Your Dreams Are Mine Now (20 page)

Rupali sat beside Arjun in his jeep. Madhab and Prosonjeet jumped on to the back seat. They had asked Arjun to drop them at the nearest metro station. The two of them had plans to watch a matinee show. They had insisted Arjun and Rupali to join them, but Rupali excused herself saying that she would prefer home-cooked food to a movie.

‘You will drop me back at the hostel, right?’ she asked Arjun as soon as he started the engine.

‘Yes,’ Arjun said, looking at her.

‘Will it take us more than an hour to reach your home?’

‘Traffic on Sunday is quite less. We should not take more than forty minutes,’ Arjun replied.

‘And what time will you drop me back?’ Rupali again questioned.

This time she heard Madhab and Prosonjeet giggling behind them. She turned back to ask them what was the matter. They first denied that they had been giggling, but could not hold their laughter when they looked at each other.

‘What?’ Rupali asked out of curiosity. She could make out that they were hiding something from her. So she looked at Arjun, hoping that he would help her understand what she had missed.

‘Six months back when they had been sitting on the back seat of this jeep, they had seen me interrogating you. Today they are seeing you interrogate me! And that’s why these idiots are enjoying!’ Arjun said focusing on the road ahead of him.

That statement immediately took Rupali to the past. For the first time she realized that about six months back, in her first week of college, the two guys who had sat on that seat in that very jeep, when she had been planting the sapling, were Prosonjeet and Madhab. And all she had remembered was the bearded face of Arjun.

Twenty-One

Sometime later, after having dropped off the two friends, Arjun parked the vehicle near the entrance of his house. Rupali was eager to meet his mother. She stepped out of the jeep, and unlocked the main gate and walked in.

‘Hey! Wait for me to come! Guess this is my house!’ Arjun yelled from behind her.

Rupali immediately stopped. She turned back and smiled. Then she waited at the porch for Arjun to join her.

The entrance door was open. Arjun stepped inside and called for his mother. Rupali followed him inside the drawing-cum-dining room. It was neat and tidy. It had everything a middle-class drawing room comprised of. A sofa set on one end and a dining table on the other, curtains on the windows and showpieces on the shelves of a glass cupboard.

‘Come,’ Arjun asked Rupali to follow him.

Arjun escorted her to a bedroom where his mother sat on the bed busy cutting vegetables and watching a soap on television.

‘Namaste aunty,’ Rupali greeted her and touched her feet.
‘Arey bas bas
. . .
Jiti raho beta!’
Arjun’s mother blessed her.

For the next few minutes Arjun was quiet, watching the two ladies interact and get to know each other. They talked and soon his mother was asking Rupali all sorts of questions, about her family, home town etc., which Rupali answered patiently.

Arjun’s mother didn’t forget to mention and praise Rupali’s courage in the Mahajan case about which she had come to know about a few months back from her son. Rupali felt happy that she had remembered. Arjun too was happily surprised.

The television was still on in the background. Arjun picked up the remote and pressed the mute button. That suddenly turned everyone’s attention to what was playing on the screen. Rupali noted that even her mother watches that particular serial which Arjun’s mother had been watching. This made her talk about a few more TV serials and she happily recalled the names she had heard from her mother.

Arjun got up and was about to walk out of the room when his mother asked where he was going.

‘
I need to get some party banners made, Ma. You two have a good time,’ he said and left.

His mother shouted and asked when he would return, to which he shouted his reply from the main gate—he would come back in an hour or so.

Once Arjun had left, his mother clasped her hand to her forehead and expressed her disappointment when she said, ‘All the time the only thing he is bothered about is his party work. Sometimes I can’t understand whether he joined college to study or to become a politician!’

Rupali smiled as she listened to a mother’s innocent concerns. She thought Rupali too was worried about Arjun, like her. But she realized she was wrong when she heard what Rupali had to say, ‘Aunty, today the country, like never before, needs politicians like your son. Arjun is doing the right thing.’

