3. things were real here

Would I have choosen a different room in the hostel if had not been stoned that night? Probably.

My tiresome type-a traits would have kick in. I would have checked multiple rooms, analysed their pros and cons and probably chosen a bigger room than the small one I had drifted into. But then, would I ever have run into shine Sarkar at the IIM? At Yale, Peter had once stumbled into my room high as a kite and said,'dude, it's all connected!'before passing out on the floor. I had taught nothing of the comment at the time, and had resume my studies as usual after dragging him to his bed.

But now I thought I understood what he meant. In a sense, everything that happened in India followed a well-laid-out master plan, though it seem would like a series of random events to start with. Or perhaps, it was a deathwish of some sort: I had probably been asking out disaster from the moment I arrived here.

It started with a loud, insolent knock on my door that jolted me awake the next morning. My head hurt from the combined effect of the jet lag, the airport ordeal and the late-night marijuana romp. I woke up confused. Why were the walls of my room covered with crumbling, pale whitewash, and where was the monet? But it did not take me long to get back my bearings. With what I would later recognise as disrespect for personal space, so characteristics of life here, a small, dark Bilbo baggins-esque character, who seem to be in unusual good humour, barged into my room as soon as I opened the door.

'Ah! You are the famous firang who is going to live next to me. I must say I am disappointed, though I was expecting the real deal, A gora—a white-Skinned archi with hairless skin, red hair and freckless on his nose,'he said, longing himself down on my bed, 'but you, my friend, you look even more Indian then I do. A 6-foot Plus, broad-shoulder brown giant: Shiva's very own phallic symbol of Indian manhood. Don't worry, I know I am making no sense. I am Sarkar by the way–shine Sarkar, your next-door neighbour.'

I try to figure out if he was drunk. He did not seem to be.

I am Samrat Ratan,'I mumbled, trying to adjust to this new, undesired presence in my how do you know I am from the US?'

'thank God, at least the ancient is authentic and Samrat sounds like a real hippie name. And your red eyes do betray a true jetlag. you are a major celebrity already, firang. Everybody is talking about the Manhattan-based investment banker from Wall Street who has decided to Grace us with his presence at the IIM,'he said.

I was surprised.'what? Why? That hardly warrant star status'.

'you have to understand,'Sarkar they won't show you this in the Hollywood films about the slums and whores of real India, but becoming an investment banker on Wall Street is the kind of fantasy that adolescent wet dreams are made of in India. And you decided to leave all that and come here; you are the star of the great Indian middle class porn blockbuster.'

He jabbered on. I think you need an authentic Indian cigarette to wake you up. Here, have a Wills Navy cut. It won't help you win friends or get laid as the ads show, but it will definitely wake you up.

'he was right. It was Harsh, quite unlike that dunhill lights I smoked in Manhattan, and screamed cancer. The smoke burnt its way down my throat, slowly waking me up in a few drags.

The walked out of the room and I was immediately struck by the shark, uneven beauty of the IIM campus. The view from our shared balcony was straight out of those sucker tourist postcards that people put up as wallpaper on their desktop. Directly in front of the student hostel was a courtyard with hibiscus and gulmohar trees, not flowering but not completely bare either . Behind us was an Olympic-size playground with a basketball arena, a mini-soccer field and even skating rink.('is that a god damn and skating area?'Sarkar said, equally taken aback as his eyes followed mine, but for different what kind of a wimp skates in India?') the main institute building adjoining the residential hostel seemed to be some sort of a neo-imprisonist architectural marvel. From the distant view we got from our balcony, it seem would like cubes were placed over each other to form a complex castle-like structure. I am usually suspicious of people who climax at seeing oddly shaped buildings and say stuff like'great endeavour of the mind'or or'victory of the human'but this view of the imposing building moved me. Not to the point of having an Earth-shattering ****** or anything, but still, it was impressive.

'what? You thought all of India was like Gandhi's ashram?'said Sarkar at my obvious surprise .

