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  Sanam paces the room, contemplating the optional paper that she should attempt. She wants a subject that will add to her overall score but also one that she can absorb quickly so she can move on to focus on the General Studies papers. Her dad walks into her thoughts just then.

  ‘Speak to Nitin. Ask if he can fly down for the weekend. It’ll be a good change for you after all this stress.’

  For the first time in her life, Sanam disagrees with her father, ‘I don’t have time for myself; where will he fit in?’

  With that terse one-liner, she returns to deciding between an easy subject and one that overlapped with General Studies. Her father just leaves her to it.

  Her mother wanders into Sanam’s room an hour later and finds her poring over the syllabus, highlighting topics and entering them on a weekly schedule. Her mother tiptoes out without disturbing Sanam’s concentration.

  Later that afternoon, her mother comes in with a bowl of soup and garlic bread and discovers that both the morning mug of coffee and the apple lie untouched on the table. Sanam is still hard at work at her desk, although the timetable that she had been working on is now pinned prominently on the soft board before her. She is busy sorting the books and notes she had got at KKT’s—she stacks the books on two shelves, the ones she wants to immediately work on are arranged on the lower shelf and the ones she may need to refer to at a later date, on the upper shelf.

  Suddenly, Sanam is aware of her mother’s presence. She swivels around on her chair, ‘I . . . I . . . didn’t realize—’

  The bowl is thrust into her hands before she can complete that thought. It’s her favourite—broccoli soup. Sanam begins to dig in as her mother looks on indulgently. Sanam had not realized just how hungry she was.

  Sanam impulsively hugs her mother as she arranges the used dishes along with the uneaten apple and cup of cold coffee on the tray. Her mother pats her mad daughter on the head.

  ‘Mom, the syllabus is too vast,’ she moans. ‘I’m terrified.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, beta. Just plug away at it, a little at a time, and before you know it, it’ll all be done. But make sure you eat and sleep on time . . .’

  Sanam nods and is immediately so deeply engrossed that she doesn’t realize that her mother has left the room, softly shutting the door behind her. Mom is right. She has always managed to multi-task. Smoothly. Then why the issue now? What is different?

  The answer stares her in the face. This is new and furthermore, she is now driven by the need to prove herself to the world. The goal is far from easy, but she simply has to do it.

  By nightfall, she has set up all the resources she needs for her preparation. And then on to preparing the notes. And reading. And writing. Especially writing. Answering questions. Evaluating answers. Revising and repeating the entire exercise.

  Afternoon turns into evening . . . into night . . . into the next day . . . and the next . . . and the next . . .

  Sanam is at work. Without let up.

  Until even Sanam has to admit that she has reached saturation point. It’s time to take a break. What should she do?

  Nitin is in town and has telephoned twice already. But Sanam is in no frame of mind to submit herself to his grand inquisitions just yet. Even worse, she’ll need to be poised, formal and friendly, which will mean adopting an entirely new avatar—way beyond the realms of her ability in her present state of mind.

  Her current mood rules out friends as well. A low profile is the need of the hour.

  A tiny voice from inside prods: Tinder!

  She opens the app and flicks through profile after profile, swiping left. All those gym selfies, showing off brawn and dumbbells . . . she finds them lame. Flaunting cars and exotic locations is even worse. And then those over-the-top bios, trying to impress and only ending up being verbose and meaningless.

  Ah! Finally, someone who looks normal and doesn’t brag too much. She right-swipes. Her choice swipes back right. Immediately. And it’s a match. Sanam gets ready to party.

  Zipping into a short tube skirt and combining it with a sheer top and minimal make-up, she’s ready in a jiffy.

  Who knows what the night may have in store for her? The hyper-systematic Sanam revels in her occasional moments of madness.

