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  PANKAJ DUBEY

  TRENDING IN LOVE

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  Social Media = Happily Ever After?

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  CONTENTS

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  Copyright

  PENGUIN METRO READS

  TRENDING IN LOVE

  Pankaj Dubey is a bilingual novelist and film-maker. All his books, What a Loser!, Ishqiyapa—To Hell With Love and Love Curry, published by Penguin Books India, have been written by him in Hindi as well. He accentuates the socio-political undercurrents with quirk and humour in his style of writing. He has been a journalist with the BBC World Service in London. He was also selected for the prestigious Writers’ Residency in the Seoul Art Space, Yeonhui, Seoul, South Korea, among three novelists from Asia in 2016. Two of his books, Trending in Love and Ishqiyapa, are set to appear as upcoming web series.

  Also by The Author

  What a Loser!

  Ishqiyapa: To Hell With Love

  Love Curry

  To

  all those who believe in

  snow

  rain

  magic

  sweet nothings

  and . . . love

  1

  Life has a way of changing things around you with blinding speed, and in a way that you have little choice but to adapt to your new circumstances. Even a smiling sunflower basking in happiness could be dragged under the harshest spotlight the very next instance and whacked to answer questions that burn its yellow tongue. Our Sanam became one such bakra.

  Not that you would’ve ever thought that possible, seeing the level of comfort and confidence with which she rode.

  Two ‘Best Student’ trophies took pride of place on her desk—the one that had been awarded the previous day at college dwarfed the one presented at school four years ago, in sheer size. A figurine of the Laughing Buddha in onyx reclined next to them, guaranteeing both luck and prosperity.

  The biggest challenge for Sanam today was to airbrush her Europe trip itinerary in such a way that she could squeeze out the maximum from this much-awaited time out to spend with her friends.

  Two days in Lucerne . . . or just a day trip to Jungfrau, with an extra evening in Innsbruck? Sanam shakes her head. There are no easy answers in life!

  But wait! Wasn’t there someone whose biggest preoccupation in life was to make the tough easy for her!

  ‘Dad!’

  Sanam sallies forth to seek the one person who with his magic wand could iron out every crease and wrinkle in her way.

  ‘Dad!’ she calls out. The television news blared louder than her . . . her call drowning in the reporter’s excited outpouring:

  ‘Eight people have died as thousands of Dalits took to streets across India, protesting a Supreme Court order that, according to them, undermines a law designed to protect lower-caste and backward communities. Train services have been severely affected and main roads are blocked in a number of states . . .’

  Grabbing the remote of the gigantic electronic screen that held her dad spellbound, Sanam reduces the volume.

  Two pairs of eyes and ears swivel towards her immediately.

  ‘Sanam!’ Mom finally sights her daughter, now that Prime Time TV has been reduced to background noise by that same daughter.

  His attention snaps to her immediately, ‘Come . . . come . . . sit . . . watch this ruckus,’ invites her dad.

  Sanam sinks into the couch beside him, and in seconds, gallops his attention away from the fellow Dalits on TV to the alpine slopes in Austria and Switzerland that she plans to visit next month. The next twenty minutes are spent gauging the time band each slope rightly deserves in the limited fortnight-long vacation that this sunflower of the household is about to embark on.

  Highly-paid engineers in top-rung government offices, the Banjaras could afford to pander to their daughter’s slightest whim and wish. Being Dalit, they had but seen and suffered life in black and white, before the government had brought in the reservations system to boost their hard work and facilitate a speedy rise up the career ladders. Once perched on top but, dad chose to erect a great wall, higher than even the famed China one, to block out the unseemly view of the disadvantaged and discriminating world below. Mr Banjara’s daughter was only to see the plush side of life.

