First Chapter of My First Novel called Decent Jerks

‘Why don’t you study?’ asked Dad in his typical high alto certifying that he was really angry. He can be scary as and when he wants; it comes naturally to him.

Now, how do you answer to that? Surely, not like this: ‘Dad, I just can’t get enough of Priya who sits on the first desk of the adjacent row in my class. I also can’t help but laugh hysterically at the mind-blowing jokes of my friend Vik that are usually aimed at the teachers and are strictly made in between their lectures. Also, it is not possible for me to leave Facebook, to stay at home and not get out of this place with my friends just for the heck of it, to sit and study for more than fifteen minutes, to not listen to the latest track and to not watch T.V for atleast an hour. And how can you forget my short day naps of minimum three hours? After all, I’m also a human being.’

Unwilling to drive Dad’s anger to the seventh sky, I answered short and sweet, ‘Dad, I wasn’t well prepared this time.’

‘Ha, you said the same thing when you failed in the first and second terminals. Can’t you make up any other excuse?’ Dad’s tone was getting louder and louder with each syllable.

‘Bas bhi kariye, atleast he’s passed this time,’ said my Mum who had apparently interrupted because our ‘conversation’ was causing some prime disturbance to her prime-time Ekta Kapoor soap. I love her.

‘YOU CALL THIS ‘PASSED’, ASHA?’ shouted Dad so loudly that Mum automatically switched off the T.V. ‘45%. He hasn’t scored above 50 in any subject, such bloody precision.’ He added turning to face me into the eyes, ‘With marks like this, you are not going to get a damn admission in any damn college. Then, like most losers, you’ll do a B.Com Pass with correspondence and will later on, shamelessly, join my business and I’m sure you’d bring down my company also.’ With this, he threw my tenth standard’s Pre-Board record in my hands and stormed out of the room. Mum switched the T.V. on, yet again.

Leaving Mum alone with Tulsi and her grievances, I also left the drawing room in slow motion. I was shocked, thoroughly stunned. The shock was bigger than Tulsi’s who had just discovered that her thoroughly principled husband had a son outside their marriage. Not that it was something new for her, she had discovered the same thing before also but this time the other woman was his sister-in-law.

But I am neither married nor do I have any sisters-in-law. I just have a typical set of parents, a typical father whose name alone would beat the best definition of the word ‘Father’ any laureate can offer. He is, as I like to put it, the mother of all fathers. A typical doting Indian mother who asks me sweetly while pouring kheer into my bowl ‘Beta, kitna lega?’ and stops ten seconds after I have screamed my third ‘BAS!’. Somewhat podgy and completely devoted to the world of saas-bahu serials and to the world of the Ram, Krishna, Shiva and others, she showered affection on me, her only progeny, in such astronomical proportions as to make me cringe, as if I was the greatest person ever born. Well that would be true to a certain extent. In my hearts of hearts, I was almost assured that I was the greatest person ever to set feet on this planet.

Now, it wasn’t the first time anyone had ‘abused’ me. My pals hardly speak to me without attaching a superior-level expletive carefully with every single word. But it was certainly the first time Dad had referred to me as a ‘loser’, a ‘shameless loser’ to be precise. I don’t know why but it hurt, very badly and extremely hard. I walked into my room to find the P.C, the fan, the A.C, the bed, the couch and everything you can attach a ‘the’ with staring at me, in deep contemplation, as if questioning themselves, ‘How can a loser as big as him can even attempt to register a shallow existence among other living species?’

Broken, and in desperate need to breathe in some fresh air, I stormed out of my window-less room and climbed up the stairs to the terrace. After a bright sunny day, the wind had also decided to take some rest and I was greeted with horribly humid and chilling air as I stepped on the rough and rocky terrace floor. Maybe, even the weather was mourning my result. My fate.

Notwithstanding, I went and stood at the railings and looked out at the rushing roads and the gleaming distant buildings whose occupants were probably enjoying the essence of life, were probably satisfying their senses, an experience so unmeant for me. So wanted by me.

‘Sam?’ came my mother’s voice from the doorway. She came and stood beside me and asked like one asks an old man on his deathbed ‘Are you alright?’. After a pause, she continued her condolence, ‘You know your father, no? He sometimes blurts out things which he doesn’t mean. He might have said anything but you don’t know how much he loves you.’

‘Oh really?’ I wanted to ask, shout back. Actually, my father did really love me. Infact, he loved me so much that he never used to shout at me after every minor or major mistake of mine. He loved me so much that his feelings towards me never used to undergo a change with every report-cad of mine. He loved me so much that he hardly used to carp me about my various incapabilities and shortcomings during our frequent calm and composed conversations. My father was indeed a very loving and adorable man.