  Chinar Inn, Kupwara, Kashmir

  Major Kalra has kindly arranged for Aamir to man the night shift. This way his days can be left free to prepare for the IAS examinations. Nights at the inn are usually quiet unless there is a party in the banquet hall, like tonight. The never-ending stream of visitors and loud DJ music filtering out every time someone holds the banquet hall door open, makes it impossible for even a focused person like Aamir to concentrate. He gathers up the notes that he had been studying—in between attending to the guests and miscellaneous hotel work—and is about to put them away in his folder when someone snatches them from him.

  ‘Moeen!’ Aamir half-screams in exasperation, shocked to see him here at his place of work. His cousin invariably turns up like a bad penny precisely where Aamir does not want him.

  ‘World History!’ Moeen reads, holding up a sheet. ‘Pratiyogita Darpan.’ This one is a magazine. ‘And what’s this? Mock—’ Aamir makes a grab for his precious course material, but his slippery cousin evades him easily. ‘—Test Series,’ he completes reading out the title on the page.

  ‘What on earth are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Aamir rescues his folder and notes from his cousin and crams them hurriedly into a drawer.

  ‘I smelled something fishy with the way you’ve been sneaking around these days and dodging me,’ Moeen says. ‘So, I’ve come to check up on you.’

  Aamir tries to fob him off with lame reasons, but Moeen is too sharp. He provokes him until Aamir admits that he is studying for an entrance exam, although he doesn’t reveal which one.

  Providentially some work comes up just then which Aamir has to attend to and Moeen sidles away.

  In a Delhi Nightclub

  ‘No, I don’t work,’ he tells Sanam. ‘I live off the rents we get. And we get enough.’

  She finds this contemptible beyond words. He gets her a vodka.

  ‘How about you?’ she raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Oh, I don’t drink,’ he shakes his head, self-deprecatingly. He just sits there, watching with a smile as Sanam sips delicately from her glass. Saying nothing. Tinder had got her exactly the kind of date she wanted tonight. One who did nothing. Demanded nothing.

  Finishing her drink, her face slightly flushed, Sanam gets up to dance, inviting her Tinder date to join her on the floor. And surprisingly, he doesn’t refuse.

  Only it’s not quite so comfortable any more. Her date, who neither works nor drinks and barely talks, gets super energetic on the floor. Squeezing close, he paws at her with disgusting familiarity.

  Sanam abandons the dancefloor saying, ‘I don’t do more than one dance.’ And with that she has dealt with the creepiness of her partner.

  By the time the evening is done, Sanam is recharged for the next round of slogging.

  A Small Café in Kashmir

  From the front desk at night to attending café tables during the day, Aamir slogs his way to a bureaucratic future with the composure of a Buddha. Or so it seems. Although worked up within, Aamir is a model of calm outside and deftly balances his two worlds—work and IAS studies—and not a soul knew his secret. Although there is no coaching centre for this course in Kupwara, the world wide web provides YouTube videos with strategy insights, blogs and websites bursting with study material, tips and mock tests.

  The only issue is that Internet access in Kupwara is sporadic at best and wholly dependent on the whims and fancies of the government and the military. However, Aamir has learned to work around this and goes online whenever there is connectivity, to write essays and solve sample papers; and when the network is down, he catches up on his NCERT and reference reading. He has gotten a hang of the exam pattern. He has read and re-read the syllabus, listed out the
main reference books and hedged his bets when it comes to choosing optional subjects. His study schedule remains flexible to fit around his work demands and Internet outages.

  Right now, he sits in a café, watching a video lecture, courtesy the café Wi-Fi. Both mind and earphones are plugged into the online Pub Ad lesson and he is so immersed in it that he doesn’t hear someone pull up a chair opposite him until she covers his hand on the mouse with her own.

  ‘Sabah!’

  The girl smiles into his eyes. Aamir pauses the lecture and searches her face for the reason she has sought him out. Her eyes twinkle in response. He asks her . . . this time with words.

  And she tells him, ‘You’re never home; so, I came here.’

  Sabah lives a few houses away. And visits often, very often, ever since he has returned. Only he is not around to know. Sabah comes, hoping to find him there, else to gather news of him from people there.

