But Ira Said Read online

  BUT IRA SAID

  shreya mathur

  To Mamma,

  I could use words that fail, or express what falls short

  To thank you for the flights of fancy and dreams you support

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  ‘Baby, is it not late? School nahin hain?’ Tanu bai enters my room with two purposes: first, to shoo me out and then to shoo away the dhool.

  I nod glumly, though my feet refuse to budge.

  Even my shoes don’t want me to wear them. I’ve been examining them for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out whether those pukey green marks near the sole are fungus or something else. And considering what the day holds in store for me, I am willing to spend another hour or two sniffing my shoelaces.

  But I know I can’t be late. The thing about being late when you’re travelling in my carpool is that you end up bagging the unsolicited middle seat, which means that you’re forced to endure Nihar’s dulcet morning sniffling and inappropriate scratching. In addition to this, you’re also treated to an isspecial preview of the contents of Anamika’s nose as she digs it furtively, confident that her early morning quest is concealed by her out-of-proportion face.

  I can see it already. The bossy Blue house prefect Anamika will look at me eagle-eyed and give me a silent once-over as I try to seat myself with as much dignity and elegance as I can. After a minute or two of silence, she will come up with the imposing proclamation: ‘Ira is late again.’

  I don’t do it on purpose, you know. Sure, our school isn’t the set for America’s Next Top Model, but I can’t go about looking like a tramp, can I? Maybe that’s why Anamika is always so unhappy with my appearance. Because the fact of the matter is that I look way better than her. And I don’t dig my nose chori-chori chupke-chupke either.

  Her socks always have a not-so-clandestine rendezvous with her knees, her top button is done up so conscientiously that it looks like she is about to be strangled, and her uniform is so neat and proper that her classmates are probably dying of shame all around her. Whatever, I am so much better than her. She is not even a proper nerd. She is worse than me in academics (not that I am bad, I am like above above average). And, as everyone knows, behind that virtuous Ms Goody-two-shoes image lurks a nasty witch. That isn’t the case with me (at least, not to that extent).

  ‘Finish.’ Tanu bai points at the badaams Ma has left for me on my side table. I drop the shoes and quickly shovel the almonds into my mouth. Badaams are supposed to make you smart. I’ve been eating them since the day I was able to pick up muck and put it in my mouth. I continue sitting on my bed, evading Tanu bai’s glares. Finally, she walks up to me, swinging her matronly hips, and pulls me up.

  ‘Go,’ she orders. ‘You are going to get your result today. But first go and do puja to Saraswati ma. She will get you a nice result.’ She wiggles her eyebrows at me meaningfully.

  Honestly, why did my parents have to name me after a goddess? It’s so boring. Then again, Lavisha’s name is even lamer—it means ‘one who loves god’.

  I don’t think Farzana aunty knew this when Lavisha was born.

  And thus, surrendering my fate to god and my old sports shoes to yucky moss, I make my way to reach the place I’ve been dreading for two weeks.

  I am always bang on right.

  Anamika does exactly what I’d expected. She greets me sarcastically with, ‘OMG! Ira, isn’t it a bit too early for tomorrow?’ Throwing me a reproving glance, she turns towards a scratching Nihar and gurgles, ‘God, she is annoying, isn’t she?’

  Next to me, Rika, Nihar’s twin sister, makes a gagging face right in front of Anamika. She flicks a bang off her face and responds to Anamika’s outraged expression with a sugary sweet, high-pitched, ‘Anamika, I think we all know who is the annoying one here! Anyway, how was your vacation? How was Greece?’ Rika looks as innocent as an angel. Evil witch, that’s what she is. Maybe that’s why I worship her so much.

  Niharika Jaiswal (for that is her full name) has held the title of Bitchiest Person Ever for aeons. She has also held a grudge against Anamika for aeons. It all started when they were in first standard and Rika peed in her pants during class. Anamika, who was her then BFF (Rika never fails to surprise you!), stood up solemnly and announced, ‘Niharika did susu in class!’