For Arjun’s mother, it wasn’t new to listen to Arjun’s friends praising him for the choices he had made in his life. Time and again, various friends and party volunteers who had visited the house in the past, had talked about Arjun’s ability and his honesty in the arena of campus politics.

But then she was a mother who hadn’t kept up pace with the changing times. In her mind, she still perceived politicians to be shrewd and involved in every sort of antisocial activity. How could she forget the terrible days when none of the political leaders had turned up to see her ailing husband who had been so loyal to his party?

Arjun’s absence had given more space for her to open up to Rupali. She had always had these close discussions with Arjun’s friends whenever they visited her. She always felt that Arjun kept things to himself. So she never missed an opportunity to know about a different side of Arjun from his friends.

Looking at the picture of Arjun’s father that hung on the wall towards her left, she mentioned how he once used to work as an active volunteer in a state-level party. She told Rupali that her husband was a man of great ideologies and that he had played an active role in extending the reach of the party among the lower-class colonies and slums of Delhi. He would rarely ask for party money and would often spend his own savings for party work. She said that in order to campaign for his party he had given his sweat and blood, so much so that he was once caned by the Delhi police and later booked in the lock-up for protesting against the corrupt administration in power. ‘Political prisoner,’ she said.

But then, when times changed and the party he worked for came into power, things too changed along with it. Now it was time for the leaders of his party to fulfil their own interests. That was also the time when Arjun’s father discovered that he was suffering from cancer. Even when he was dying, no leader visited him. They were busy counting the money they had been making. It was only his friends and acquaintances who knew him for the man he was, who visited him. Better treatment in a better hospital could have saved him. But they didn’t have the money as a good portion of what Arjun’s father had earned, he had already spent on party work. He believed his party too was his family. But unfortunately, the leaders of the party never shared that feeling.

‘Phir kya mila is politics se humey?’
His mother asked disappointedly about what they had possibly gained from politics. ‘Nothing,’ she said, looking at the garlanded photograph of him.

Ever since then Arjun’s mother had lost faith in politicians. That was a long time back. Her wounds had healed to a large extent. But now, seeing her son get into politics, it seemed to her that he had not learnt from his father’s mistakes.

But that’s exactly what Rupali’s point was. She felt that because there was a dire need to clean politics of such people, it was essential that good people stepped into the dirty puddle of politics.

‘If good people don’t step in, the people of this country will have no option but to choose the bad representatives as their leaders and hand over their fates to them,’ she felt. Rupali reached out to Arjun’s mother and held her hands. ‘Just because something awful has happened in the past doesn’t mean the future too would be like that.’

The warm touch of her hands, that affectionate gesture and that positivity in her thoughts gave solace to Arjun’s mother. She wanted to believe in Rupali’s words but she didn’t say anything.

‘
Now let me give you a hand with this,’ Rupali said, picking up the plate of vegetables that Arjun’s mother had been cutting from. And despite protests from Arjun’s mother, Rupali succeeded in taking over the knife to chop the vegetables. A little later, Rupali helped Arjun’s mother with the cooking. She was impressed to see Rupali’s expertise with kitchen chores. None of Arjun’s friends, including girls who had visited her earlier, knew anything about cooking. The only time they had entered the kitchen was to keep their used dishes after having eaten their meal. Rupali’s interests and abilities were in stark contrast to theirs.

Rupali’s presence in the kitchen made Arjun’s mother recall her own daughter, who would also help her with the cooking. She mentioned her to Rupali and talked about dishes she used to make.
‘
What nice kheer she used to make!’ she recalled.

But this time Rupali didn’t let her turn sad by remembering her daughter. She knew what had happened to her. Arjun had mentioned about her when the two of them had been to the Bangla Sahib gurudwara.

‘Next time, I will make it for you!’ she announced and hugged her. Arjun’s mother hugged her back and smiled. With that, Rupali smartly changed the course of their discussion.

As the two of them cooked the food together, they talked about a lot of other things. At times Arjun’s mother talked about Arjun’s childhood and how naughty he used to be then. At times, Rupali talked about her family back at her native place.

