“Get up, else you’re going to get late,” his mother said, hastily placing the plate on the table next to his cot. Manoj wasn’t one to need prodding for getting ready to attend school. In fact he loved school, an unusual penchant for a 14-year old. But today was the first day after a long summer break, and Manoj had another good reason to explain the anxiety welling up within him.
He lazily propped himself up, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and gradually lowered his legs on to the floor.
As he dragged himself through the early morning rituals, scenes from the last day at school began to play out on the screen of his mind.
“So, what plans for the vacations?” Vin had casually asked. He took a moment to think of the right response, but by then she had already burst out into a chirpy monologue. “I am off to SFO with my folks… and I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am. Two of my favourite cousins stay there and I haven’t met them in, like, ages.”
“SFO?”
“San Francisco silly! And we will be going to L.A. too… Universal Studio… Disneyland… and who knows which Hollywood celebrity I might bump into on the streets there…”
This was during lunch break and the two were sitting on one of the benches lining the playground, sharing Vin’s lunch. Neither of them remembered how it had started, but over the past month it had become a ritual of sorts between them. Ravi never carried a tiffin to school and Vin brought enough to suffice for both.
They were students of one of the most prestigious schools in Gurgaon, one that had already made its name by sending dozens of students to the country’s top engineering and medical colleges over the years. Ravi had joined the school only this session, in the ninth grade. He was an IIT aspirant and it had taken him only a couple of weeks to establish the seriousness of his candidature for a JEE rank. He was quick to outshine his classmates, no mean feat considering that some of them were probably the sharpest minds in their age group across the city.
Vin, short for Vinita, a name she detested, was a science student too, but with aspirations limited to graduating from a prominent South Delhi college for ladies. “I can’t even lift all those thick preparatory books they prescribe for engineering entrances, let alone read them,” she had once quipped. It was she who had first initiated dialogue with Ravi – over some help that she’d wanted with a homework assignment – and the two had hit it off instantly.
She was bubbly and vivacious, quite a contrast to Ravi’s rather serious disposition, and this had worked wonders for their friendship.
She always had something or the other to share and Ravi was happy playing the role of a patient listener.
“Tell me Na… where are you planning to go?” she shot out, as if suddenly becoming aware that her question hadn’t been answered yet.
“No plans yet, let’s see…”
“What? How crazy is that… you will spend the entire summer break right here… in Gurgaon?” The way she had uttered the city’s name, it might as well have been a tribal settlement somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.
Just then Smitha, another one of their classmates descended on the scene. “Seems like I interrupted a private conversation… I think I should be running along…,” she said, in her usual composed manner, after taking a moment to study the scene.
“Look at him, he says he will spend his holidays in Gurgaon only,” Vin explained, her brows pulled up in astonishment.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. We’re still deciding on where to go… between Singapore and Srilanka,” he had hurriedly replied.
As he dipped the roti in pickle and took the first bite of his breakfast, the scene within his head changed to one from the preceding week.
He was lending a helping hand to his father at the shop when he felt a familiar pair of eyes studying him intently. It took a few seconds for him to recognise Smitha sans the school uniform, but once he did, he hurriedly turned the other way and busied himself rearranging the stack of apples ahead of him. The shop, as his father called it, was a mobile fruit cart which was stationed at its usual place near the entrance of a prominent market in old Gurgaon.
Ravi would spent a few hours at the shop even when school wan on, but during the vacations he was spending nearly all of his time there, taking turns with his father to man the stall in the sweltering heat. All his schoolmates lived in the posh sectors of the city on the other side of the highway and, like most people in their world, they had no business coming to this part of the city.
As he walked inside the school gates, towards the classroom, his fears had taken an apocalyptic form – he was doomed, his life at school would never be the same again, Vin wouldn’t even spare him a second glance after discovering his true identity.
“Hey, how have you been?” his reverie was broken by Vin’s singsong voice. He hadn’t even realised when he’d stepped into the classroom.
“Manoj,” someone called him from behind just when he was about to respond. He turned around to face Smitha. She had a duty free branded bag dangling in one hand and was holding an unwrapped chocolate truffle in the other. Stuffing the ball of chocolate in her mouth, she said, “You’d dropped this from your bag. I was right behind you so I picked it up… I hope you don’t mind that I took one?”
Manoj had never seen the bag before now. He tried to open his mouth to voice a protest, but Smitha was quick to cut him short. “These must be chocolates from your Srilanka visit… they are yummy. Vin, have some…”
“Oh, Lindt! I absolutely love them… thanks Manoj,” Vin added digging into the bag.
Not knowing what to do, Manoj turned to look at Smitha. She was smiling, an innocuous smile spread across her expressionless face, but her eyes seemed to be speaking to him in a language of their own. “Your secret is safe with us… no one needs to know…,” they appeared to be telling him.