Someone Like You (11 page)

It’s been half an hour since I have been back in my room and my roommate still hasn’t turned up. I am getting a little anxious now. I tried sleeping a little while back, but it didn’t really work and I am still wide awake. It’s almost seven when I hear a commotion out in the corridor. It sounds almost like a landslide and I go out of my room to check.

Just outside my room is a pile of at least ten suitcases and I see two men carrying four more behind them. The skinny men drop the suitcases where the others are lying and then stack them next to each other—exactly fifteen suitcases. One of them leaves while the other stands at attention, looking down the hallway like someone important is coming. Is this my roommate? Is she some kind of a princess or something?

From the far end of the hall, I can hear the sound of heels clicking against the mosaic floor, taking quick and determined steps towards where I am standing. The girl turns the corner and I see her brownish-black hair bounce around her face, a pair of sunglasses perched firmly on her forehead, a white T-shirt clinging to her slender body tucked into skinny navy blue trousers held up by a thin brown belt. The heels making the noise are white too, and are at least four inches tall.

‘Hi,’ she says as she comes and stands right in front me.

She is as fair as snow, her lips are amazingly pink, and her teeth blindingly white. She is not very tall and even with her heels, she is only just as tall as me. She looks like a dainty fairy and smells of freshly picked roses. My guess was not that wrong, after all. If not a princess, she is at least a fairy.

‘Niharika,’ I thrust my hand out, but she hugs me instead. And it’s not a pretentious hug, it feels like she is genuinely happy to see me. I can only wonder why.

‘I am Pia,’ she says. She looks at her maid standing next to her and says, ‘Didn’t I tell you that a girl with a name as nice as Niharika can’t be bad? Oh, Niharika, this is Didi. She used to take care of me back in Delhi. And she is really sad that I have come to Nagpur.’ Pia hugs the old woman and the old woman look like she will never let Pia go.

‘That’s sweet. But Pia … I don’t think we can fit all your stuff in,’ I say as I open the door.

‘Don’t worry. Didi will handle everything,’ Pia says and flops on the bed opposite to mine. ‘The room was given to you like this?’

‘No, it was bare. It just came with furniture and the mattresses. I put up the curtains and the posters and shifted the furniture around a little bit.’

‘Oh, nice. I like it,’ she says, smiles at me and looks at all the little things I have put here and there.

The skinny guy and the old woman open suitcase after suitcase filled with clothes, shoes, toiletries and everything one can possibly need and start to stack them neatly into Pia’s cupboard. The cupboard seems to have expanded, as it swallows everything that is in those fifteen suitcases. Pia actively directs them and rejects stuff that she doesn’t think is important any more. Time and again, she looks at me and asks if she would need a certain piece of clothing or a set of bedsheets and takes my suggestions seriously.

Finally, after an hour, all the suitcases are empty (or filled, with whatever we thought was not needed). Pia hugs the old woman—who is in tears now—and bids both of them goodbye. The old woman just doesn’t want to let her go. Pia assures her that she will be back soon and asks her to take care of herself and her mom and dad. She closes the door behind them and drops flat on the bed with her face down on her pillow.

‘So,’ she says as she looks up, ‘how do you find the college?’

‘It has just been one day and half the classes got cancelled. So, there was nothing much to do.’

‘And how is the crowd?’ she asks me, her eyes filled with curiosity.

‘It’s okay. Though, ragging is still quite prevalent in this college. Tanmay and I ran into some trouble this morning,’ I say.

‘Tanmay?’ she asks and I narrate the whole morning incident and also tell her all about Tanmay and how we met. She lets out a few shocked gasps and some radiant smiles every few minutes. She has a really expressive face and it gives me a feeling that she doesn’t really do a good job at hiding what she is feeling. She tells me that she is from Delhi, and has passed out from Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram. She also tells me that her dad is in some kind of business that she herself doesn’t understand. She asks me about my background and as I tell her, she listens intently and bobs her head. The minute I tell her that my sister studies in Delhi, she freaks out and announces that we have to go on a girls’ night-out there soon.

I feel a little strange, seeing her here. She is a rich, pretty brat from Delhi. Well, she does not actually come across as a brat, and if I go by first impressions, she is really sweet, but it really doesn’t look like she belongs here. She belongs to
her big castle back in Delhi, with all her expensive clothes and a line of servants; she is too pampered to be here and to be pursuing engineering. Why would someone so happy and cheerful come to destroy her life in engineering? I ask her exactly that.

She says, ‘I know why you are asking this. A lot of people think I am good for nothing—’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘No, I didn’t take offence. I know I spend a lot of my dad’s money on clothes and shoes, but I have always been good at studies too. Actually, I wanted to do fashion designing, because I love clothes! And shoes too.’ Her eyes light up. ‘But I realized when I took the entrance examination that you need to be really talented to get there. I did way better in my engineering entrance examinations, so I came here. People were shocked, but that was fun too!’

I laugh. ‘But then—were your parents okay with sending you here?’

‘Actually, my parents were the most shocked. They never cared about my marks. When I told them, they had no idea what I was saying. Now, they are proud,’ she says with a huge smile on her face. ‘Oh! And I love your top.’

‘Thank you,’ I say and blush. I have to take her word seriously—she almost became a fashion designer.

And then, it strikes me! A little late, but better late than tomorrow.
Tanmay and Pia!
They would make an amazing pair. The cute kindergarten couple. Harry Potter and the little fairy. How perfect was that?