  Sabah wants to see him! Why? Aamir has not a clue. What work she could have with him? Eludes him. Completely. Also, he knows not how to deal with her any more. No, he couldn’t tease her . . . touch her . . . play . . . fight . . . protect . . . no.

  ‘Sabah, can I do something for you?’ he asks tentatively.

  She nods, the metal jhumkis dangling from her ears swinging left to right, and back, in an exaggerated fashion. Aamir sees them only as the nuisance and weight they must be to her lobes.

  ‘Am just alone and bored,’ she tells him after a few minutes.

  Aamir feels sorry for her. ‘This Moeen is useless. He should take you out some time.’

  ‘No,’ Sabah disagrees immediately. ‘All he does is fight and argue with me.’

  Aamir chuckles in sympathy, ‘That he does.’

  He orders a cold coffee for her and the two keep talking for the next hour and more; the laptop stays shut, his plan to work on the mock test lies forgotten. Moeen watches the couple from afar and grunts in satisfaction. This was his idea and it has panned out exactly as he wanted. For Aamir, he cannot let go. No exams, job or posting . . . nothing should take him away from Kupwara. Aamir is bright. Bold. And beautiful. Okay, maybe not be beautiful. But crucial to their cause. Aamir has to stay here. And Sabah will make him stay. Moeen throws his head back and laughs heartily. His kiddish stepsister has a bad crush on Aamir, dating back to the day she learnt that word. And Moeen has now put it to right use.

  8

  Appearing for the Indian civil services exam is something monks should do. To prepare for the exam you have to be prepared to renounce every worldly pleasure, until you have attained the required high score, or nirvana from further attempts. Your performance in the mock papers can give you an adrenaline rush though, which again is not meant to be enjoyed, but should inspire you to focus even more on your goal.

  Also, every IAS candidate knows, current affairs must stifle every other affair in his or her life. It’s okay if one isn’t aware of whatever is happening in one’s own backyard, kitchen or heart, but it’s critical to cram in and cough out information on every other thing under the sun. Facts like: how active is the Barren volcano in Nicobar? Name of every virus that has struck mankind in the past decade or more—the date of each attack as well as the casualty figures. Every micro bit of data on every government-sponsored scheme, irrespective of whether its impact is high or low is important for the candidate. Even eLISA-Gravitational waves and Singularity-string theory has to be mugged up. Questions on art, culture, commerce and polity are a given. Anything and everything can be asked.

  Sanam deletes Tinder. Not that the app has given her such a wow night. But it might . . . on a future swipe and match . . . when her brain is fried again and crying for a break. Still she deleted . . . better to reinstall the app when the need arose . . . than keep it and risk distraction. No Instagram; no SnapChat. She has no selfies to post and no time to ‘like’ or stalk. As for YouTube, every video she now sees features a nerd blabbering on and on and on about polity updates, ecology prelim tips, ethics, etc.

  Aamir has a different story. Current affairs is already his main affair. He is twice blessed: firstly, he is a Kashmiri, and like any average Kashmiri, he has this insatiable appetite for news—devouring whatever becomes available, amid media blackouts, censorship and social media bans. Secondly, he used to edit a local weekly in Srinagar. Clearly, he has a headstart. Even now, he blogs on Valley events and is gaining a huge following—though they know him only as ‘An Unknown Voice’.

  The only other affair he has is on paper . . . with his dream muse—she drives him to feel, to write and to enjoy his Urdu couplets. Poetry breathes life into him when the days are bleak or the sun has set. This passion he takes to the IAS too, opting for Urdu language and poetry in his General Studies paper. As for Instagram and Facebook, they fulfil a limited purpose, stirring neither his mind nor his heart. Tinder does not exist . . . not for him.

  Life however is not that simple. Not everyone understands what it means to be an IAS aspirant. Sabah definitely does not. She only knows that IAS could take her Aamir away from her; Moeen bhaijaan has warned her and all she wants to do now is to keep IAS as far away from Aamir as possible.

  She invites him home using his IAS as a bait to draw him in. ‘Why don’t you study at my place today?’ she offers. ‘Abbu and Ammi are both out,’ she confides. ‘No one will know what you are doing.’

