27
Five Point Someone
IT WAS THE CONVOCATION DAY, OFFICIALLY OUR LAST DAY at IIT. We’d struggled unto the end, but had finally made it! We had passed all our final semester courses, finished our lab work and had all secured some sort of a job. It is the least any IITian can expect in four years, but to us it was nothing short of a miracle. I had hardly spoken to Neha in the past few weeks. I called once after I got the job, and she cried because (a) she was so happy for me and (b) because it was in Bombay. It is not easy to figure out how girls cry for two different reasons at the same time. But I didn’t push her much. She also said it was best we didn’t meet for a while, lest Cherian find out and flare up again. Frankly, that was fine with me (even though I made a big fuss) with all these damn courses. I had not seen Cherian after that day in his office when he was stoned enough to pardon me. But today, I would see him again. After all, the head of the department makes a speech to the passing-out batch. We were part of the passing-out batch and that was celebration in itself.
Alok, Ryan and I wore our graduation robes. As usual, Ryan looked the best. “I am not sitting in front. You can’t fall asleep in front,” I protested, as we reached the convocation hall.
“No, it is our last day. I want to see everything,” Alok insisted.
“Then get your glasses fixed,” Ryan said.
Alok insisted on sitting in the first row and we sat down facing the podium. We looked back at the guests’ gallery.
“That is my mom and didi in the aisle. See Dad is there, too,” Alok said as he waved at a wheelchair.
“Your parents are here too, right?” I said to Ryan.
“Yes, they flew in last night. I told them not to come, but they did. See, there they are in the third row,” Ryan pointed out with quiet pride.
Yes, there they were, along with the parents of three hundred students. The huge convocation hall held them all, the whole insanely proud lot.
I saw Neha. She had come with her father, and sat primly with other faculty families. I waved to her and ten other profs waved back.
“Sit down Hari. It is about to begin.” Alok pulled me down.
Prof Cherian took the stage, all the waving and murmurs ceased, and the convocation hall became silent as a tomb.
“Good morning. As head of the Mechanical Engineering department I welcome everyone to this convocation ceremony. Today we are proud to give a new batch of the brightest mechanical engineers to this country. I give this speech every year, and I have done so for ten years now,” Prof Cherian said and paused to have a sip of mineral water.
“Ten years! This guy’s really been around,” Alok whispered.
“To torment class after class,” Ryan supplied.
“Shh!” I said.
“And every year I make a similar speech, congratulating our best students and talking about how they should continue to achieve in the future. In fact, I make the speech by looking at what I said last year. However, this year I am going to do something different. In fact, I don’t even have a written speech. I just want to tell you a story.”
A murmur threaded through the crowd. No one expected Cherian to tell stories. Announce the toppers, wish everyone the best and close it. What was going on?
“Once upon a time there was a student in IIT. He was very bright, and this is true, his GPA was 10.00 after four years. He didn’t have a lot of friends, as to keep such a high GPA, you only have so much time for friends.”
The crowd dutifully chuckled.
“But he did have classmates. Classmates who this bright boy thought were less smart than him, classmates who were selfish and wanted to make the most money or go to the USA with minimum effort. And the classmates did exactly that. They went to work for multinationals and some went abroad. Some of them opened their own companies in the USA – mostly in computers and software. This was twenty years ago mind you, so computers were a very new thing.”
Prof Cherian paused again for water.
“What is his point?” Alok said.
“I don’t know. I told you not to sit in the front row. We can’t even sleep now,” Ryan said.
“But the bright boy stayed behind. Because he had principles. He did not want to use his education for selfish personal gain. He wanted to help the country. He wanted to do research and he stayed back at IIT. Of course, getting a research project approved in IIT is harder than inventing the telephone,” Prof Cherian said as the faculty in the audience smiled.