I felt ashamed. He was right. I was behaving like a redneck tourist from Kentucky (which I was). Still, I was not too far of the mark, as I would learn later . The campus stood Oasis-like amidst the crumbling infrastructure outside. While potholed roads that ensure a bone-breaking ride are not unusual in India, the road leading to the sprawling IIM campus was a real mother. During one particularly Harsh monsoon, a visiting professor from Romania or some other exotic eastern European country received a little more than the authentic Indian experience he was seeking when his airport cab sputtered and died on the flooded road. He had to wade his way through shoulder-high water to reach the campus. And if that was not enough, the unlucky bastard went on to collide with a floating, dead buffalo and lost his laptop in the ensuing chaos. After shaking of the sordid memories of his introduction to the IIM, he must have wondered how the best business school in the country could be so oblivious to the management problems that abounded in its immediate environment. But as we would soon discover, that precisely was the unofficial Moto of the denizens of the business school:'ensure your own house is in a shamebless.'

Sarkar perched himself on the balcony ledge smoking a cigarette, clearly enjoying the pleasant summer breeze.

'so , where did you go to school? What is your story?'I asked him.

'not even midly as interesting as yours, firang. Mine is a typical Indian story, similar I would presume to almost everyone else here. No clear ambition, no governing interest, just drifting along, doing things I am supposed to be doing, collecting degree along the way. I had an engineering degree before I came here, I must admit I am horrible engineer. I can't even screw on a light bulb, but thanks to the wretchedness of our education system, I graduated with honours from the IIT.'

And honour student from the Indian institute of technology? I knew enough about those to know that he was way smarter than he climbed to be. His story was not two different from mine, though. I had done physics at Yale by default, and had realised in my complete in aptitude for it before drifting into a soulless banking job.

I was about to tell him that when we heard a shrill voice call out from behind,'hey guys! Are you going for lunch?'

It belong to a small, bepectacled guy with thinning hair as oily his smile. 'myself Chetan Sharma from Mumbai, chartered accountant. I heard you were and investment banker in New York . I wanted to make an introduction.'

Word travels fast in India, I thought. We made the prefunctory introductions. Once the smile was gone, Chetan had a worried, anxious look on his face. I did not want to judge him to harshly and so soon, but he did resemble the gollums on Wall Street: bankers whose obsession with their year-end bonus rivalled the fixation of the legendary Tolkien character. Or as brad Pitt(more eloquent,in my opinion, than Tolkien) said in fight club:'the things that they own start owning them'. Over the course of the conversation, Chetan gave a disinterested Sarkar and the some what fascinated me a detailed description of his scoring'always 90% at least'in school, which I guessed meant straight As, his acing the prestigious national chartered accountancy examination and his frustration at being rejected by the Indian institute of management at Ahmedabad, arguably the best of the IIM's. 'Chuitiyas. The interviewers were asking too many personal questions on soft stuff like listening skills, sensitivity, etc. Are they interviewing me to be an investment banker or a call girl?'

Clearly, he had not learned a lesson in sensitivity from the debacle. Chetan Seened impressed by sarkar's IIT pedigree and completely stupefied by my decision to quit an investment Bank on Wall Street.

'but yaar,why? What do you ever hope to get from here?'he asked.

Hmm, where do I begin, I thought, and do I really know ? I thought I knew yesterday when I was sharing a joint with a nameless software engineer who shared more of himself with me in a day then most of my colleagues back home shared with me over 2 years of working together. And I think I know, right now, sitting on this balcony with you perfect strangers who are so blasé about revealing everything about yourselves so easily to each other. I came here to live a real life once again, not an imitation of someone else's reality. Does that answer your question? I hope it does because I am getting sick of answering it.

But I did not reveal myself so easily. I don't know for sure,man. An international experience is valued in Wall Street. Global mergers and acquisitions, economic growth of developing markets and the expected retail explosion in India, all that kind of stuff, you know', he seemed a triple suspicious but let it fly.

