Your Dreams Are Mine Now (19 page)

Rupali was extremely happy to finally get her roommate and best friend back. She had been waiting for her return since last evening. There was so much she had to share with her, for so much had happened in her life while Saloni was away.

‘I’m fine, how was your trip?’ Rupali asked.

Had Saloni not left the country and gone to Australia with her family for her vacations, she would have been up-to-date with Rupali’s life. But then, had that happened, the two would not have looked forward to having a girly midnight-gossip session. ‘Oh, it was so much fun! I will tell you what I did!’ she smiled and winked.

Saloni then looked around at their room. Unlike other girls in the hostel, she had been spared the task of dusting and arranging her stuff. Rupali had taken care of it. She was the one who had kept the room neat and tidy.

They spent some time chit-chatting and randomly gossiping about things that were on top of Saloni’s mind, after which Rupali suggested that she change her clothes so they could go and have their dinner. Saloni was not hungry at all, but she offered to give Rupali company. She opened her bag to pull out her T-shirt and pyjamas.

‘Here! This is for you,’ she said as she tossed a brown paper bag on Rupali’s bed.

‘What is it?’ Rupali asked as she tore open the packet. ‘Check it out yourself!’ Saloni responded, busy trying to figure out where she had kept her own clothes inside her luggage.

‘But there was no need to . . .’ Rupali said, guessing it was a gift for her.

‘Hello! Madam!’ Saloni shouted back. ‘I didn’t spend my money on you!
Baap ke paison se liya hai.
This is all from my dad’s money
.
So chill!’

‘Why do you treat your father like that?’ Rupali expressed concern and, as usual, Saloni didn’t bother to answer her.

She then turned her attention to the bag and began pulling out the clothes inside it. There was a navy blue sweatshirt, a bottle of perfume and two pairs of lingerie—one red and one black.

Looking at the flimsy underwear Rupali exclaimed in shock, ‘Haww! How could you get me this!’ She was staring at a black lacy G-string. She felt shy even looking at it, so she immediately threw it back into the bag.

Watching her reaction, Saloni burst out laughing. She walked up to her and said, ‘Come on! Isn’t it sexy?’, and pulled it out of the paper bag again. ‘Why don’t you try it on and show me?’ she asked as she brandished it in front of Rupali.

‘I call it lack of cloth!’ Rupali said bluntly.

Saloni burst into a laugh again. ‘No, stupid, these are in fashion. The ones that I’ve got for you are not available in India.
Ek to mein tere liye le ke aai.
Since I have got it especially for you, you will have to accept it.’

Rupali knew she was in trouble. Her roommate had not yet given up on her pledge to transform her into a modern Delhi girl. While she had been successful in moving her from salwar kameez to capris and sleeveless tops, and Rupali knew she wanted her to wear shorts, never in her wildest imagination had Rupali thought that her roommate would someday insist on what she should wear inside!

But she also knew that Saloni would not listen to her. She didn’t want to offend her friend, as it was a gift she had bought for her. So she agreed to wear the G-string but on one condition—that there was no way she was going to try it in front of her; something Saloni was so comfortable doing openly in their room.

Rupali smiled. ‘Okay, madam, you win! Now let’s go for dinner or I’ll go off to sleep!’

Post dinner, after a long leisurely walk in the cold night, during which they interacted with a few other girls from their batch, the roommates were back in their room. Saloni looked at her watch. It was almost midnight. She picked up her facewash kit and went to the washroom.

When she returned, she freaked out,
‘It’s damn cold!’
She complained about the cold water as soon as she came back to the room. She was shivering and quickly pulled out her towel and wiped her face and hands.

‘Ha ha! Welcome back to Delhi from a warm Australia!’ Rupali laughed. Everything in the room, too, was cold. Saloni thought about getting a room heater the very next day and, while saying so, she jumped into Rupali’s bed and slipped inside her blanket. She placed her cold hands over Rupali’s relatively warm ones.

‘Ouch!’ Rupali screamed.

