Revolution 2020 (17 page)

‘Its amazing
to be in love only when the other person loves you back,’ I
said. I regretted my statement instantly.

‘Ouch! Below
the belt.’

‘I am sorry,’
I said.

‘That was so
long ago. And Raghav and I are happy. So happy

‘Should we go
back in?’ I said.

‘If you are
willing to open up,’ Aarti said, you can find someone nice,
Gopal.’

‘I don’t
need anyone,’ I said and looked away.

She held my chin and
turned my face towards her. ‘You will own a college. I will be
just a flight attendant selling chips, if I am lucky. You can get
someone better.’

‘Someone
better than you?’ I said.

‘Totally,’
she said.

‘That is not
possible, Aarti,’ I said. Before she could answer, I stood up
again and returned to the party.

I went up to Raghav
and told him I had to leave to meet a contractor. He didn’t
seem to mind it much. I came outside his apartment and took the
stairs down. Aarti came after me. ‘Gopal!’

I looked back at her
from the steps. ‘What?’ I said.

‘Don’t
tell me you still have feelings for me?’

I swallowed hard.
‘Not at all,’ I said and sprinted out.

How long is your
break?’ I shouted. A group of labourers sat under the banyan
tree near the main campus building. ‘Its two-thirty, lunch
ended an hour ago.’

We had only a week
left for the final AICTE inspection. The classrooms needed a last
lick of paint. The workers didn’t care.

‘Your work
will be done, sahib,’ said one of the workers, folding the
newspaper he had been sitting on. He wore a tattered vest and dark
trousers with cream paint all over it.

‘My college
wont open if the inspector is unhappy with us,’ I said.

‘Who is going
to say no to your college?’ the worker stood up.

The other workers
tightened their turbans. They picked up their brushes and moved to
the classrooms. 1 remained under the banyan tree, exhausted by my
daily ritual of hauling up the men every two hours. I glanced down at
the newspaper left behind by the workers. A headline caught my
attention: ‘Varanasi needs more colleges’.

I picked up the
newspaper. Under the headline was the writers name - Raghav Kashyap.

The article talked
about how the youth population of Varanasi had grown significantly in
the last ten years. At the same time, the number of colleges had not
kept pace with the demand. It made recommendations on how the
government could make education a priority. He even argued that the
government should allow colleges to make a legitimate profit, so that
corporate bodies could enter the sector and improve quality. Even
though it came from Raghav, I liked the article. It augured well for
my business.

The article had a
separate box with a list of colleges about to open in Varanasi. It
had five names, and I saw GangaTech in the list.

‘Wow,’ I
said to myself, excited. I had never seen GangaTech’s name in
print. I dialled Shukla-ji’s number.

‘Well done!’
Shukla-ji said. ‘Wait and see how much press we get when we
open.’

I wanted to call
Raghav and ask if he could do a detailed piece on my college. A
reputed newspaper talking well about GangaTech could do wonders for
our opening.

I didn’t have
his mobile number. I could easily obtain it from Aarti. However, I
didn’t want to call her. I took the newspaper to the campus
building. My office still didn’t have furniture. I sat on a
plastic chair and reminded myself to call the carpenter.

I looked at my phone
contacts. Aarti always came first, given that her name begins with
‘Aa’.

‘I am only
calling her to get Raghav’s number,’ I told myself many
times before I felt courageous enough to call.

She picked up after
four rings. ‘Hey, what a surprise,’ she said.

‘Hi, how are
you?’ I said. I did not want to exchange pleasantries. However,
to jump directly to my query seemed abrupt.

‘I’m a
little low, but that’s okay,’ she said. ‘How are
you? It was nice chatting with you at the party.’

I guess I should
have enquired why she felt low. However, I sidestepped it. ‘Yeah,
listen, do you have Raghav’s number?’ I said.

‘Of course.
How come you want it?’

‘There’s
an article of his I read in the paper today, on education. I liked
it, wanted to tell him.’

‘Oh, sure,’
she said. ‘He will be so happy.’ She read out the number
to

me.

‘Thanks,
Aarti,’ I said. ‘Speak later then?’

