Seahorse. Janice Pariat

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СКАЧАТЬ us we held Catcher in the Rye and The Outsider intimately and preciously our own—he claimed to have read all of Krishnamurti, all of Kabir.

      “Perhaps,” I’d offer, “they didn’t get along.”

      I’d be met by incredulity. And a look. You’re an idiot.

      One thing I was certain of, though, was that Adheer wasn’t unremarkable.

      A month into term, I tried to let my interest slip. Although it was difficult to ignore the whispers and hushed discussions swarming around Nicholas, alighting on him like bees. Once, outside the college café, where students usually gathered to smoke, I caught his name in conversation. Two girls, chatting, holding glasses of nimbu paani. I’d seen the one with short hair and a nose ring in last term’s college production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She’d played Titania, the fairy queen, and scandalized the senior members, and thrilled the rest, with her Biblical choice of costume—little more than flowers and leaves. Her companion, a willowy girl with sleek, straight hair and a pale almond-shaped face, came from my part of the country. A “chinky,” as they called us here in the north. She was studying English in the year below mine, and even though I hadn’t ever spoken to her, I knew her name was Larisa.

      I bought a samosa from the makeshift snack stall nearby, one that also dispensed lemon juice, and didn’t stray far, keeping them within eavesdropping distance.

      “He’s British, but of Greek ancestry,” said Titania. “That’s what he told Priya, apparently.”

      I hadn’t known, but it explained the olive skin, the dark hair.

      “Talk about a Greek god,” giggled her friend.

      “You think? He’s tall and all that… but not really my type…”

      “Yes, because you prefer skinny struggling artists.”

      They both laughed.

      I bit into the samosa—the shell came away in my hands, loosening the soft potato and peas filling. It steamed gently on the paper plate, while the tamarind sauce pooled darkly around the edges.

      “You should invite him to a house party…” said Titania. “I’m sure someone’s planning one soon.”

      Her friend lifted a dainty eyebrow. “Why not? I don’t think he teaches here. Maybe we can get him drunk… although, I’m not sure he’d come.”

      “We could ask Adheer to invite him.”

      “Adheer?”

      “They spend a lot of time together… don’t you think?”

      “What are you saying?” laughed her friend.

      “Don’t be an idiot, Lari, you know what I mean.”

      “What do you mean?” She sounded genuinely confused.

      “I think they’re… you know…” She must have mouthed the word for I couldn’t hear her. What I did catch was Lari’s cry of repulsion.

      “That’s disgusting… you really think so? It’s so gross.”

      Titania sipped her drink, and stayed silent.

      What I observed, over the weeks, was that Nicholas didn’t pay special attention to anyone in particular. He was indiscriminately charming. When in the mood. Or resolutely cool. He remembered people’s names, or at least had a way of requesting them to remind him so they weren’t slighted. He appeared attentive, if not deeply interested. Mostly, I think, he enjoyed the attention. And tired of it just as easily.

      People have fickle memories though. And often they mainly remember the agreeable, latching on to the winsome details. A wave across the lawn. At the café, a round of tea at his insistence and expense. A recommended book. His smile. Rare, precious gesture—that in an instant swept you into his closest, most secret circle.

      Yet the lines were drawn long before we imagined, who would be allowed in, how much, how far, always keeping, inevitably, to himself. Intact. In his own hands, he was porcelain.

      I see that now.

      If he spent more time with Adheer, it was because Adheer sought him out more persistently, and successfully, than all the others. Hurrying after him in the corridors, waiting, nonchalantly, by the gates, reading on the lawns. Accompanying him to university talks and seminars. And while Nicholas escaped unscathed, for it didn’t strike anyone to mock him, people called Adheer a “bender” behind his back. Others employed their words more delicately: “Look at him,” they whispered, “that poo pusher.”

      In college everything was sexualized.

      And looking back now, I realize, that was one thread that stitched us into some kind of collective. The mystery of sex, and (mostly) its lack.

      Living in residence halls fueled by male camaraderie, regarding the close co-existence of girls, their mighty distance. In there, we were swamped by complex hierarchies and communal fissures, trapped in an intricate system of jurisdiction—where the Jats were feared, the Punjus scorned, the northeasterners ignored, the Gujjus mocked, the Tam Brams held in mild amusement, the Bongs quietly tolerated, the Mallus generally liked by all and sundry. Then came the broader divisions of sports quota folk and special reservations, the slackers and endless Civil Service sloggers, the cool and uncool, the artsies and sciencees.

      All entwined in the general joyful wastefulness of youth. And something else.

      We’d move from room to room, swapping cigarettes, alcohol and lies. Talking, skirting the issue, the act of, plucking euphemisms from insecurity—do it, bang, beat, bone, bugger, screw, bonk, go all the way, home run, old in-out, pound, bed, shag, slay, mount, boff, bugger, cut, dance, dip, doink, scuff, fire, fubb, fuck, fug, do the nasty, get any, get it on, get lucky, give it up, hit it raw, hit skins, have a go, grease, hose, knock, make the beast with two backs, woopie, nail, ram, rock and roll, score, shine it, slap and tickle, smack, smash, lay, hump, plow, quickie, romp, ride, roger, you know what.

      It was endless, and language the sheet with which we all hid our nakedness, and longing.

      On most weekends, the residence halls emptied, as students headed out to South Delhi or Connaught Place—the ones who could afford to drink at newly opened bars or watch movies at shiny multiplex cinemas. I’d been to South Delhi a few times, traveling there on a long bus ride from the Inter State Bus Terminal at Kashmiri Gate, filled with vehicles spewing smoke, roaring like metallic monsters. Past the green expanse of Raj Ghat alongside Mahatma Gandhi Road, the perpetually chaotic ITO, and the gated distance of Pragati Maidan. Slowing down once the bus cut into the city, passing through Lajpat Nagar with its labyrinthine market, the calmer environs of Siri Fort, Delhi’s second city, bourgeoisly concealing its brutal origins—founded by Ala-ud-din Khilji on the severed heads of eight thousand Mongol soldiers. From there, it wasn’t far to our destination, to Saket Complex, lined with air-conditioned shops, a colorful new McDonalds and TGIF, and, its crowning glory, a royal blue-gold PVR cinema.

      Others made their way to neighborhoods clustered around the college campus, to flats and СКАЧАТЬ