  Mrs Banjara had protested, but her voice got lost smothered with a pillow of convenient logic. So, Sanam grew up behind this dad-erected wall, flourishing in their sprawling four-bedroomed house, advantageously located in the high-brow south Delhi colony of RK Puram. All gory stories of her parents’ climb were muted. Just one silent video played in loop—that of a cat clambering up, clawing its way to the top . . . holding onto every nook and crevice . . . and to its will to make it to its goal. This drove her to push, accelerate, hit the top gear and steer ahead of everything life threw at her. No one and nothing was allowed to overtake her. No. Sanam had to come first. Everywhere. In school. College. And in life. She made sure of it.

  Every aspect of her life was planned, down to the last detail. Including her holiday travel itinerary. And her father was the only one allowed to review.

  ‘Fifteen is less. Make it twenty,’ proposes Mr Banjara. ‘Then you can cover these places properly.’

  Her phone pinging again and again, Sanam winds up the travel talk with her father, ‘Fine. We’ll work on it once I’m back from Mumbai.’

  ‘Mumbai?’ Mrs Banjara catches onto that one word.

  ‘Yup! Mood Indigo! I told you, last week, na, am debating at this IIT fest tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh! I thought that was in Delhi.’

  Mr Banjara butts in to say, ‘Chaudhry called.’

  ‘Accha,’ Mrs Banjara’s voice perks up ten notches. ‘About Nitin?’

  Nitin was the one Mr Banjara wants as son-in-law and has bookmarked him in their heads accordingly.

  ‘He didn’t exactly say,’ replied her father. ‘He was asking about our Sanam. Wanted to know if she’ll do her Master’s here or abroad.’

  His wife turns to Sanam, who was busy checking messages on her phone. ‘Beta, you think again, we’re okay with whatever you want.’

  ‘Yes,’ her father pipes in. ‘You can still apply for the spring session at LSE if you like.’

  Sanam looks up from her phone absently and nods, ‘I know. But I’m okay here. I don’t like changing my plans.’

  Her father draws her into a hug and proclaims her as his own. ‘Papa ki beti!’

  ‘Papa’s daughter,’ repeats Mrs Banjara, mimicking her husband. ‘And what’re your plans for Nitin, papa ki beti?’ she enquires next, smiling.

  ‘Fit lagta hai . . .’ replied Sanam’s father, giving his thumbs up to the boy.

  ‘I was asking Sanam.’

  ‘Fit hi lagta hai . . .’ confirms the daughter with a laugh. And goes back to texting her friend about why she prefers to drive rather than take the train from Innsbruck to the Swiss Alps.

  * * *

  Srinagar, Kashmir

  From the Austrian and Swiss Alps, let us move on to the desi variety. Let us check out the athletic six-footer executing a classic late cut to send the ball flying to the far end of the expansive ground adjoining the Dal Lake. Before his friends can retrieve the ball, Aamir has run thrice between the wickets, and that is enough for his team to wi
n and end the match. Putting down the cricket bat and doffing his gloves and helmet, Aamir vigorously shakes his shaggy head of deep amber hair to dry off the long strands sticking to his sweaty nape. A rebel lock falls over his eyes only to be pushed back with a careless swipe of his left hand. It was already getting late . . . Aamir had a bus to catch. To Kupwara. Home. Parents. Ammi–Abbu had been waiting for this day . . . for four years.

  All thoughts of boarding the bus, however, take a back seat as teammates rush to hoist him on their shoulders and do a victory dance. Aamir is a star! An ace batsman, a medium-length bowler and a fielder with lightning in his feet. Even as his college team goes mad . . . whooping . . . singing . . . cartwheeling, Aamir rides the procession with a smile and his trademark Dhoni-like cool. Only his brown-black hair bounces wildly in the wind.

  Half an hour later, the end-of-the-year university match celebrations over, Aamir finally heads for Lal Chowk to catch the state government bus to Kupwara. And then, Moeen calls . . .

  His cousin, Moeen, is his exact opposite in every respect. Four inches shorter and skinny, Moeen has not his cousin’s lush locks, only a curly mop. A full beard compensates, covering his sallow cheeks and pale complexion. He often teases Aamir for his sparse, grainy stubble. Moeen is like the storm and all the destruction it entails, while Aamir amplifies the stillness a storm leaves behind.