‘You don’t
want to know why I am low?’ she said.

When a girl asks you
that, you’d better say yes. “I do. Why?’ I said.

‘Mom and dad
won’t let me leave Varanasi,’ she said.

‘Really? How
will you fly for an airline then?’ I said.

‘Exactly. What
am I supposed to become here? A boat hostess?’

‘Convince
them,’ I said, for lack of better advice.

‘They won’t
listen. I may have to run away.’

‘Are you
crazy? They will come around,’ I said.

‘Will you talk
to them?’ she said.

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, why
not?’

‘Who am I?
Raghav will be better, no?’ I said.

‘Raghav? He
doesn’t even want me to go. Plus, he is so busy at the
newspaper, he won’t meet
me,
let alone my parents’

‘You have no
other friend? Somebody from the aviation academy?’ I said. ‘Or
maybe even your faculty?’

‘You don’t
want to do it, is it?’ she said.

‘No, I just...
I just don’t think I am the best person to talk to them about
this.’

‘Fine,’
she said. ‘Fine’ means somewhere between ‘whatever’
and go to hell’ in Girlese.

‘Okay, the
site engineer is calling me,’ I lied. ‘I will speak to
you later.’ I hung up. I checked the duration of the call. I
had spoken to her for seven minutes and twenty-two seconds. I felt
like calling her again, and advising her on how to deal with her
parents.
Maybe
I
should
have
agreed
to
meet
her
parents;
after
all,
she
had
chosen
me
from
all
the
people
she
knew.
I almost pressed re-dial when I checked myself.

Only
pain
will
come
from
being
close
to
her.
She
belongs
to
Raghav,
and
there
is
no
place
for
me
in
her
life,
I scolded myself.

I called Raghav. He
picked up the phone immediately.

‘Hi, it’s
Gopal,’ I said.

‘Oh, hi,’
he said. ‘What’s up, buddy? Thanks for coming to the
party that day.’

‘You are
welcome. How’s the new job?’

‘They are
letting me write, even though tame stuff.’

‘I read your
article today. Pretty good.’

‘You read it?
Wow. Thanks’

‘You mentioned
GangaTech, thanks for that too.’

‘Oh, our
research team made that table. You are about to open, right?’

‘Yes, almost
ready. Would you like to visit? Maybe you can do a story specific to
GangaTech.’

‘Yeah, I
could,’ Raghav said, his voice hesitant. ‘Though the
policy might be to not talk about specific institutions’

‘Oh, in that
case, forget it,’ I said. I didn’t want to take a favour
from him, anyway.

‘But I could
do a story on you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, a young
boy from Varanasi opens a college. It is something. And in that
interview we can talk about GangaTech’

‘I am more of
an employee,’ I said.

‘MLA Shukla is
the real person, right?’ Raghav said.

‘He is a
trustee, yes’

‘And he paid
to build the college?’

‘Well, he
arranged for the funds’ I said.

‘From where?’
Raghav said.

I didn’t like
his interrogative tone. ‘He knows lots of charitable people,’
I said. ‘Anyway, do you want to interview me? Either way is
fine.’

‘Of course, I
do. When do you want to do it?’

‘I have an
inspection next Friday. After that? Maybe the weekend,’ I

said.

‘Sure, I will
see you. Where?
Dainik
office?’

‘No. Come to
my office,’ I said. I stressed the last two words.
I
have
a
huge
office
now,
buddy,
I wanted to tell him.

‘Oh, sure.
Where’s your campus?’

‘Ten
kilometres outside the city on the Lucknow Highway. You will see the
board on your right.’

I came out of the
campus building. I examined the three-storey structure. We had to
paint it gray in the coming week.

My phone rang. It
was Bedi.

‘Yes, Bedi
sir,’ I said.

‘I’ve
lined up seven solid faculty members for interviews tomorrow. Are you
free?’

‘I have no
choice but to be free. I am on the site all day, can you bring them
here?’

‘No way. We
have to go to their houses. Three other colleges are opening in the
area. They all have offers. We have to lure them,’ he said.

I sighed. Every day
brought a new challenge.

‘Fine, I will
arrange a car from Shukla-ji’s office,’ I said.