  Rika never forgave her and till date refutes all allegations of peeing in class. According to her, Nihar had sneezed on her. Which is a very lame excuse and in no way accounts for the smelly little pool found below her chair.

  Anyway, after the susu-declaration, Rika launched a full-fledged campaign against Anamika Gopani. This started with busting all the tall tales Anamika had told the class. Soon it was common knowledge that Anamika did not have a special underground entrance to her house just for herself and that your wish on an eyelash would come true even if you didn’t make a wish for Anamika before making your own wish. Anamika retaliated by telling Rika to dunk her head in the boys’ toilet.

  Seriously.

  This happened on the last day of first standard and Rika got her revenge on the first day of the new academic year. Fresh from a very educational visit to her teenage cousins in the US, Rika went to Anamika’s class and wrote on the blackboard: ‘Anamika likes lesbians’.

  !!!!!

  My depressingly small-town upbringing ensured this scandalized reaction when Rika first told me this story. Not that I am a prude. Besides, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the prestige of a school is directly proportional to the … umm … extra-curricular education of the students.

  Not that I should have been surprised by this crucial piece of information. It was, until very recently, a time-honoured tradition at Thoburn and Hurst Academy for the graduating batch to spray-paint some gaali-galoch along with biologically accurate diagrams on the middle school walls in a drunken fit (for the benefit of posterity, I suppose). Fortunately (or unfortunately), the principal put a stop to this ritual by holding the graduating student council hostage and withholding their certificates until they came clean on the masterminds behind this—which, of course, meant turning themselves in. Further, a letter detailing their inexcusable offence was sent to all the foreign universities who had already granted them admission. Predictably, letters retracting their admission arrived the next day.

  And just as predictably, the principal was kicked out the next day by the trustees.

  ‘So say, na,’ Rika persists. ‘How was Greece? Or wait, did you go somewhere else? Maldives?’

  Anamika, after a second’s hesitation, decides to ignore her. A Prada-clad vacation is not going to impress Rika. She gives Rika a slow once-over, sullenly ticking off boxes in her mental checklist. Rika, being the class representative, is as immaculate as one can be without looking nerdy. She doesn’t have Anamika’s grating perfection, but none of my scruffiness either. What she has is this exceptionally fine balance between the two. It is something I strive hard to mimic but always fail.

  I can’t talk to people like she does. I can’t decide to watch Shrek Forever After before my math exam and still get a cent per cent result. I don’t have the popularity and unanimous approval she has from students and teachers. I don’t have her razor-sharp tongue or her entourage o
f admirers.

  But do you know what the really sad part is? Even if I had all these things, I wouldn’t know what to do with them.

  Rika continues, ‘Egypt? Russia? Mongolia? Chile? PAKISTAN?’ She is thoroughly enjoying herself.

  ‘Listen, Niharika,’ Anamika breaks her silence, abandoning her search for non-existent flaws, ‘stop it, okay? I went to Greece only.’

  Rika and I break into peals of laughter. Anamika had spent the last two months filling in anyone and everyone who would listen on the itinerary of her post-prelims R&R vacation—in Greece. Greece is among the few European countries Anamika has yet to see and bless. At least, that is what she claims. While most of the students in my class go to Europe and other exotic locations for vacation, Anamika is a laughing stock because she tries so hard to be like us.

  Us … the effortlessly cool people, you know. Who never brag about where they are vacationing. We just drop names casually during everyday conversation.

  ‘Niihaar, you won’t believe it but it was soo hot there!’ Anamika rambles on while Rika makes horns behind Anamika’s head. Hina, the only kid in our carpool, stuffs her mouth with her fist to stop herself from bursting into laughter while Nihar gives the rest of us intensely disgusted looks, one hand furiously scratching away. I’d rather not specify exactly where he was scratching.

  I look at Rika and Anamika thoughtfully. While Greece must be among the handful of exotic European countries Anamika hasn’t seen, Mumbai is among the handful of Indian cities my classmates have seen.

