The Real Him (LVI)

Reviewed by Ridhi.

I overheard, what Ramesh was replying, keeping my ears close to Anu’s. It’s a fact that even Devil can’t say ‘no’ to a girl’s tears especially when that devil is male. Certainly Ramesh couldn’t say ‘no’. He agreed just for the heck of it, but he clearly sounded skeptical.

I called Shantanu and told him about this. He was standing right before the entrance of the ballot room where the representatives of various classes were to vote for the president. He overheard some conversation and told me that, Ramesh just lied to us.

I had no intention of making Anu cry anymore, and it served no purpose. Anyways the truth can’t be hid forever. The results will be out in half an hour. At least let her be happy till then.

Not just Anu, I myself felt so very broken. Something made me feel very bad about getting into elections. Though not for Shantanu, at least for Anu’s sake I had to be.
Lost in this thought mesh I just leaned over the wall with Anu lying with her head on my scalp.

Time passed by. Every second moved like a year. Minutes turned to be centuries and I spent a dozen of lifetimes in those few minutes. Good or bad, I wanted the results to be out soon. There was no hope. It was almost sure that they will win, but somewhere in a corner, my killer instinct kept saying that there was a chance.

After some half an hour, I got a call, I guessed it must be Shantanu, but it was a junior. I had no mood to advise any junior on Algorithms or Data Structures. I ignored the call. The phone rang again. I got irritated, yet I picked up.

“Hello….”

“Akka we won, we won” Anu’s mobile, Diviya’s mobile almost every mobile in my audibility range rang. Another friend came dashing through our doors shouting, “we won”

I could hear the loud cheer from the direction of the main building. The cheer spread to all parts of the college. I wondered whether Anu’s tears worked, or did some supposedly sold off junior changed his mind at the last moment. I wanted to know whether we just won by 1 vote.

I called Shantanu, “:Hey..”

I could only hear loud noises and cheer. Full of distinctive voices, he hung up.

I called again, no response. After some ten minutes he called me back, there was still the background noise. “Elvi Elvi we won! we won!”

“I know that, by how many votes”

“By 3 votes that’s the best part. Hey I..”, his voice broke.

”Hey one sec, one sec don’t hung up.”

“aaa, ya ya tell me soon”

“Can we come down now. “

“Sure, sure come on here. I will bust their asses if someone bug you. Come onnn…” he hung up. Anu was on cloud 9. She thanked all the numerous Gods she had been praying all this time. We couldn’t wait anymore, we ran down to join the cheering.

Every road every place, everywhere we could see there was cheering and teasing the losers. I personally don’t approve of winners teasing the losers. But for all Kiran had done, I wished at least Anu made a ‘thumbs down’ gesture at him.

We rushed to join Shantanu, who was in cloud 9Ks. Most of our juniors were there. People rushed from all sides to congratulate us as if we won the presidency. The pleasant quiet breeze of our campus was now filled with bliss in every bit.

We finally reached Shantanu. He almost hugged me, even I wanted to, but the cultural constraints of India stopped us. Still he hugged me and Anu catching our shoulders. We hugged other girls there. The air was filled with the smell of triumph.

After almost an hour of cheering and hugging and everything, we walked our way back to our hostels. Shantanu, Anu and I walked on the road to our hostel. At a distance I saw Kiran walking towards us. I prodded Anu to tease him. She remained silent.

‘Why on earth some girls are so weak?’ I cursed her, and continued to walk ignoring him. Kiran came near us and before anyone of us could say something, if at all we wanted to, he, “Hey bitch, you won with your street girl charms…”

He abused Anu and me with such terms and called Shantanu a pimp. I could feel my blood boil with all his abuses, and I wanted to give him a strong kick, but I had to catch Anu who almost collapsed.

Shantanu coolly asked me to stay calm, as any violence or anything of that sort that day will affect the election's credibility. He was so concerned about his post and his position in the college committee. He remained was cold, numb and never showed any signs of annoyance.

We walked away from him. More than Anu’s sobs, I felt very bad, about falling in love with such self centered, power greedy monster.

Anu’s cloud 9 dissolved in her tear rain. As dad’s advice I satisfied myself with optimistic thoughts, that things would have been worser if Kiran won. I started hating Shantanu, more than I hated Kiran.

I believed, I had learned the real Shantanu, but I was soon proven wrong.