Half an hour later, when Arjun came back, the three of them ate their lunch at the dining table. Rupali and Arjun sat opposite each other. From the way Arjun’s mother spoke about Rupali and her cooking skills, Arjun realized that Rupali had impressed her. Arjun winked naughtily at Rupali, who blushed.

He was about to have his first bite when his mother asked him how they’d met.

Both Rupali and Arjun looked at each other and laughed. Arjun’s mother was now more than curious to know what was so funny about what she had asked. Rupali took the opportunity to tell her all that had happened on her first day in college. Listening to her, Arjun’s mother playfully slapped Arjun’s shoulder and said, ‘Stop scaring the girls at least!’

‘
Arey
, she’s not among those who get scared! She has instead scared big shots!’ Arjun laughed and began eating.

Late in the afternoon, Rupali and Arjun stood at the gate. Arjun’s mother came from inside to see Rupali off. Rupali folded her hands in respect and Arjun’s mother ran her hand over her head. She blessed her and asked her to visit her again and, if possible, soon. ‘You are a nice girl.
Meri beti ki yaad dila di tuney
,’ (You remind me of my daughter) she said.

Rupali warmly hugged Arjun’s mother, who continued to pat her head.

When Arjun started the engine of his jeep, the two ladies separated. Rupali waved at Arjun’s mother and sat next to Arjun. He reversed the jeep and they left the house.

‘So how was it?’ Arjun asked once they were on their way back.

‘The food?’ Rupali asked, deliberately trying to tease him.

‘Huh? Food? No! Meeting my mom!’

‘Hmm . . .
thik tha
!’ (It was okay!) Rupali said without enthusiasm.

Arjun immediately applied the brakes of his jeep and looked angrily at Rupali.

‘Okay, okay, baba. Relax. I was kidding!’ Rupali replied. ‘It was great to meet your mom. She’s a lovely person—so simple, so loving. I thoroughly enjoyed her company and being in your house today!’

‘You are telling the truth this time. Right?’ Arjun asked. His face was shining due to the praise.

Rupali nodded.

A little smile replaced the temporary fake anger on Arjun’s face. He resumed driving. For quite some time, Rupali talked about her discussion with his mom with a lot of joy. Arjun felt nice. It was a good idea to invite Rupali to meet his mother.

By the time they were close to the campus, the course of the discussion drifted to campus politics and the party’s campaign that they were going to kick-start. It happened when Rupali asked Arjun whether he had been able to accomplish the work for which he had gone out before lunch. Arjun said that it would take some time before they got the banners.

‘There is something I want to talk about, Arjun,’ Rupali said. ‘We won’t win the election,’ she said bluntly.

It bothered him when Rupali said that.

‘What! What are you saying?’

‘See, I don’t have any experience in campus politics. But from what I see, you and your group have differences with other student bodies on campus. I have been thinking about this . . .’

‘What differences? With whom?’ Arjun interrupted. He was a little worked up by what he considered as Rupali’s negative thoughts, even before she had spent a week working in the party.

Rupali put her hand on Arjun’s and asked him to calm down. She politely explained her point to Arjun. Rupali pointed out how on the one hand they wanted to campaign and win the trust of the students, but on the other, they were disconnected from various student bodies.

When Arjun asked if she was talking about other political outfits in the university, she said no.

‘Then?’ asked Arjun.

‘Your differences with the music club. Your stand against students who got admission through the reservation and quota system,’ Rupali answered.

‘There is no way we are going to shake hands with them to win the elections!’

‘But Arjun aap meri baat ko samajh hi nahi rahe ho!’
she said, trying to explain her point. ‘I am an active member of the music club. None of our members hates you or your party. I mean our party.’ She immediately corrected herself. ‘Rather, a majority of them hate the party in power right now, for they ditched the music club last year and played opportunistic politics by telling the students in DU that the club supported them.

‘Trust me on this, Arjun. The music club would still want to remain apolitical. However, the club wants to contribute to a change in the university. I realized that it too has common goals like that of our party. The music club is the most important wing of DU’s entire cultural club that also includes theatre groups. If we work with them, there is a lot we can achieve!