  A school dropout at sixteen, Moeen soon graduated as a full-time stone-pelter. He mainly targeted CRPF camps—their pickets, barricades and bunkers. What began as an after-Friday-prayers extracurricular activity that involved joining random angry mobs chucking stones on security vehicles and personnel, soon ripened into an obsession and then a profession. Yes, he did get paid for it in cash. The trigger in Moeen’s choice of life was a tale that many in the Valley could claim as their own. It was the inadvertent death of a friend during a police firing—when a peaceful march that his friend had been watching from the sidelines turned violent. The incident sparked in Moeen a hatred that slowly and surely began to consume him and made him thirst for revenge. He wanted to make the authorities pay for taking his friend’s life, and every other life lost unnecessarily in the Valley.

  The stone pelter cousin orders Aamir not to take the bus but to wait for him at Lal Chowk.

  ‘What about my suitcase . . . that can’t ride your bike,’ points out Aamir.

  ‘We’ll dump it at Tauseef’s,’ barks his cousin. ‘He’s driving down day after. He will get it.’

  Aamir considers this for a moment, succumbs then to the soft corner he still has for this much older but wayward cousin of his.

  As the sun spreads its orange cape across the sky, bidding farewell to the wind and the trees and the occasional cloud floating by, its gaze lingers on the two Kashmiri boys flying down the scenic road from Srinagar to Kupwara on a screaming motorbike. Aamir asks Moeen to slow down. But the rush of adrenaline sends Moeen speeding down the winding mountain passes unconcerned. When you can’t stop something, you may as well enjoy it, figures Aamir and gives in to the exhilaration of the ride.

  Up and up north they go, every curve and corner in the hilly terrain challenging both man and machine to push their limits.

  A smile lights up Aamir’s face as they enter Kupwara. Home, at last!

  Moeen frowns. Looks like the army has invaded the place. He had schooled himself to tolerate the hyperactive police presence, and every time a military convoy passes their way, but this was maddening. Police Gypsy 4x4s, CRPF personnel and check point after check point . . . like termites, they were everywhere . . . eating away at the normalcy of their life. With a grunt he brings the bike to a halt.

  But even before they have come to a complete halt, a gust of teenager affection bundled in a silver-turquoise salwar kameez descends upon them.

  ‘Bhaijaan, aslaam alaikum!’

  Every taut nerve in Moeen’s face relaxes as he looks at her. She does this to him every time, giving him a happy reason to exist. Throwing open his arms, even as he dismounts, Moeen gathers her in a tight hug that does not look like it will end anytime soon.

  Aamir catches her eyeing him, in stolen snatches, even as she does not let go of her brother. He walks up to her, pulls her out of Moeen’s grasp and . . . stops. What the hell! This couldn’t be Sabah, so grown-up . . . and . . . looking so different! The fifteen-year-old frisky thing, in waist-long plaits that bounces along with her was now a sumptuous woman with a peaches-and-cream complexion, her eyes sparkling with adolescent secrets.

  No, he could not hug her any more, a grown-up woman that she was now. But his hands could not just pause mid-air and return to his pockets, so he musses her hair affectionately.

  ‘Aamir!’

  Her tone says it all. At nineteen, she is as besotted with him as she was at fifteen.

  2

  Sanam’s Indigo flight lands fifteen minutes early and as she has no check-in baggage, or any other reason to delay her egress, Sanam breezes out of the airport within minutes of disembarking, and finds herself at the taxi stand where the festival organizers have sent her a cab.

  On her way to the IIT fest, she finishes off her calls and tweets, scrolls through the comments on Instagram where she has posted a picture of her boarding pass, and even checks out the Snapchat map to see how many of her friends are in Mumbai currently. Her virtual life sorted, next on her agenda is bhel puri—the tangy street snack that her Dilli (Delhi, as referred to locally) can never make the way Mumbai does. Directing her cabbie to her favourite street joint, her bhel puri-wallah bhaiyya, she alights to get her bhel that bhaiyya mixes just the way she likes it—with extra tamarind-jaggery chutney and lots of raw mango slivers. She gets one for the taxi driver too, who laughs happily and joins in her celebration of all things Mumbaiya.