‘Where are we going?’ Pia asks, as I hold her hand and pull her to the common mess. ‘Let’s go outside and eat today? Mom said hostel food is really bad,’ she chirps.

‘I want you to meet Tanmay,’ I say. I can’t be blamed
for thinking that they would probably have the cutest kids ever born.

‘Sure! But we can still go out to eat, right? We can ask him to come along?’

Pia’s mom has called ten times since the evening to remind her that she shouldn’t eat the hostel food for at least the first few weeks. Apparently, she has a weak stomach, which takes time to adapt to new surroundings. It’s obvious; she is a little princess after all. But Pia isn’t that insistent on it.

‘Let’s ask him,’ I say and drag her inside the canteen.

A lot of people start looking in our direction. I would give Pia’s bright pink attire, with USA 64 written in bold silver letters, the credit for it. Her spaghetti top, too, is a little too skimpy for a hostel mess and I realize it now.

‘Why is everyone looking at us?’ she whispers under her breath, her perfectly shaped eyebrows in knots.

‘Just stick close to me,’ I say.

We look for Tanmay and I am furious that he is not here. I shouldn’t have mentioned in the text I had sent him that Pia is this amazing. He makes us wait for fifteen minutes in the crowded mess, and I don’t see what took him so much time. In his checked pyjamas, a cartoon-embellished T-shirt and his Harry Potter glasses, he looks just the same.

He smiles on seeing me, but his smile automatically disappears as his eyes move from me to the girl at my side. My eyes follow his and I see how cute Pia is. She has left her wavy hair open and it hides half of her snowy white face. By the time Tanmay is standing in front of us, all the blood from his body has rushed to his face and he is bright red.

‘Hi, Tanmay. I am Pia,’ she introduces herself, smiling brightly at him. Tanmay responds with a silent
Hi.

He stretches out a hand to shake hers, but by that time Pia has already moved forward for a hug. There is an awkward moment of something between a hug and a handshake and
I’m glad it lasts just for a few seconds. I make a mental note to tell Pia later that around here not everyone is used to getting hugged.

‘Where are you from, Tanmay?’ the bubbly, cheerful girl asks.

‘Barwaha. You must not have heard of it … a small town in Madhya Pradesh …’ Tanmay mumbles, looking everywhere but at her.

‘No, I have heard of it. One of my Dad’s partners has a farmhouse there. I have been there once. It’s a beautiful place,’ she says and Tanmay turns to look at me with love-struck eyes. I think he has fallen in love just because a girl as pretty as her even knows where Barwaha is, let alone having visited the place.

‘So Tanmay, don’t you think we should go out and eat? My mom just messaged me,’ she shows us her spanking new iPhone with a pink cover, ‘that there is a McDonald’s just outside the college campus. I think we should go. But I don’t know, it’s really your choice,’ she says and makes a face kids make when you don’t take them out for an ice cream. Tanmay looks at me like I am their mom and they are waiting for me to decide.

‘Fine,’
I say. ‘Let’s go.’

Pia shrieks and hugs both of us, grabbing some more attention from the hostellers in the mess. I think I have to be quick with that talk I have decided to have with Pia about who to hug and where.

We ordered burgers, fries and Coke for ourselves. Our table is now filled with transfats, mayonnaise and cholesterol! But Pia gave me another thing to like about her. She wasn’t finicky about eating only low-calorie food. In fact, she ridiculed me when I asked for a burger without cheese. I notice that she has the perfect body—neither too thin, nor too fat.

‘How’s the burger without cheese?’ she mocks me.

‘I don’t want to get fat!’ I say to defend myself.

‘You can’t get fat. You’re already too thin,’ Tanmay says.

‘Are you on my side or hers? You just met her, Tanmay.’

‘You could have had the extra cheese,’ Pia says. ‘We will go to the gym together, what say?’

‘Gym?’

‘Yes, there is a beautiful gym here, don’t you know? I passed it on my way to our room and I stepped in to check it out. It’s very nice, actually. All the equipment looked new too, maybe because I think no one uses it,’ she says and takes a huge bite out of the burger, ‘You can join me there. Tanmay, why don’t you come too?’

‘Me? Gym …? I, uh, no thanks … I’m not really a gym person,’ he says shyly.

‘Come on! You can start now. I could be your trainer? I have been doing this for a long time now,’ she says with a wide-eyed expression and I know Tanmay has no option but to take up her offer.

‘Fine,’ he says and turns beet-red again.

But slowly, Tanmay gets slightly better and stops stammering, though I do notice him blushing every now or then. His behaviour is not too shy; he is just very decent and childlike. Sitting with us, he is comfortable talking to us and is neither too cocky nor too guy
ish
. He is like perfect best friend material. I already like him. He is like those gay men whom you instantly like. There is nothing to not like.

‘Hey,’ Tanmay says and nudges my arm.

‘Ouch! What?’ I ask.

‘Look,’ he says and points to a guy sitting on the corner table, working furiously on his black, weathered laptop. ‘Isn’t it him?’

I look in his direction, and for the first time, I am not staring at his hair, or his eyes. I look at his face and the rest
of him. He is sitting alone, his back straight as an arrow, nerd glasses in front of his eyes and a brooding expression on his face. He looks much older now.

‘Are you sure it’s him?’ I ask, though I am pretty sure.

‘Yes,’ Tanmay says.

‘Who is he?’ Pia asks and Tanmay fills her in. ‘Oh. Then why don’t you go say thank you to him?’

‘What? No!’ I say.