Revolution 2020 (22 page)

I guessed that our
staff-canteen lunch plan had to be dropped.

‘I am running
late, but my team will get in touch with you,’ I said as we
came to the lobby.

Aarti gave me a
professional smile and disappeared behind the reception desk. Binayak
chose to wait with me till my car arrived.

‘How come you
wanted to see the rooms?’ Binayak asked.

‘We will have
guest faculty. Maybe from abroad,’ I said. At that moment,
thankfully, my driver drove into the porch.

‘Yeah. You
are
quite stupid,’ I pretended to agree, which made her punch my
arm playfully.

We entered the hotel
lobby. Construction workers were using noisy polishing machines on
the already shiny Italian marble. Smell of paint pervaded the air.
She took me to a restaurant with plush velvet chairs.

‘This will be
our bar - Toxic.’

The hotel would
ensure that even as people visited the city to wash their sins,
they’d commit new ones. We walked around the hotel to see the
rest of the facilities.

‘So, why won’t
people tell me anything?’ she said.

‘What?’
I said.

‘What happened
between Raghav and you?’

‘The college
didn’t like a story the newspaper did. He apologised. End of
story.’

I gave her a
two-minute summary of what had happened, making her swear that she
would never tell Raghav I told her. She told me she hadn’t even
told Raghav she was meeting me, so there was no question of telling
him anything. That’s what human relationships are about -
selective sharing and hiding of information to the point of crazy
confusion.

We found ourselves
in an ethnic-theme restaurant. ‘Aangan, for Indian cuisine,’
she explained. She took me to the gym next. I saw the treadmills with
TVs attached to them.

‘Imported?’
I said.

She nodded.
‘Sometimes I feel so guilty,’ she said. Girls can handle
simultaneous multi-topic conversations with ease.

‘Why?’

‘I spoilt your
friendship with Raghav,’ she said.

‘That’s
not true,’ I said.

She sat down on a
bench-press. I took a balancing ball and used it as a stool.

‘All three of
us used to
befriends
in our childhood. What happened?’
she said, her eyes filling up.

‘Life,’
I said. ‘Life happened.’

‘Without me,
things wouldn’t be so bad between the two of you,’ she

said.

‘No, that’s
not true. I didn’t deserve you. Raghav had nothing to do with
it,’ I said.

‘Never say
that,’ Aarti said, her voice echoing in the empty gym. ‘It’s
not that you don’t deserve me. You are a great guy, Gopal. And
we click so well.’

‘But you don’t
feel that way about me, I know, I know. I am hungry. Where are we
having lunch?’

‘It’s
not that,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Its not like
that with girls. It’s sometimes about timing, and sometimes
about how much you push.’

‘I didn’t
push enough for a relationship?’ I said.

‘You pushed
too much,’ she said and wiped her eye.

I didn’t know
if I should console her. One, she belonged to someone else. Two, we
sat at her workplace.

I picked up a
20-pound dumbbell instead. I found it heavy. However, I pretended to
lift it easily in front of Aarti. Raghav could probably lift twice as
much, I thought.
Why
did
I
always
compete
with
Raghav
on
every
damn
thing?

‘I am sorry,’
I said. I’m sorry if I put too much pressure.’

‘You came at a
time when I didn’t feel ready for anything. You wanted it too
much. You wanted to lean on me. I didn’t think I could be a
strong enough support.’

‘What is this?
My performance evaluation day?’ I said. I did a set of five
with the dumbbell before keeping it down.

‘I am just
saying ... I don’t know why. I guess I really need to talk.’

‘Or need to be
heard,’ I said.

We looked at each
other.

‘Yes, exactly
that. How well you know me, Gopal’

‘Too well,’
I said and smiled.

‘You want to
see the rooms before we have lunch?’ she said.

‘Sure. Where
are we eating?’ I said.

‘At the staff
canteen’ she said.

We took
stainless-steel elevators to the third floor. She had a master key
card to every room.

‘I am not
supposed to bring anyone to the hotel, by the way,’ she
confided.

‘So?’ I
said, wondering if it meant we should leave.