‘Mazaa aaya?’
Saloni laughed, asking if Rupali had enjoyed her cold touch. She didn’t wait for Rupali to react and asked, ‘So tell me, what’s going on?’

‘What do you mean what’s going on?’ Rupali responded.

‘What’s the reason for this beautiful glow on your face, sweetheart?’ she asked.

For a moment Rupali became very conscious, even though she had already planned to tell everything to Saloni.

‘You are the reason. You have come back now, na!’ Rupali reasoned.

Inside their blanket Saloni immediately tapped Rupali’s hand and said, ‘Give this bullshit to someone else, okay!’ Saloni smiled with confidence. She had guessed it. Something was definitely going on!

‘What?’ Rupali attempted a weak defence.

‘Achha!
With whom were you exchanging SMSes while I was talking to my basketball team friends outside the mess? Haan? Now tell me, what’s going on!’

‘Oh, come on! I was talking to my family,’ Rupali lied. Saloni could make that out as Rupali avoided looking into her eyes.

‘Really? Then let me check your cell . . .’ saying that, Saloni stretched her arm over Rupali’s body to reach out for her phone on the table.

‘No. Please. No!’ Rupali shouted and jumped at once to secure her phone.

There! She had said it all without saying anything!

With no iota of doubt in her mind, Saloni laughed slowly, ‘
Hey . . . hey . . . Betey! Sab samajh aa raha hai mujhe . . . hey . . . hey.
’ She took her time to make use of the opportunity to see her roommate embarrassed at being caught red-handed.

And Rupali, who all this while had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to share what had happened in her life, never got a chance to do it the right way. She was all prepared to tell her roommate. But the way Saloni bluntly put things together and confronted Rupali, it made her change her mind. Unlike Saloni’s nth crush, this was Rupali’s first. And it was special. And she wanted to reveal it in the right way. But even before she could speak her heart, her roommate had guessed it and ridiculed her. Even though it was in a playful manner, it annoyed her.

When Rupali tried to speak again, she looked at Saloni, who mischievously kept raising her eyebrows, waiting for her to speak up. Her hesitation had stopped her from speaking.

Saloni began grinning. ‘Come on! Tell me what all happened with you in my absence. I can smell love!’ she said, winking.

Rupali blushed. ‘Okay,’ she said.

Suddenly, Saloni jumped out of the bed, switched off the lights, jumped back in, grabbed a pillow to place between her legs and said, ‘Yes! Now tell me, quickly!’

Twenty

With the start of the second semester, campus politics became the priority again. There had been a case of violence reported in which a few students from the students’ union in power had clashed with another group of students. The fight had erupted due to the alleged harassment of a girl outside the campus by someone who was an active member of the students’ union. Two of the boys from the other group were reportedly admitted to the ICU. When the police had booked a few members of the students’ union, the rest of the union had called a strike in a few colleges asking the vice-chancellor to intervene and get them out. Even though majority of the students were not in favour of it, they all were silenced. Rumours also alleged that a nexus of drug traffickers was flourishing in the university and that they had the backing of the members of the students’ union. This brought to light questions about how the union was spending its funds. A demand was also raised to bring in more transparency in this.

It appeared that the party that had come to power had long forgotten the promises it had made in its manifesto before the elections. Within the students’ union itself there were differences over how a few representatives had begun to act selfishly to further their political ambitions. Drunk on power and full of arrogance, they had dreams of joining active state and central politics as soon as they stepped out of university. Unwillingness to share accountability had led to blame games. Everyone passed the buck.

The prime reason behind the mess in the students’ union was the absence of its godfather, Mahajan—the accounts professor who was now behind bars. He was the one who had the strongest influence on the union, thereby maintaining a fine balance between all the stakeholders. The elected representatives used to fear him and, therefore, obey him. They looked up to him to get the necessary approvals from higher authorities wherever his influence was required. He was their liaison between the campus and national politics. Not that under Mahajan’s watch illicit things never happened. They did prevail, but then he had brought a method to the madness. In Mahajan’s absence, a few members in the union fought among themselves to retain power. And when that happened, the rift was out in the open.

