Secrets and Sins. Jaishree Misra

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СКАЧАТЬ Aman had returned from England, having decided to give up on university there. And the break couldn’t have come at a better time, when his life appeared to have ground to a complete halt with a failed attempt at a university education and a broken heart. Even now, it wasn’t hard to recapture the gut-wrenching disappointments of that summer.

      Aman took a deep breath, searching his memory…Had he imagined Riva’s face in the crowd as he had left BAFTA earlier this evening? He’d always thought of her as a Londoner, an idea he’d picked up from a small newspaper piece he had read in India when she had won that prize a couple of years ago. He had never heard of the Orange Prize before but, from the tone of the piece, it appeared to be something fairly major in the world of books. It had come as no surprise to Aman that Riva had gone on to become an acclaimed author. She had always been so intelligent, even as a teenager, and had diligently read every single book on their reading list in that first year, sometimes helping Aman by giving him compact précis of the more difficult ones. She’d been unfailingly sweet to him during all that time, and Aman had been sure she had been as much in love with him as he had been with her. But in the end Riva had succumbed to Ben’s persistent attentions and Aman had stupidly allowed her to drift away. Looking back now, Aman knew he ought to be kinder to himself. It hadn’t been stupidity that had led to his losing Riva but a lack of confidence; today, of course, he would have dealt with things quite differently. Then Riva had seemed so superior to him, so clever and so smart. It was no surprise she’d chosen the English guy over him really…

      Aman looked unseeingly at the pictures flickering on the screen before him. He’d never forgotten that distant past, even though he had firmly walked away from it and not stopped to look back. But this afternoon, he had thought about Riva a lot, his memories sparked by that chance meeting with her sister at the PR firm. The sister had confirmed that Riva did indeed live in London. And – this was the bit that still stuck slightly in his craw – that she had finally gone on to marry Ben. At least, the sister had mentioned the name Ben; it had to be the same guy. It sounded exactly like the kind of golden life Aman would have expected Riva to be enjoying by now. So what would she have been doing lurking among a crowd of his fans at the BAFTA entrance today?

      Aman shrugged. As before, he must have imagined seeing Riva in the crowd. It was silly but quite often he imagined he had spotted Riva when travelling in England, seeing her standing on railway platforms or across crowded shop floors. Aman pulled out the small clutch of business cards that was still in his pocket. ‘Kaaya Walia’ was the name printed in a large curly font, flamboyant gold on ivory. Aman had never met Riva’s sister before, and during their meeting this afternoon she had mentioned still being in school when Riva had joined university. She was a good-looking woman, though not a lot like Riva, being harder and far more sophisticated than the teenage Riva of Aman’s memories. But then, Riva might by now have changed a great deal herself.

      Aman picked up his drink again, reflecting on how Riva’s success – unlike his own – was completely unsurprising. Even as a first-year student, she’d shown signs of making it big some day, being so bright and focused and determined. And yet she was one of the most gentle girls he had ever met. People like her deserved their success. Unlike him, who had merely got lucky. His own mother sometimes joked that fame had dropped into his lap when he had been half-asleep and lounging on the sofa one lucky day.

      Aman took a long swallow of his lime soda, wondering, not without embarrassment, if Riva ever watched any of his films. Perhaps she and Ben laughed at the thought that the shy and rather silly young suitor she had humoured (and Ben had had to fight off) back at college was now a film star. Famous enough to be featured on the cover of Time magazine recently. He looked out of the window and, in its black emptiness, saw his own face looking back. The Time article had described him as ‘handsome’ and ‘aloof’ but what Aman saw when he looked at his own reflection was the rather diffident and uncertain man he had always been. Stardom hadn’t changed him that much. It certainly hadn’t made him any happier.

      Aman smiled now, wondering whether he could blame his ‘aloofness’ on his early heartbreak over Riva. If he were honest, he had never completely gotten over her. The easiest explanation was that Riva had been the first girl he had fallen for and maybe it was true what they said about the first cut being the deepest. Or perhaps it was something to do with the fact that she had dumped him – in contrast to all his subsequent relationships where he had been the one to end things. Aman became pensive again. The most likely explanation for the warmth with which he remembered Riva was that his marriage to Salma had turned out to be such a calamity. It was wrong but, every time Salma behaved in a difficult fashion, Aman was unable to stop himself imagining what it would have been like to have married someone as kind-hearted and lovely as Riva instead.

      Their becoming classmates had been something of a happy accident. That English degree had been a disastrous choice of subject for Aman but it was all that had been on offer for a green school-leaver from India with unimpressive grades. The course apparently demanded A’s and B’s but his Uncle Naz had been breezily confident about getting him admission, assuring his anxious parents back in Bombay that British universities were now desperate to get full fee-paying international students to join up. ‘Better than having the boy hang around a city like Bombay, getting bored and getting into trouble,’ Naz Chachu had cheerily assured his parents on the crackly long-distance line from Leeds. Aman’s parents had agreed without too much hesitation. Bombay colleges had all closed their admissions, even their second lists. And, after all, Naz himself had once been the family black sheep, whom life in England had straightened out in a way no one would have imagined when he had first left India with a few hundred rupees in his pocket. Just ten years down the line, Naz Chachu not only owned a string of petrol stations, he was branching out into motorway cafés and – three years ago – had shown further good sense in marrying a girl from a moneyed family. In a move that signified his total and complete redemption, he was offering to take the next generation’s black sheep into his home in Leeds to sort him out.

      But Aman had arrived in Leeds in the midst of a grey autumn, and he could recall that the only thing that had prevented him from jumping onto the first flight back home was the sight of a pretty young Indian girl in a red miniskirt who had accosted him on his very first day at the university outside the Chancellor’s office to insist that he join the Union’s protest. ‘But what are you protesting against?’ he had queried half-heartedly, not keen at all to spend his very first day at college being thrown out of it. Not after the trouble and expense poor Naz Chachu had gone through.

      ‘The hike in the tuition fees that overseas students are required to pay! It’s downright shameful,’ the girl had replied, her face frowning and pink with annoyance. And Aman had been too shy to confess that, despite being an overseas student himself, it was an issue he knew absolutely nothing about. Besides, the girl was far too attractive to be disagreed with, and so he had meekly allowed himself to be press-ganged into joining the small band of predominantly brown-faced students, all of whom were carrying placards and shouting a great deal. She had disappeared into the crowd with a pert flash of her skirt after that but, fortunately, soon popped up again, handing Aman a dustbin lid and a wooden ladle with instructions to ‘Make as much noise as you possibly can, okay? Yell, if you must. That’s the only language they understand.’

      Even though he did not know whom she was referring to as ‘they’, Aman had obediently made as much of a din as he could, shouting and clanging for all he was worth, all the while keeping an eye on the red miniskirt as it flashed around the quadrangle. Its pretty owner appeared to be quite definitely in charge of events as they unfolded. Aman recalled how, finally, about an hour later, a great cheer had broken out among the protestors as the Bursar emerged from his office. He wore a harassed expression on his face as he beckoned to the miniskirted girl. When she disappeared into his office along with a couple of others, the remaining protestors seemed to lose both interest and momentum and Aman heard the word ‘pub’ mentioned as, one by one, people started to put their placards down and drift away. Only Aman continued to stand there, shivering in his too-thin jacket as the sun set СКАЧАТЬ