‘I am telling
you how important you are. I am risking my job for

you.’

‘If they fire
you, I will hire you.’

Our eyes met. We
burst into laughter. We had not shared such a moment in years. We
used to laugh like this in school - in sync and for the silliest of
things - a burping kid in class, her mimicking the teachers, me
pretending to sleep during History period.

She opened room
number 3103. I had never seen anything so luxurious in my whole life.
‘Cool,’ I said.

‘Isn’t
it?’ She sat on the large bed with its six cushions of bright
red silk. ‘This bed is heaven! Sit and see.’

‘Are you
sure?’ I said.

‘Sit, no,’
she said.

We sat next to each
other, me on the edge of the bed.

‘It’s
nice,’ I said, as if I was a mattress inspector by profession.

‘It’s
more comfortable lying down,’ she said.

I looked at her,
aghast. She saw my expression and started to laugh, holding her
stomach.

‘I am not
saying let’s,’ she said. ‘Since when did you become
so serious?’

We spent the next
twenty minutes playing around with light switches and bathroom taps.
I had never been with her in a solitary place like this. It was going
to my head. And I sensed a slight tension in the air. Maybe the
tension was only on my side.

‘Let’s
go.’ I checked my watch. I had to be back in the campus soon.
‘Okay,’ she said and shut the washbasin tap.

We stepped out of
the room. A man in a crisp new suit saw us come

out.

‘Aarti?’
he said, surprised.

The colour vanished
from Aarti’s face.

‘Sir,’
she said. I read the tag on the man’s suit. Binayak Shastri,
Banquet Manager.

‘What are you
doing here?’ he said.

‘Sir,’
she said, ‘this is Mr Gopal Mishra. He is a client.’

‘We haven’t
opened yet,’ he said, still suspicious.

‘Hi,’ I
said, offering him my hand. ‘I am the director of the GangaTech
group of colleges’

He shook my hand.

‘We are
thinking of doing a college event here’ I said.

We walked towards
the elevator. I was hoping he would ask no further questions when he
said, ‘What kind of event?’

‘A dinner for
the top companies that we call for placement,’ I said.

Aarti avoided eye
contact with everyone.

‘Sure, we will
be happy to assist you,’ Binayak said, as he handed me his
card.

I guessed that our
staff-canteen lunch plan had to be dropped.

‘I am running
late, but my team will get in touch with you,’ I said as we
came to the lobby.

Aarti gave me a
professional smile and disappeared behind the reception desk. Binayak
chose to wait with me till my car arrived.

‘How come you
wanted to see the rooms?’ Binayak asked.

‘We will have
guest faculty. Maybe from abroad,’ I said. At that moment,
thankfully, my driver drove into the porch.

Over the next two
months we managed to fill a hundred and eighty seats out of the two
hundred in our first batch. For the first time, I actually handed
money to Shukla-ji’s accountant. Many students paid their fee
in cash. Farmers’ kids, in particular, brought money in gunny
bags, with bundles of notes accumulated over the years.

‘Make my son
an engineer,’ a farmer pleaded with folded hands.

It made life so much
easier. For the job and dowry market a B.Tech degree never hurt. Dean
Shrivastava and his gang of twenty faculty members took care of the
classes. I kept myself busy with projects such as getting the hostel
mess operational, hiring new staff and ensuring that the remaining
construction work continued as per schedule. I had a limited social
life. Once a week I had dinner with faculty members, mostly to
discuss work. A couple of times, I ended up at Shukla-ji’s
place.

‘You are the
director of the institute. How can you still stay in your tiny old
house?’ he said one day, after too much whisky.

"The faculty
bungalow will be ready soon. 1 sleep in the office most of the days,’
I said.

Aarti, however, had
come back into my life, as the only non-work person I spent time
with. Ramada opened, she joined work and sat prettily at the Guest
Relations desk in the lobby. On her first day of work I sent her a
box of chocolates and flowers. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I
felt the day was important to her. I made sure the bouquet had only
white roses for friendship - no red ones.

Hey, thanx. Really
sweeeet of u!! :) came her SMS.