Chetan's room was on my right and sarkar's on the left. The two sides would go on to represent the two extreme ways that I would try to live my life at the IIM. Although I tended to lean towards her sarkar's self-destructive hedonistic philosophy, I developed more than a grudging respect for chetan's unapologetic ***** ambition for grades and jobs, however empty it seemed at most times.

We went to the cafeteria for lunch. The spread of authentic Indian food there reminded me of the platinum blonde who had found the sushi restaurant'ethnic'. She would definitely climax at the food here. But then again, maybe not. This cafeteria would not be ethnic enough for her. There were no photographs of the Taj Mahal on the walls, no Sanskrit calligraphy on the table cloth and no integrate drawings of palaces on the plates. Just a white washed hole with rows of steel tables and foldable chairs. She would probably be disappointed. The Bukhara spice on times square with it sitar - wielding host was far more 'Indian'. Boy, was I glad I had got away!

Sitting there, devouring the best Indian meal I did had in months, I felt almost optimistic at what lay ahead. There would be new faces and interesting experiences, and investment banking had said such a low base for happiness that it would not be too difficult to cross that. I exchange it enthusiastic introductions with many of my new classmates over lunch that day. Has Sarkar had predicted, most had heard of me and were suitably stupified by my foolishness, and in one case, even annoyed by it.

'NRI,eh? Said a short, obese, angry - looking guy with spiked hair in a tone that could well have meant bastard or cocksucker.

'not really', I said. 'I am not a non-resident Indian; I am an American citizen.'

He shrugged. Same what I don't understand is why you guys come back. Did not you think about your roots or about your kids growing up in the American culture, or whatever it is that makes you return, when you left in the first place?'he asked.

There was a slight hush at the table. Even for India, were expressing offensive personal views was seemingly as common as asking,'how was your weekend,'he seemed to have crossed the line. Not that I could defend myself with any lofty assertion. My coming here was not like Mahatma Gandhi returning from South Africa to lead India from darkness. Assisting India's development or anyone else is development for that matter was a distant concern in my mind. How could you save the world when you could not save yourself?

'and since when have you become a gatekeeper for India?'a calm voice asked him, saving me from the embarrassment of answering. It belong to a tall ,muscular, Mills - and - Boon sort of a guy with the short crew cut, who had been quietly eating his food so far. Like everyone else, he seemed to be his early or mid-20s, but his demeanor commanded respect.

'I am just a concerned citizen,'the short dude said as if he had just smoked out a CIA agent hatching a plot against India.

'you should have been fighting with me in kargil then,'the tall guy said.Ah-ha, I thought, an ex-army officer. unless, of course, you were doing more important stuff for the country then. You must have been in politics, are in an NGO maybe?'

'no, I was working in a software firm,'the short guy said in a small voice.

'canvassing for funds for war veterans in your spare time, perhaps? The army officer said.

'I was busy preparing for the IIM entrance examination then,'he said, clearly embarrassed.

The table tittered with quite laugher.

'not everyone is born with the silver spoon,'he said, taking another **** at me before slinking away from the table. Sarkar and I introduce it ourself to vinod Singh, the army guy.

'don't sweat it', vinod everybody in India is an expert on nationalism. When we were fighting in Kashmir, we used to hear single - digit - IQ film personalities after their view on military strategies on the radio.'

'jingoism is an Indian problem,'said sarkar caustically.'he pointed to the vacant seat where the short, fat dude had he would probably rate navjot Singh sidhu and Salman Khan as bigger Patriots then Mahatma Gandhi or nehru.'

Vinod's body shook with laughter .'Sidhu is a cricketer and Khan is a movie star,'he explained it to me. Then to sarkar, 'dead heroes in their own right.'

'heroes, my ***. Ask them to play for the country without wearing a Pepsi t - shirt and Dora underwear, then maybe I will believe you. What is patriotic about being offered a million dollars in endorsements to play a dump cricket match? It is a scam. See, that is why I want to get out of this country. It is like toole's confederacy of dunces, idiots everywhere the eye can see,'said yet our friend has come here,'he continued, pointing to me.

