Stalker

If I were to visit a psychiatrist with the mental state I am in, he might accuse me of being a voyeur, but believe me I don’t take pleasure in peeking into other people’s lives so I am not a voyeur. I just do it because I am bored and pretty much have nothing else to do. The story I am going to unfold took place over a year ago. Those were desperate times for me. I was sick and tired of being a loner back then and I was looking for a relationship of my standards, and quite frankly I had set myself very high standards. 

I love entering other’s lives, nudging their doors open in a quiet, noiseless way, being their uninvited, invisible guest. It really puts me on edge. Glancing at people through the peep holes of their social networks (especially Facebook) seeing their lives, their moments of happiness, their times of tragedies, making assessment of those and comparing them to the data of my own life tantalises me. It entices and invites me. It is my favorite and only pastime in a room radiating absolute boredom and dullness diffusing from every corner.

It was a chilly winter evening when it happened. I was preparing tea in the kitchen when I heard that irresistible sound of a Facebook notification. It was from a group called “WORD FIGHTER”— those kinds of groups where rookies with a very limited sense of rhymes and poetry judge themselves as poets and act as though they are Keats or Wordsworth. On a normal evening, I wouldn’t have dared to enter that group, but it was the dullest evening of my life so I checked it out anyway. There was a crappy poem from my friend Angela moaning about how her boyfriend dumped her and how love hurts so no one should ever fall in love and other depressing rubbish; I was just about to exit from that group when I saw something. Some girl named Alonika Sharma had commented on Angela’s poem. She wrote, “He was not your true love anyway. You should get over him and try searching for true love again. Say goodbye to minor bumps and be ready for the journey of life”. Such cheesy lines of consolations, I joked in my mind. It was not those lines that got me drew me towards her. It was her name. Alonika, what a weird name, I thought and within a few seconds I found myself looking at her Facebook profile.

Alonika Sharma, boy she must be alone then I chuckled. From her photos, she appeared to be in her late teens, with a fair complexion, and maybe had a height of about five foot two. Wow, I thought, exactly what I need in a girl. Marilyn Monroe was on her current cover photo with her quote, “ It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than to be absolutely boring. Wow, we share the same philosophies too, I thought. A girl who suits me in every possible way. I thought my mind up would swell up any moment and if I did not stop thinking about her it might explode.

Games we play

“Let's do something together,” you say.
“Like what?” I ask.

“Let’s play a game.” You say.

“I don’t play with girls. I hate Barbie dolls anyways. You know that. I hate everything girls like. In a way, I hate girls. Because they are phony.” I reply, though I know that you’re an exception. You’re different.

“Why are you being weird, James? It’s just a game I want to play. And it’s not about Barbie dolls!” You say. “You might like it.”

“What sort of game is it?” I ask.

“Never mind. Let’s just do something funny and unusual.” You say. “Like let's sit and talk on the brick steps in the Silver Jubilee Park and laugh about everything and nothing at all. Let's have it be a pure accident. Opportune circumstance, as they say. And let's have it be beautiful.”

I don’t know how you invent topics like these. Your conversations, like that of a playful kid, always make me wonder. I know they don’t lead anywhere. I know it’s stupid to chat like we are carefree. As if we don’t have normal lives to deal with. More than that, for me, it’s stupid even to chat with girls in the first place. But I roll along with you anyway. Because you’re different.

“It’s your turn now. You have to say something.” You stroke on my head with a pencil, prompting me to speak, to add sentences to our ‘game’.

“Umm” I say. “Let’s get up regretfully and bid each other good-bye, with promises to talk again next week. Let's gaze wistfully after each other as we depart.”

To which, you add, “Let's make it a habit throughout the summer to talk and laugh on the brick steps in the Silver Jubilee Park. Let's look forward to our weekly chitchat, and let's wonder what the other is thinking as we anticipate seeing each other again.”

Coffee makes me nervous. So do you.

I’m an honest person, honestly. That’s why I’m telling you from the beginning that I’m not sure about coffee.

I hate coffee. I hate the taste of it. I hate the smell. I hate the way people get addicted to it, artificially almost, as if it were a trend. And they brag about needing caffeine to function. They even post bogus status updates on Facebook.