“So our bright boy was disappointed. He still kept trying but apart from being a Professor, there isn’t much one could achieve here. Ten years passed, when his friends from college visited home. One of them had a GPA of seven point something, and he had his own software company. The turnover had reached two hundred million dollars. Another friend was heading a toothpaste MNC, and came in a BMW. Of course, this didn’t bother the principled bright boy. Or so he thought.
“As you guessed, that bright boy was me. And at that time I thought it didn’t matter if others had achieved more personally. I was still the one with the better GPA, the smarter one, the brighter one. Somehow, on that day, I decided my son must get into IIT. I wanted him to carry on my family’s strong intellectual tradition. Strong intellectual tradition – that is what I called it. But it was just my big ego. My son wanted to be a lawyer, hated maths. I hated him for hating maths. I pushed him just as I pushed students in my class. He failed to get in the first time and I made life hell for him. He failed a second time and I made his life an even bigger hell. Then he failed to get in the third time. And this time, he killed himself.”
The crowd gasped. Students and even some of the faculty members started whispering.
“You all know that I have a daughter. But I also had a son, who died in a rail track accident five years ago. At that time, we thought it was an accident. But this…” Cherian said as he pulled out Samir’s letter, “is my son’s letter I got only a few weeks ago. He wrote this to my daughter on the day he died. He killed himself because he did not get into IIT. He killed himself because of me,” Cherian said and paused for a long time. He removed his spectacles and wiped his eyes. The audience was silent enough to hear Cherian’s mild sobs.
“He is crying,” Ryan said.
“I told you. This is nothing compared to…” I stopped as Cherian began again.
“I am sorry everyone for bringing up this sad story on your special day. I told myself that if I admit to my mistake publicly, perhaps my son will forgive me. And I wanted to thank the one student in this class because of who I found out the truth. It is my daughter’s boyfriend – Hari. And he is here sitting right in the front row.”
“Wow!” Alok and Ryan said in unison. All eyes turned to me. I have never been so embarrassed in my life. This is not the limelight one wants. I wished he’d just move on from here, but he didn’t.
“Let me tell you something about this boy Hari and his friends Alok and Ryan. They are the under-performers. That is what I used to call students with low GPAs. And they do have a low GPA – five point something is low, right?” Cherian asked in a jestful manner.
“My daughter found it easier to trust Hari with the letter. She defied me, lied to me and ignored me just to meet him. Somewhere down the line, this perfect ten-GPA Professor standing in front of you had gone wrong. Really wrong.”
I sat back, listening to Cherian carefully. I kind of felt sad and for the first time felt he just may have a heart.
“And that is when I realized that GPAs make a good student, but not a good person. We judge people here by their GPA. If you are a nine, you are the best. If you are a five, you are useless. I used to despise the low GPAs so much that when Ryan submitted a research proposal on lubricants, I judged it without even reading it. But these boys have something really promising. I saw the proposal the second time. I can tell you, any investor who invests in this will earn a rainbow.”
“Did you hear that Hari?” Ryan said.
I nodded.
“Anyway, this is my message to all you students as you find your future. One, believe in yourself, and don’t let a GPA, performance review or promotion in a job define you. There is more to life than these things – your family, your friends, your internal desires and goals. And the grades you get in dealing with each of these areas will define you as a person.
“Two, don’t judge others too quickly. I thought my son was useless because he didn’t get into IIT. I tell you what, I was a useless father. It is great to get into IIT, but it is not the end of the world if you don’t. All of you should be proud to have the IIT tag, but never ever judge anyone who is not from this institute – that alone can define the greatness of this institute.”
The crowd responded with wild applause.
“And lastly, don’t take yourself too seriously. We professors are to be blamed even more for this. Life is too short, enjoy yourself to the fullest. One of the best parts of campus life is the friends you make. And make sure you make them for life. Yes, I have heard the stories. Sometimes I wish I had had a friend, even if that meant a lower GPA. It must be good to have vodka on top of the institute roof at night.”.