'why did you leave the army?'I said quickly, trying to avert another discussion about my foolishness.the cafeteria is closing,'said sarkar before vinod could why don't we shift the base to a daba?'lunches are long, elaborate affairs in India, and I had not realized it we had been sitting there for a couple of hours. In my previous life, lunch took all of 10 minutes as I grabbed a tuna sandwich everyday at the same deli and wolfed it down in front of my computer while ferociously tracking the moment of our client company stocks. Now there were no more stocks to track, the market had closed down for me. Not that I was complaining.

'there is one right outside the campus,'said we can go on my bike'.

I had planned on going back to my room to do the suggested pre-read for the next day, our first day of classes, and Vinod also seemed a bit doubtful. Sensing our hesitation, sarkar added,'we will be back soon, I promise. No drinking and stuff, just a cup of tea. I need a break.'

This was the first day and we did not know them that sarkar always needed a break.

Before we knew it, both of us had been convinced to ride pillion on sarkar's bike through the mini - riot of Bangalore streets. We stopped at the highway stall, or daba as I learned to call it, a few miles away from campus ,and sad don't you enjoy a cup of tea. I smelled grass again.

After having studiously avoided drugs through High school and Yale, they seem to be following me around ever since I had landed in India. It made me feel like that Alchemist —the universe seem to be conspiring to fulfill my hidden desires.

Sarkar had lit up a joint and was smoking it openly while slurping his tea.

'Hey, aren't there any cops around here?'I asked, surprised by his brazeness.

He interned surprise by my ignorance.' this is not America. There are bigger crimes for cops to bother about then arrest Singapore student contemplating life over some ganja. Here, you have one as well.'

The joint looked tempting. I reached out for it. It was stronger and harsher than the one I did smoked yesterday.

We perched ourself comfortably on the lon cot. Vinod casually placed his arm around sarkar's shoulder. They look good like a gay version from the movie twins; sarkar was decidedly short and fat, and vinod was way taller and built like an Adonis. I would have to get used to the Indian comfort with same - sex physical proximity, I thought. In another life, I would have thought Vinod and Sarkar were gay. Well, how did I know they were not, I mused. I did barely met them. But of course they were not. They had revealed everything about themselves so quickly to me that matters of sexual preferences would definitely have come up. Both of them were similar in that way. They had the same self-assured Air of'look, this is what I am. Don't like it? Then screw you. Go change yourself'.

I took a long drag and passed it on to vinod, who refused. ('no ganja for me. I have very few brain cells as it is.') he bought a bottle of rum from the daba and began emptying it's steadily.

'you were saying? About leaving the army?'I asked again.

'haan,yes,'vinod said.' I was very young, barely 17, when I joined the National defense academy, the Indian equivalent of your West point, that is. All of us were dying to get into a war when we graduated. We could not believe our luck when the Kargil war was announcer and we begged to be chosen for it.'

'peace man. Peace out. No war,'said Sarkar sounding very stoned.

'long story short, the world took its toll,'he said.'we killed, they killed, some friends died, others lost their limbs, and we started to understand the politics of it for the first time. The old soldiers were all jaded has hell. It is useless, they said, as soon as we start driving the pakistani's away, some politician will want Muslim words and there will be peace again. War is useless, our biggest enemies within us, they would say. Nothing made much sense and I did not feel like a hero as I had thought I would. I just felt stupid,'said but it was not that, really. It was…'he passed to drain his glass. We started at him expectantly.

'well, nothing as such. I was reading a lot, newspapers, politics, war fiction, trying to make sense of things once I got back. When it came down to it, I realized , most of my work was pushing paper around, if I was lucky–and killing people if I was not. And then once…. Well, it sounds foolish…'

'don't stop now,'said sarkar, slouching on the cot and suddenly looking interested.