-I had three cups last night to pull through.  19 likes, 35 comments
-Should have taken coffee shots before the psychology test.  56 likes, 14 comments 
-Without coffee, my life would have been in the Mariana trench.  24 likes, 80 comments 
-Coffee is my rechargeable lithium ion battery! LOL  25 likes, 72 comments 

It’s stupid until you see these people without coffee—then it’s stupid again.

But for you, I’m going to try. I have tasted coffee before. I just haven’t sat down to drink it. Now I’m going to. I’m going to bravely face its nasty smell and bitter taste and silly stereotypes. Just for you. I’m not sure why. I barely know you. In fact, I’ve never actually met you. We’re meeting for coffee. I’ve never met someone for coffee. It should be normal and casual. Nothing extraordinary. Still, it’s wild and strange.  

Let’s not start this off with illusions or lies. I’m not sure what to think of coffee. A lot of people like it, but a lot of people like smoking, heroin, vegetable patties, porridge, Twilight, and QBASIC, too. Likes don’t make things great. Maybe a lot of people like you too, but I’m not sure what to think of you either. I haven’t tasted you. Are you too bitter, too strong? Are you unhealthy? I want you to be healthy. I want you to be sweet, even if it’s bittersweet. I want to like you. Maybe I already do. Maybe it’s just coffee that I’m not sure of. Or maybe it’s me. Crazy me. All my thoughts and feelings are mixed up with the past and the present and the scent of coffee in my mind.

System, routine and pocket money

For every act of mischief I made back home, dad set up a clever booby trap with which to straighten me up. I wasn’t alone that day. The other kids were in the same pit I was in.

“You play when I say you play. You study when I say you study. Follow what everybody else does here. Stick to the rules and you will be fine,” someone was announcing before supper. He was our duty teacher, Mr Khatri.

“Have fun, keep your head under the rules, and always remember one thing—no matter what you do, don’t try and mess with the system. As a duty teacher, it is my duty to look after you all, from the moment you wake up until you go back to bed again.”

“Sir, how long do we get to sleep?” popped a guy from the back.

“This is your first day, kid. I am surprised your dad didn’t tell you anything before he got you in here. Like I said, from today onwards you’ll follow the routine.”

It was a harsh reply. “You are part of a boarding school now. Try and enjoy it.”

 That was two years ago. But in here, away from family, two years is a long haul. You get introduced to certain things by the end of the month. After the introductory course is over, get ready to succumb. Or in my daddy’s own words, get ready to straighten up!

 “Kushal, do you need pocket money?” Mr Khatri inquires.

We’re eighty students in a big hall called the dayroom. Theoretically, a dayroom is common room in an institution where people socialise during the day. There is no ‘socialising’ for us though. We come here in the evenings to study. And on Mondays, like today, Mr Khatri distributes pocket money.

“Kushal? Didn’t you hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
“How much do you need?”
“Sir, thirty.”
“Thirty!
“Why thirty? Take ten.”

Kushal is reluctant for a moment but then he knows there is no point in arguing and asking for more. Can’t mess with the system. Moreover, Mr Khatri never ever gave more than ten rupees. They say our house captain got forty once, but I think that’s just plain rumour. It basically depends on your luck.

Ten past six

Children surrounded the old man like flies hovering around a filament lamp.

One of them rose to say, “Mr Wilkinson, you always read to us from boring books. Read us something new today, a good story.”

“Good story?” The man smirked. “What does good mean anyway? Bunch of crabby school kids like you bragging in front of one another about your expensive possessions, or birthday gifts, summer family trips, and luxuries like that? That is good to you. We never even had birthday celebrations kid, no summer trips. I read you through these mad pages of fiction because this is what you like. You like listening to silly fables. I can tell you what stories real life makes. I’ll tell you the story of ‘ten past six’.”

28 January 1975

I went to a school second to none in the country. Spread over hundreds of acres, it had everything a student could demand from life. What was strange, however, was that it was a world like Hogwarts. Tall British castle type buildings, trees as abundant as in a forest, twelve houses instead of four, labs where we performed back titrations instead of making potions, an assembly hall where the school gathered on Mondays, enough playgrounds but no Quidditch, and a huge dining hall with special reverence for chicken curry. Like I said, this was nearly a Hogwarts. Our Dumbledore was a tall slender guy with grey beard. Everyone knew him by the name Tony Wedgewood.