                                                  ♦

We reached Prof MC
Shrivastava’s house in Ashok Nagar at eight a.m. sharp, as
instructed by the retired electrical engineering professor from NIT
Allahabad. We had to get someone from NIT, if not an IIT, to be the
dean. We had almost struck a deal with a retired NIT Bhopal
professor. However, he found a better offer closer home in Indore.
Prof Shrivastava was AICTE gold standard, with over thirty years’
experience. Like all things golden, he didn’t come cheap.

‘Two lakhs a
month?’ I asked. ‘But we have just started.’

Mrs Shrivastava, the
professor’s wife, served us tea and
poha
for breakfast.
She joined the negotiations. ‘Sri Amma College has made an
offer. One and a half lakhs, plus a car with a driver,’ she
said.

‘Madam, the
university we are affiliated to controls our fee,’ I said.
‘Plus, we are new. I don’t know how admissions will go.’

‘Is that our
problem?’ Mrs Shrivastava asked, quite correctly.

Bedi jumped into the
fray. ‘Whatever reasonable requirements you have, tell us. We
will accommodate,’ he said.

‘But we have a
budget,’ I said.

Shrivastava put his
spoon down. ‘Who are you,’ he said to me, ‘the
owner’s son?’

‘I am the
owner, Gopal Mishra. The college is on my land,’ I said.

‘And
Shukla-ji? Doesn’t
he
decide on this?’

‘He is a
silent trustee,’ I said. 'I decide.’

The professor looked
at me for a few seconds, surprised at my defiance.

‘Mr Mishra,
the dean is most important. I know the AICTE people. With me,
consider the inspection done,’ Shrivastava said.

‘We have a
setting in the AICTE too,’ I said, please understand. If I give
you a high package, all other members of the faculty will demand
similar levels’

‘You don’t
have to disclose my salary’ he said.

‘How will we
keep it hidden? The accounts department will have the details,’
I said.

‘Pay part of
it in cash,’ Shrivastava said. Silence descended over the
table. He had already provided a solution. A more practical dean
would be hard to find.

‘How much?’
I said.

‘Fifty per
cent? Maybe more,’ he suggested. ‘It only saves me taxes.
And nobody feels jealous of me. In fact, my on-paper salary will be
lower than that of the teachers’

‘We knew we
had come to the right place’ Bedi said.

‘Fine,’
I said.

We settled for a
one-lakh-cash-seventy-thousand-cheque package per month. The new dean
came on board immediately. He offered to help us hire other faculty,
for salaries ranging from thirty to eighty thousand a month,
depending on experience and the degrees they possessed.

I'll charge ten
thousand per hire as search fee, apart from my salary.’

‘That’s
fine. When can you start?’ I said.

‘Anytime,’
he said. I will come to campus three days a week.’

‘Three days?’
I said. ‘You are the dean of the institute. How can the college
work without you?’

‘I am the
dean, that is why three days. Else, once a week is enough,’ he
said.

‘What?’
I said.

‘Which faculty
goes to teach every day in private colleges? Don’t worry, I
will tell the AICTE inspectors I am there every day.’

‘But who will
manage the faculty? Who will ensure that classes are held on time and
the students are taught properly?’ I said, my heart beating
fast. I didn’t know if this was how a college dean should be.

‘It’s a
private college. We will manage. Tell him, Bedi-ji, how it works,’
Shrivastava grinned.

Bedi finished his
cup of tea and nodded. ‘Of course. We will figure out the
teaching arrangements and all later. Right now our focus is the
inspection, and then the admissions. Later on, senior students can
teach first-year students. Happens in many colleges’

Mrs Shrivastava
cleared the table. We moved to the drawing room.

'Whats your
admission strategy?’ Shrivastava said.

‘We are
advertising in all newspapers. Participating in career fairs, also
approaching schools and coaching classes,’ I said.

'Approaching schools
for what?’ he asked.

‘We’ll
go to schools and make a presentation on our college,’ I said.

‘Who cares
about the presentation? Did you fix the principals?’
Shrivastava said.

‘We will,
don’t worry,’ Bedi said.