  Soon they are cruising through Juhu and through the gaps in the buildings, Sanam catches inviting glimpses of the beach. The fleeting sight awakens an irresistible urge to walk into the ocean. She promises a very large tip to the driver because she must indulge herself, even if for just a few insane minutes. She walks mesmerized towards the sea like it were beckoning to her on some subliminal level, the moist breeze lifting her hair, the sand giving way under her bare feet as she slips off her sandals. She walks down to meet the water that ebbs and flows on to the beach, uncaring of anybody and everybody around her. She can identify with the waves because she lives her life just as the tides do, flowing in and out at will. Friends and boyfriends can come and go, but they create no lasting ripple; the only exception is her family, which is a permanent feature of her life.

  Refreshed, she treks back to the cab and freshens up her make-up and hair as the mad Mumbai traffic swallows them once again. Sanam sighs as she watches two-wheelers darting in and out of incredibly narrow spaces between the bumper-to-bumper cars and buses—big cities are the same everywhere. Her father wants her to marry Bengaluru-based Nitin, who is Choudhry uncle’s eligible son. She will cross that bridge when she comes to it. Right now, it is college and Tinder guys, who are enough to fill her social calendar.

  When she finally reaches IIT, she tips the driver generously and he beams from ear to ear. She enters the campus and disappears into the swarm of student crowd. Over a lakh participants from thousands of colleges across India have come to compete and to chill in a festival that has been pegged to be the biggest in Asia. Winning on this massive platform will be an achievement in itself and will enhance her CV as well. She is determined to make her mark.

  A ton of cool events are lined up—from music shows to fashion, stand-up comedy and more but Sanam’s mind can absorb nothing until the debating event is completed. She chats with the organizing staff, extracting as much information as she can about the debate topics, the rules, the names of the other contestants and every other question that she can think of to be completely and totally prepared.

  It’s late in the afternoon when Sanam takes the podium and smiles at her opponent, Kartik—he defeated her the last time the two shared a stage. Ti
me to get even. The topic of the debate is Kashmir—Rising Militancy in Kashmir—Use Force, Don’t Hug Them? She speaks for the motion. Cow them down first and then talk. No one listens when you act meekly. We have let them grow way beyond their boots. Should have nipped it when street processions were thin and infrequent. Mounting public defiance against government rule in Kashmir has happened because we allowed it. Today you got locals thronging funerals of militants—making them martyrs. Disobeying curfews. Crowding around encounter sites . . . helping terrorists escape security forces. Why are they doing this? Because we have let them. This should stop. We need a strong multipronged action plan. One that is implemented in a phased manner, checking both violence and alienation of the people. We need to use force. And use it effectively . . . to bring them to the table for a dialogue.

  Kashmir and Kashmiris are still awaiting their fate, but Sanam’s is decided that evening, at their expense. She wins. The Best Speaker trophy is hers! To display on her desk or to line up with its many predecessors on the glass-fronted shelf above the desk.

  Goal achieved, it’s time to let her hair down; to catch up with all the faces she knows from so many other fests she has attended. Share a coffee with Ankit whom she had found cute when she first met him at a Hindu College event. Swap gossip with the Xavier’s college crowd and discuss the state of the nation with the Presidency know-it-alls. And she so wants to go to that comedy act scheduled in an hour—Papa CJ is featured. Besides this, a music gig with big names is slated for the next day: high octane music that brings all the attendees together. But tomorrow is another day. Tonight, all she wants to do is soak in the magic of the campus. Into the night she goes then, into the open greens in the campus, lit with cosy bonfires on fest nights for all to jam to popular tunes! Conversations that happen here cast their spell for long. The warmth of the fire, friends-just-made and talks both inane and meaningful keep Sanam awake and enchanted until the wee hours of the morning.