Cherian got a standing ovation.
The applause got louder, in fact it was right under my ears, on my shoulder.
“Wake up you lazy bozo,” Ryan said, clapping my shoulder so hard my dream paused and faded out like a defective videotape.
“What?” I rubbed my eyes.
“Yes, it is me. So tell me Mr Hari, how does it feel to miss your convocation after you make all this effort to get into IIT.” That was Ryan’s cocky voice all right.
“What the...what time is it?” I craned my neck to look at the alarm clock. It said seven a.m, clearly in contrast to the sun outside.
“Looks like your clock has also had enough of this place. It is past eleven. Both of us slept through our convocation,” Ryan said wryly.
I got out of bed and went outside to the balcony; the hostel was empty.
Damn, I had slept through graduation day. Worse, Cherian had not really cried.
“Fuck!” I said, borrowing Ryan’s vocabulary. “Fuck. Does that mean they’ll not give us the degree?”
“Of course they will. Just means we weren’t there when the rest of the class shook hands with Cherian and parents applauded.”
I wondered if it made sense to brush my teeth or eat at Sasi’s first.
“Sasi’s?” Ryan read my mind.
Man, four years of freaking craziness to get a degree, and when the time came to collect, Ryan and I sat in our pajamas circling our paranthas with dabs of butter. I really don’t deserve this degree!
“Hari, you know Dad said he wants to invest in the lubricant project. He is in touch with Prof Veera,” Ryan said as Sasi looked at us slyly. Even he knew we should have been at the convocation.
“That is great.”
“It’s crap. I told them I don’t want their money,” Ryan said.
“Are you an idiot?”
“And then guess what they said? They said they thought I would be okay because of that letter,” Ryan said.
“What letter?” I said, struggling to keep a straight face.
“This letter,” Ryan said and took out a fat envelope, “and guess what I noticed on the cover?”
Yep, there it was. The thirty bucks of postage that I put on it was stamped all over.
“So you wrote to them?” I said, still appearing as casual as I could.
“Okay Mr Hari, will you give it up. You made all the effort of typing the damn thing, could you at least have been careful while writing the address? This scrawny handwriting of yours is a dead giveaway,” Ryan said.
“What?” I said. Crap, I should have thought of that.
Ryan got up and mock punched me several times over. “You ass, when did you become so senti?” he said as I wriggled my way out of his punches. We burst out laughing. I looked into his eyes. He wasn’t mad, maybe even a bit glad. But that changed fast into a serious expression. Yes, Ryan will never admit to wanting this.
“You shouldn’t have,” he said.
“Oh well, I must have been drunk that day. And I do think your parents are nice. Anyway, it is a good project. Your dad will probably make money out of it.” The big picture, that’s what I should focus on, not spoil things with paltry confidences on letter-writing.
“I am sure he will. Prof Veera accepted his funding.”
“Prof Veera knows what he is doing,” I said wisely. “When the hell will Alok come back? Do you think we missed much?”
“All convos are the same. Cherian gives medals to nine pointers. Five-pointers collect their degrees in the background like extras,” Ryan shrugged.
I saw a silhouette limping towards us from a distance.
“Alok!” I shouted.
“You fuckers! Chomping paranthas while the country got another batch of engineers,” Alok said.
“Whatever Fatso, you want one or not?” Ryan said, making the rare gesture of offering his plate.
“Of course I do. After all that Cherianspeak for an hour,” Alok said, putting out his tongue to indicate extreme exhaustion.
“Where are the parents?” Ryan said.
“Invited to the faculty club for lunch. I came back looking for you,” Alok said.
“Did Cherian talk a lot? You know I was dreaming of him,” I said.
“Really? And I thought you only dreamt of his daughter wearing nothing,” Ryan teased.
“Shut up.” I turned to Alok. “So what did he say?”
“Nothing. Just the same IITians-are-the-best crap. Though he did mention one thing,” Alok said.