Mum continued, ‘You know, beta, he is always worried about.’ I would be much happier if he stops that. ‘He has never denied you anything, has he? He has always brought everything you have ever demanded. Always.’ Why wouldn’t he? I’m his only son. And besides, is fatherhood all about this? ‘It’s ok beta. I know you are a good boy and that you’ll work hard in your Boards and will pass with flying colours.’ Please, for Satan’s sake, stop that. ‘Now be a good boy and show how you smile to your Mum.’

A beast in my heart took birth and told me that this lady who has been rattling shit incessantly all this while is uncool and knows nothing about the ways of the world. She will make a sissy out of you. Stop her. Now.

‘Mum, I am fine. I just need some time alone,’ my tone was unusually serene, through and through in contrast with the angry beast’s that was scratching my heart. Hell, I can tell you, the beast’s nails were as pointed as my mother’s.

‘Ok, then let me take off the clothes, we will go down together.’

For a split second I thought Mum had gone wacko, completely crazy but understood the next second when she started to remove the clothes off the wire above me.

My air-conditioned room is better, I thought and walked back to my room without a word more to her, she didn’t deserve one. I straightaway retired to my bed that creaked as I lied down, voicing its disapproval over the hopeless occupant it had to supply relaxation for the night.

That night was one of those when you don’t sleep for the first two hours and spend the first hour weeping about your hapless life and the second in deep thoughts, and when you finally shut your red eyes after having made a decision about your future, about your hopeless life.

Dads can never be satisfied; Newton probably forgot to observe this omnipresent phenomenon. Man, I had secured seven percent more than the last time. And Vik? He had dignifiedly deteriorated from fifteen to ten percent. I was a super angel in front of him.

But Dad did not think like this. He was so unlike me. I sometimes doubted if by mistake he forgot to transfer his genes into me since even my physical appearance was very different from him.

My Dad was an Uncle in his physique, with a ten inches protruding belly. He always wore low waist trousers, because his waist size didn’t allow high waists. I, on the other hand, was a lean machine, taller and fairer than Dad, part of a flaunt-it-even-if-you-don’t-have-it generation who had to dutifully and religiously adopt low waists. I would have been close to a Greek God sans my pimples, but girls differed from me in this point of view of mine.

My decisions for the next three months were simple: chuck Priya, screw Facebook, stop feigning damns to the latest track and struggle through a study-filled afternoon. Though T.V. and evening hang-outs with my neighbourhood gang would continue but I will try to make these last a while shorter. After all, the fact that I am a shameless loser doesn’t snatch away my ‘human being’ tag.

***

Everything seems straight when aggression takes over your mind, when fury fills your brain with vengeance. Studies, something which used to seem as alien to me as vegetarianism is to tigers, suddenly became manageable and doable. I was a tiger who had turned vegetarian. I went beyond the realms of nature. I guess India can also tackle the enormous number of obstacles that lie in its path to attain unusual glory through the weapon of aggression. But in the same second, I realize that the only form of aggression our antiquated politicians know of is throwing chappals at each other in the Parliament.

Boards came and boards went, but my anger stayed on. Two words had filled my life with more light. Light, which had shone painfully and had blinded me in the beginning, illuminated my path afterwards.

Since I did not open a single book after the last exam, I did not come to know when the day of declaration of result arrived. But opposite to worldwide expectation, I wasn’t nervous, probably somewhere deep inside I was confident about certain things.

The result was announced at four in the morning. I fail to understand why these board guys don’t usually declare the results in evening or afternoon. I feel they want to take the maximum advantage of anxiety of poor kids who had miserable exam days. Bastards. Though none of my exams had gone miserable, I didn’t sleep that night, just to drench and drown into the air and aura of result-mania.

I secured an unexpected 84%. To this day, I have seldom felt again the delight I felt that day. I ran straightaway to my parents’ room and broke the news to them.

Mum instantaneously went hysterical: shouting, patting, blessing, kissing, praying, hugging. In short, irritating. Actually such a reaction was expected of Mum. But it was Dad who was a surprise package. That day, I saw him happy minus any inhibition for the first time since I have known him, like he has forgotten something. Though there were no tears and hysteria but there were enough blessings and pats to tell me that he was far more contented than his usual self. My two guardians made me feel like a newly knighted king that day.

The morning brought a frenzy of phone calls, like everybody was frantically fighting to hear from me, to congratulate a vegetarian beast of prey. I was on cloud eight and a half. Not nine, because I was celebrating my success without a girlfriend to plant a kiss on my first victory on my face like Bollywood movies and on my lips like the Hollywood flicks.

My parents threw a party the next day to flaunt their son’s intellectual abilities and to increase the altitudes of their personas in the social circle. Soon, my friends started calling me to ask for their share of my victory, i.e., to ask for a treat. I have never understood why a guy who has burnt the midnight oil to get some decent marks in exams has to give treat to his friends and family. Shouldn’t it be the other way round? Isn’t it weirdly awkward that the one who works hard has to literally pay for it later?