  But this doesn’t hold true for me. As a kid, I remember being hauled to every corner of India as soon as vacation began. I have met tourist guides at the Konark temple who call traffic ‘trophic’ and I have eaten momos in Ladakh. Papa and Ma don’t believe in ‘foreign’ vacations. Their motto: first see your own country and then go abroad. Fine by me.

  I was born in Kanpur. Contrary to popular opinion, it isn’t a sleepy little town. It is more of a waking-up-from-deep-slumber town. The residents of Kanpur embody this spirit magnificently. They have the energy, spark and morning freshness of someone who, despite a long sleep, is more interested in going right back to bed. Both my grandfathers had been professors at IIT Kanpur and my family has lived there since the time it was known as Cawnpore. I was born to spend my life in Kanpur.

  We lived near a huge kothi which once belonged to a potbellied patriarch who manufactured a clothes detergent called Marble. Even though his factory had shut down ages ago and his mansion had been uninhabited for a couple of decades, we still wrote ‘near Marble House’ in our address.

  After I read To Kill A Mockingbird and told my friends (who couldn’t be bothered to actually read it themselves) about it, we would lie to my Daadi, who believed Marble House was haunted, and take turns to dash inside the gate and scream, ‘Boooo! Booo Radley!’

  Much to my mother’s disapproval—she holds a strange grudge against IITs, believing them to be the evil force annihilating all appreciation of the humanities from our country—my grandfathers wanted me to attend IIT Kanpur. After several raging fights they finally agreed to send me to an all-girls’ college in Lucknow. Moral of the story: I was supposed to remain in or near Kanpur.

  But then my mom wrote a book that became a bestseller and a certain incident took place in my school which I don’t like to talk about. And we shifted base to Bombay.

  In our new life in Bombay, we have more money and I have been to almost as many countries as Rika.

  Almost. Or maybe a little less than that.

  I enjoy it, don’t I?

  ‘Really? Do you think so?’ I jerk at Hina’s question, wondering whether I had said that last thought out loud.

  ‘What?’

  Everyone turns to look at me and I realize that she had been talking to Nihar, not me.

  ‘She was asking Nihar how he thought he did in his prelims.’ Anamika rolls her eyes at my confusion and I blush. Great, now I look like a total space case. To cover it up, I turn to Nihar and feign interest, asking, ‘So, how was it?’

  ‘Rocking. Geetika was in front and Amisha behind.’

  (Which is a very obscene thing to say, especially in front of a sixth-standard chick.)

  ‘And of course, Ira—ow!’ Nihar shuts up and glares at me. I must’ve kicked him a bit harder than I’d meant to.

  Anamika raises her eyebrows at the interruption. Cow.

  ‘So? I copied,’ he answers, rubbing his foot.

  Hina looks scandalized. In a school where students in the primary know about the LGBT association waaaayyy before Dostana, this sixth-standard girl’s naïveté is rare.

  Rika, eager to distract Anamika, who has become increasingly suspicious during the exams, adds off-handedly, ‘So? We all cheat. I cheat. Nihar cheats. Yash cheats. Ira cheats. That is, if she can.’ She cracks an evil smile and turns towards Anamika, who shifts uncomfortably, and says, ‘Even Anamika cheats.’

  Hina’s next wide-eyed query unnerves me and causes Anamika to fumble uncomfortably.

  ‘But Ira … why do you need to?’ Hina asks, turning to me, confused. She adopts a conspiratorial tone and says, ‘You can—oww!’ This time it is Rika who kicks her.

  Anamika, glad to find someone else facing the music, comments disparagingly, ‘Ira? She toh must have, definitely!’ She swivels around to face me and remarks with faux concern, ‘Weren’t you crying before and after, like, almost every paper? Overconfident or what? Because if I remember correctly you three were giggling like mad before the first exams.’

  I open my mouth, ready with a riposte, only to find myself defenceless. Rika (god bless her soul) sees this, and without wasting a second, counters Anamika’s obtuse observation with, ‘Anamika. Why didn’t your parents just dump you in Greece? I’m sure they have bins at every corner.’

  Anamika struggles to find a suitable retort but settles for ‘SHUT UP, OK?’