  Aamir hesitates, ‘I’ll go out . . . don’t worry.’

  ‘Where?’ she asks, her voice getting high-pitched. ‘To that dingy café? They loot you, you know that.’

  ‘No. I’ll go to the park,’ he replies calmly.

  ‘Arrey, how much can you focus under the trees,’ she argues, ‘with all those birds shitting on your head, cars honking and people coming and going. It’s too noisy. Besides, the light will fade soon.’

  ‘Hmm . . .’ is all he says.

  ‘Come na. No one will disturb you here.’

  Aamir eventually gives in. Hanging up, he picks up his books and walks over to Sabah’s house. She meets him at the door and seats him comfortably in the living room.

  Aamir looks around as he settles down. The place looks different somehow. He scratches his head. Light, yes, that’s what is missing today, no wonder the place looks shady. Something else is wrong. He sniffs. Some weird heavy scent of perfume or room freshener hangs heavy in the air. He flings open the windows. Then settles down. Opens his books and notes.

  Sabah walks in. Finds the curtains and windows all flung open and cries out, ‘Such a cosy ambience I created, and you ruined it!’

  Aamir corrects her. He wanted a peaceful, not cosy atmosphere.

  She walks up to his table then. Pushes aside his books to place a steaming plate of saffron pulao before him.

  ‘Eat this.’

  ‘Later,’ says Aamir.

  But she insists.

  ‘Okay,’ he agrees reluctantly and begins eating quickly.

  Sabah leaves the room.

  Aamir places the near-empty rice bowl on the side and spreads open his books again. Before he can write two lines, she dances in again with two more bowls.

  ‘Why did you eat your pulao without the curry!’ she chides. ‘See, I made aloo dum for you. And rogan josh.’

  Aamir is at a loss. He is in no mood to eat. Only to study. He had eaten the pulao just to please her now he doesn’t want these heavy curries.

  ‘All this food will put me to sleep,’ he tells her.

  She refuses to listen to his excuses and decides to serve him herself.

  Aamir is now getting irritated but keeps his cool.

  ‘Okay, I’ll have it in a while,’ he says and waves her away. ‘First, I need to work on something.’

  Sabah walks away but only to sit in a far corner and watch him. Aamir gets back to his books and soon forgets that the girl is still in the room. After about twenty minutes, right when he is in the middle of mugging up the Five-Year Plan targets, he hears her. She has made another trip to the kitchen and is back with a
nother glass bowl, a radiant smile on her face.

  Now what?! Aamir is rapidly losing it, but still says nothing.

  ‘Kheer,’ she trills.

  Putting up a hand, Aamir indicates that he does not want it. Kheer is his favourite dessert. But he does not want it. Not now.

  She kneels before him and begins feeding him with a spoon.

  He is too shocked to react.

  After a few spoonfuls, he pushes her hand away firmly.

  She continues to sit there, pouting.

  Aamir gets back to Economics. But finds it difficult to concentrate with this grown-up version of Sabah sitting just a few inches away from him, her bangles clinking as she fiddles with the bowl in her hand, sniffing as if she were about to cry.

  He gives up. Takes the bowl from her hands and has some more kheer.

  ‘Really yum,’ he tells her with a smile. ‘Now, you go. I’ll study.’

  She gets up then and scampers out, bursting with happiness.

  Aamir is about to move onto the next Five-Year Plan, when the jingle of bangles forces him to look up. Sabah is standing at the door again, balancing two dishes in her hands. Catching his eye, she sashays towards him. As she draws close, Aamir does a double take. What the hell is she wearing? A dress . . . a very short dress . . . and . . . a hat! He is zapped. What shit is this?!

  ‘I also made phirni for you,’ she is saying, holding one plate up to him. ‘And shahi tukda.’ The second plate she pushes right under his nose.

  ‘Sabah . . .’ With a steely edge to his voice, Aamir looks her in the eye. ‘What’s all this?’