continued with the lie. For her sake, for my sake.

“Ok,” she said. “Last round. So shoot.”

I thought of the one thing that I wanted to know more than anything in the world right now. The one thing that would make this game more than what it was. The one thing that would clear all the doubts from my mind and wash away all the cobwebs. And so, knowing very well that this might be my last chance to know the truth, the one truth that would all the difference in the world right now, I once again plunged myself into an abyss the depths of which I had no idea about.

“I….” I slowly began, “am not in love.” 

The music continued playing somewhere in the background. But with each passing moment the music seemed to dissolve into the space between me and Anjali so much so that it didn’t matter anymore. There were people shouting, screaming and getting drunk but the people didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did. All that mattered was the moment, so beautifully fusing with the surroundings that it seemed to create an atmosphere if its own. And somewhere in the chaos sat two souls whose destiny would be decided by one bottle of mountain dew. She seemed hesitant, not knowing how to respond. I thought back to that moment when we had first come here and asked her the reason as to why we were playing this game with mountain dew and not teqilas. I remembered her reply and smiled. ‘Darr kea age jeet hai Anjali,’ I thought to myself. For if she could over ride that fear, that hesitance that seemed to have unsettled her, then maybe, just maybe, I could win the most cherished thing in the world, the one I had been craving for so long-love. All she had to do was pick up that bottle of mountain dew. ‘Pick it up Anjali, pick that bottle, I know you want to pick it,’ I kept telling myself.

I looked at her and saw nervousness in her eyes. I wished I could relay to her how much this moment meant for me. Then I decided that maybe I should drink first. Maybe that might encourage her. So I raised my bottle of mountain dew and giving her a slight glance took a sip. I kept the bottle down and gave her a small smile confirming that ‘yes-I was in love.’ Her eyes slowly moved a little as I smiled at her. Her expression change just a bit. And I knew that this was the moment of the truth. And slowly her hands reached towards that bottle of mountain dew. She clenched it in her fists and then with one small jerk raised it to her mouth. As the bottle touched her sumptuous lips, she gave me the slightest of smiles and then that liquid inside the bottle went down her throat. I felt like that mountain dew was quenching my own thirst, wetting my throat which had dried up in anticipation. My heart which had almost stopped for a while was beating again. And I had that amazing feeling to just jump up and down and dance wildly in celebration. Yet I somehow managed remain seated.

As she kept the bottle back, neither of us said a word. We just sat there, staring at each other, wondering how much just this one little action of ours meant. It meant the world to me. I hoped it meant the same for her. The music was still playing somewhere in the background but we remained oblivious to it. The crowd kept shouting but we had lost track of them a long while ago. We were in our own world, a world which could not be touched by the people or the things around us, where we had set our own little home and no one but us could enter it. “Let’s go,” I said after a while although I wish I could stay there looking at her forever.