I read the message
fifty times. I finally composed a reply. U rwelcome. For a gr8 future
career woman.

She replied after
ten minutes. Why r u being so nice to me?

I had no answer. I
used a women’s trick. When in doubt, send a smiley.

I sent three. :) :)
:)

She messaged: Meet
up after work? 7 p.m. CCD?

Sure, I replied
promptly.

I drove down from
the campus to Sigra to meet her. She told me about her day at work.
She had helped settle five Germans into the hotel, arranged three
cars for a ten-member Japanese delegation and sent a surprise
birthday cake to an American in his room. She seemed happy. I didn’t
think she missed being an air hostess.

‘So we met
today. What do you do in the evenings otherwise?’ she said.

‘Not much.
Stay on campus. Work,’ I said.

‘That’s
horrible. What about friends?’ Aarti said.

I shrugged. ‘I
have colleagues in the college. That’s company enough.’

She patted my hand.
‘You should have friends. Look at me, I have you.’

‘What about
Raghav?’ I said.

‘He works late
at the newspaper.. He has no time ...’ she said, withdrawing
her hand. She did not tell me how Raghav would feel about our regular
meetings, which is what I had really asked. She only told me Raghav
would not find out.

‘You
have
to meet friends after work.’ She sounded like she was
convincing herself,

‘I probably
bore you to death with my hotel stories but...’

‘You never
bore me. Even if you don’t say a word,’ I said.

With that, Aarti and
I became friends-who-meet-after-work. We met twice a week, sometimes
thrice. We ate at new restaurants, visited cafes, took walks in the
Ravidas Park and occasionally watched movies.

We had some unspoken
rules. We didn’t have long chats on the phone, and mostly
texted each other. We never visited the past or talked about touchy
topics. I would never touch her, even though she would

sometimes hold my
arm mid-conversation. At movie theatres, we would enter and leave
separately. That’s what boys and girls did in Varanasi, anyway.
When Raghav called, I would quietly step away so I couldn’t
hear her. Finally, when Raghav finished work, she would leave.

I couldn’t
figure out why I’d started to hang out with her. I had become a
buffer until her boyfriend got free from work. I guess I wanted a
break from work too. And, of course, when it came to Aarti, my
reasons went for a toss anyway.

‘So, Raghav
has no idea we meet?’ I asked her one day.

She shook her head,
and wiped her coffee moustache.

                                                 ♦

Raghav stayed out of
my life after the inauguration day debacle. However, he couldn’t
stay off his old tricks for long.

‘
Varanasi
Nagar
Nigam
eats,
builder
cheats
’

Raghav Kashyap,
Staff Reporter

I woke up to this
headline a month after we opened. He often wrote about
black-marketeer ration shop owners, LPG cylinders sold illegally, the
RTO officer taking bribes and other routine Indian things nobody
gives a fuck about. I would have ignored this article too, had he not
mentioned GangaTech.

I skimmed a few
lines.

The article said,
‘Surprisingly the inappropriate approvals and the resultant
illegal construction are right there in front of our eyes. Unlike
other corruption cases where the wrongdoing is hidden (like the Ganga
Action Plan scam), here the proof is for all to see. Farms are turned
into colleges, which then flout all norms to construct as much as
possible. Colleges will soon have malls next-door. Politicians, meant
to protect us and prevent all this, are often the culprits. This is
not all, the city has new hotels, residential towers and office
buildings where the VNN has taken

its cut. We have
proof to compare the vast difference between what is allowable and
what VNN approved ...'

A box next to the
article listed the controversial approvals.

I read the list:

1.    The
V-CON apartment building, a ten-storey tower on a low-flying zone.

2.    Hotel
Vento, construction of which has taken over a neighbourhood park.

3.    GangaTech
College - Farmland mysteriously approved. College buildings
constructed beyond permissible floor-space index.

I threw the
newspaper away. I had improved my relations with Shukla-ji with great
difficulty. I had told him that the reporter had apologised to me and
that this would never happen again. I knew Raghav was taking revenge
for the ‘sorry’ that day. He must have obtained
GangaTechs building plan from his shady sources in VNN.