  We travel in silence for the rest of the journey.

  Anamika and I don’t miss a chance to glare at each other. I start examining my blood-red nails (or talons, as Ma calls them). Even though I gave them a new coat just a couple of days ago, they have already begun to chip. I glance down at Rika’s lap, to find perfectly manicured hands, painted sky-blue. A colour I can never do. I shift my focus to Anamika and see proper-proper nicely cut nails. Rika realizes where I am looking and smirks in Anamika’s direction. Weirdo. I wasn’t crying after every exam, I think acrimoniously. Just the last few. When I finally understood what was happening.

  ‘Ira! Give me a hug!’ I hear Nim shriek behind me. Ugh. Bile rises in my throat. That chick is so F-A-K-E. Coated with confectioner’s sugar and all onion and garlic inside. Of course, there is always this tiny shrewd voice inside my head whispering to me about my not-so-different behaviour.

  Before I can turn and brace myself for a Nike deodorant-reeking bear hug, Chittranjan races into our class, crying out, ‘Geography-papers-first! Geography-papers-first!’ Were it not for his tall, lanky frame, his squeaky voice and flapping appendages would give any onlooker the impression of a parrot, more so since he is dressed in his Green house uniform.

  There is a collective gasp. Nim stops mid-track. Anamika’s peepers become saucers. Rika gives a little yelp and turns to me. And Chittranjan and I look around the class. While Chittranjan is panting, pleased to be the bearer of this news, my heart sinks.

  Amidst the commotion and flurry, our geography teacher, Ms Deepika, makes her entrance. Even though my mind is numb, my brain registers her horribly dowdy outfit. Her kurta is a miserable shade of slimy puddle-green and her mustard-yellow dupatta and blue salwar give each other stiff competition in dullness. The star attractions are her shoes, which look like hastily glued pieces of leather resembling crumpled paper boats.

  She sits down with a flourish, takes off her spectacles and gazes at the class intently. This is her second year. Just like me. Ms Deepika Padukone (yes, that is her name. Honestly, not kidding.) had set all the horny senior school gu
ys drooling with the news of her arrival. (So not like me.) Unfortunately for the guys, her fifty-plus, dull salwar-kameez exterior is in vast contradiction to the décolletage-baring, curvy siren image she had conjured up in the minds of our hapless senior male population.

  In response to all the eager Miss-how-have-we-done queries, she puts down her pen and says, ‘Horribly. Only a handful of students have done well. I was so disappointed. Really, class! Thoburn and Hurst is the most reputed IBSE school in the country.’

  Of course our school is the most reputed IBSE school in the country. Our ex-principal, Jagdish Burrow, is the founder of the Indian Board of Secondary Education. He calls it ‘the ultimate educational guide for Indian children which will bestow them with international acclaim and enable them to take our country to the pinnacle of scientific glory’.

  I call it a crappy mixture of CBSE, ICSE, State Boards, IB and A-levels. And that is what it is in essence. Our textbooks even acknowledge the textbooks of other boards.

  The influx of IBSE had all the other boards scrambling for their izzat. The CBSE vs ICSE debates were now passé. The izzat of the State boards had been completely lutofied. Even the almighty IBs had to bow down meekly before us. IBSE had the best and the worst of all the boards. We had the much dreaded board examinations for the tenth and twelfth standards. Add to that CBSE’s draining Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation. With IBSE kids considered as competent as IB kids on an international level, there was a national scale IBSE student conversion.

  Ms Deepika takes the rubber band off the rolled-up answer papers and places it in the drawer. She picks up the first paper and stares at it and then at us. Satisfied with the cheap thrill she must be getting by sadistically toying with those dreaded answer papers in front of us, she finally calls out for Roll No. 1.

  I mentally tune out Ms Deepika’s screeching from my mind and close my eyes, opening them a minute later when I hear a certain someone’s name.

  In front of me, Harsh Asnani has gone up to collect his paper. From the triumphant smile on his face and the pleased one on Ms Deepika’s face, it isn’t hard to guess his marks. Not to leave us in any doubt, his marks are even announced.