Slowly, the union began to fall apart. The youth wing in-charge of the parent party at the Delhi state and national level, too, felt the heat. Mahajan’s absence had created a void between them. If the status quo persisted, it would be impossible for the party to win the next DU elections that were supposed to commence after the next batch arrived. With one semester left in hand, the students’ union badly needed to repair itself and deliver on its promises.

But this was also the time when other parties were planning to get the students’ support and raise their voices against the menace of the party in power.

‘So what are we going to do now?’ Prosonjeet asked. This was a Sunday morning meeting when the key party members had assembled on the rooftop of the college block. It was a casual meeting that had been called to kick-start the planning of the party strategy for that semester. Having lost an election in the current season, the members were eyeing to do things in a different way and looking at the next season’s election.

‘We need to bring awareness. Let’s remind people about what was promised to them and what has been delivered. Worse, how drunk on the power of authority, the current students’ union is running the political game as if it is it’s monopoly. We will involve students from various colleges and faculties and ask questions to the union,’ Arjun pointed out.

A key member, who in the previous season had fought the election for the post of president and lost, had expressed his wish to opt out of fighting it yet again. There were murmurs among the members that Arjun should fill in that gap and fight the election for the post of president. His maturity to handle things and take decisions had earned him the party’s confidence. Till the previous year, he had been a strong volunteer for their party.

‘And how do we do that?’ someone in the gathering asked.

‘We will leverage the power of social media,’ Rupali pitched in.

Rupali’s meteoric rise to fame in the previous semester in the whole of DU for her courage and her selfless determination to do what’s right had catapulted her into students’ politics. In the course of time, she learnt that in order to bring a change, it was important to step in and become a part of the system. Her six months in DU made her realize this. She realized the importance of politics and the results it can deliver if the right people step in. This is how someone who abhorred the idea of politics became pro politics. When Arjun and other members of his party invited her to join them, she happily accepted the invitation. But she was clear that she was not going to fight the elections. She wanted to use the platform to fulfil her social responsibilities. So she was there in the party now.

She continued, ‘Mahajan went to jail primarily because the video of his shameful act went viral. It had triggered the sentiments of the masses in a way that we couldn’t ever have imagined. It had made the students raise their voices on social forums, something they feared to do in the open. We all are present on various online forums. If we can use these online social circles beyond the boundaries of networking for fun and channelize them to run our campaigns we will be able to achieve a lot!’

This plan was different from the stereotypical speeches, pamphlets and banners mode of election preparation. Rupali’s focus was to push the digital and social mode of strategy-making. People acknowledged Rupali’s point of view. Most of them agreed, while a few had their reservations, on which Arjun wanted to hold a healthy debate. They did a quick analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the power of online social media campaigns. It turned out that the pros were lot more than the cons. Everyone was of the view that because they had an entire semester’s time in hand, they must at least experiment with the idea. Arjun invited Madhab to help them come up with a rough idea of what could possibly be done. Taking a cue from Madhab’s suggestions the team brainstormed. From making a Facebook page in the name of their party to making real-time videos about the grass-root problems in DU and uploading them on YouTube, there were various such options at hand. The more they ideated, the more possibilities they saw.

Before the members dispersed, roles and responsibilities were distributed. From generic thoughts, they wanted to arrive at specific bullet-point actions. People undertook the task of doing more research on their specific areas of action before they planned to meet again during the same week.

After the meeting ended, Rupali had plans to pay a visit to Arjun’s mother. The previous day, when she had expressed her urge to eat home-cooked food, Arjun had asked her to visit his home. ‘You can meet Ma as well. In fact, we can have lunch together.’

Rupali had double-checked that Arjun had really meant it, after which she had happily agreed. It didn’t make her feel concerned that she was going to meet the mother of the guy whom she was now in a relationship with! Arjun, too, made it sound casual. In the past, he had invited various friends, including girls, to his place and they had eaten food cooked by his mother. It was quite regular for him. On one occasion even Raheema, who treated Arjun like her brother, had visited his place.