“What?” Ryan and I cried in unison.
“That we need to look at the system. Sometimes the pressure is too much. Something about lesser tests and more projects etc. Didn’t really follow it – I was dozing off a bit you know,” Alok said “You suck man,” Ryan said, subsiding back into his seat.
“Yeah right. At least I made it on my last day of IIT,” Alok said virtuously.
Last day, Alok’s words resonated in my mind. Man, how we had waited for this to get over. And finally it had. Maybe not in style, maybe not with standing ovations or medals, but in our pajamas and eating paranthas at a street-side vendor, we had made it. Yes, the three of us were IIT graduates. Not the ones that would make it to the cover of Time magazine, but at least we could be called survivors. “Yes, it was over!” I tried telling myself – but at one level, it felt sad.
“It really is over then, eh?” Ryan echoed my thoughts.
“Yes it is. Time to enter the real world – as they said at the convo,” Alok said, showing off.
I wish I had never met Neha. Separating from her would hurt.
“Have you talked to Neha?” Ryan asked, uncannily reading my mind.
“I will. We are meeting tonight,” I said casually.
“Does Cherian know?” Alok said
“I don’t think so,” I said. He may have relented here and there, but me and Neha together was still a no-no.
“And what about us?” Ryan said.
We looked at each other. Hell, this was going to be hard. Why is it that when the bad things about IIT come to an end, the good things end as well. It sucks to leave the hostel, to not be able to see your friends every day.
“We’ll be friends. For fucking forever and ever,” I vowed filmily and got up to give a group hug.
“Enough guys, this is a decent establishment,” Ryan said and we sat back, laughing an embarrassed laugh.
That was the last time we were together at IIT. After that, our lives changed. But I don’t really want to get into all that. This is an IIT book after all.
And I didn’t know what would happen between Neha and me. I mean I could tell you now what happened, but I don’t really want to go into all that either.
Yes, that night we met and said we loved each other and other sappy stuff. And we talked about practical things like how to stay in touch And we promised to keep meeting forever and ever.
But forever is a long time you know, even longer than the four years at IIT. A lot can happen between now and forever, and it will – it is just not something we have to talk about in this book. The convocation was over. Our bags were packed, and that was the last time the three of us were together in IIT.
Alok started his job in Delhi, and with no Ryan and me to bother him, totally immersed himself in it. As a result, his software company sent him to the US for six months. The US assignment earned him a dollar stipend that in one stroke wiped out his family woes. A spanking new car arrived at the Guptas, and I was tempted to consider marrying his sister. Alok’s father got a full-time nurse, and his mother is considering leaving her job to do private tuitions. I think she needs to keep a job just to keep sane, but who listens to me?
Ryan worked with Prof Veera, and with all that cash from his dad, is investing in a factory about two hours from Delhi. Local villagers from nearby have been hired for construction, including some women. Sick bastard that he is, he often goes there to check them out. I think he fancies someone called Roopkunwar more than the others – and I think there is a disaster waiting to happen.
I went off to Bombay and, like most responsibilities in my life, hated it. I can’t live in cramped cities, and I can’t stay away from Neha. In the first three months, half of my salary went in rent for a pigeonhole in the Siberian end of town. The other half went mostly in phone calls to Neha.
God, I missed her – her hair, her laugh, her eyes, her holding my hand and everything else. Sure, I missed Ryan and Alok as well, but it was not the same. I pined for Neha.
She finished her fashion design course and had an offer to work for a local designer. I think she is trying to find something here in Bombay. It should work out, given this city is so fashion crazy.
Meanwhile, next month I am going to Delhi for Alok’s didi’s wedding. All of us will be there – Alok, Ryan, Neha and me. And that is what is keeping me going for now. You know, it is strange, I might have passed out of IIT, but in some ways, my soul is still there. Maybe in the hostel corridors, or at Sasi’s, or at the insti roof…