'no, nothing, it was just a stupid incident. My best mate, another lieutenant, had lost his leg in the war. His CO, commanding officer that is, was coming for a visit to the regiment and he was sent to make sure the COS room was all right. So there he was, an officer in the army, a war hero who lost a leg for the country, standing on one leg and checking to ensure that the flush was working for the CO's visit. It was sad in a very pathetic sort of way. And I kind of decided that if I had to push paper and check the bathroom plumbing for a superior's visit, I did rather do it in the corporate world. At least my family would get some money and security. It is kind of stupid, you know, how small things just to set the chain of events in motion,'he said. He poured another glass for himself.

Barely a year older than me, and he had lived more than I would live in my whole life, I thought. He was probably having a bayonet ****** at his stomach when I was eating sushi with Christine and trying to figure out how to recover my lost soul in India. The selfishness and insignificance of my crisis was suddenly disconcerting.

'good decision,'said Sarkar.'of course, you will miss out on the honor of Aishwarya Rai bringing the wreath to your funeral, and Anu Kapoor dedicating an episode of Indian idol to your memory.'

Vinod broke into laughter.'I did not mean it that way. I respect the soldiers, I love my country, I don't ever want to leave India. But I was a misfit in the army, I think.'

'I think we are all perfect fits in business school, though,'said sarkar, lazily we were all happy with our lives, and came here because we really wanted to get an MBA.'

It was such a pessimistic statement for the first day of business school that I could not help but laugh. He had given up even before starting; finally, I could tell mom then I had met my match at running away from responsibility. I took another long drag of the joint.

The marijuana started to kick in and the world seemed to slow down a bit. The tea was excessively hot, milky and sweet–and tasted delicious. I could feel it slowly, pleasantly burning its way down my throat. The strong petrol fumes from passing vehicles started to smell inexplicably good. I could make out fine dust particles rising leisurely from the ground. The radio was playing soft, pleasing songs in an unknown, melodious language. The race of the setting Sun and the dust particle seem to fuse together to create a radiant spectrum of colors. Funny, I thought, I could not seem to recall noticing dusk before. I felt a sudden burst of joy. Everything will work out, I said to myself, I just have to make the most of my time in India. However, I thought distractedly, looking at the joint in my hand, I need to be in my senses to do that. I should not smoke up so much. I had smoked yesterday as well.

'we should not do this, you know,'I said. My head felt heavy and I was struggling to form a coherent, complete thought.

'do what?'sarkar said.

'what?'I said, puzzled.

'you said we should not do this,'he said.

'we should not do what?'I asked.

'that is what I asked,'sarkar said.

'no, I asked that,'I said, struggling to understand.

'no, you said we should not do this,'sarkar said.

'do what?'I asked.

'what do you said….'he said.

'what?'I said.

'you are stoned out of your minds. I can't listen to this conversation,'vinod said unbearably loudly.

I sprawled on the cot, supporting my head with my right hand and holding the joint in my left, staring at the empty earthenware cups strewn on the ground.

Many peaceful, stoned hours passed. The daba began buzzing with night - time activity. Truck drivers with their cargo, large families on long journeys, random groups of college students on their dinner break–all arrived, made arbitrary conversation and left, each lost in their own world, trudging along, trying to make sense of the fundamental incomprehensibility that surrounded them it is all cosmic conspiracy,'the software engineers words came back to me. I giggled at the recollection of the previous night.

A lazy, vacant eternity passed.

I saw you not get up to strike up a conversation with the group of soldiers who had just disembarked from their gigantic, oddly shaped green metallic monster of a vehicle. ('it is called a three-ton,'I I think I should go,'he said.)

Sarkar yawned lazily beside me.

Sarkar and vinod were pretty cool, I thought, but could we ever become friends? Real friends, I mean. I had asked Baba once why all his friends were Indians.

'dad, why don't you have a single close American friend?'I had asked somewhat tactlessly .

He was surprisingly forthright:'there is always a chasm between us, the divide caused by the absence of a common past. There are no shared memories of frat parties, tailgating, hazing and ball games that I can reminisce with them about, the same way they can't understand sholay and Kapil Dev.'

Maybe he was right, I thought, and I did never be able to get really close to my Indian friends. I had hardly caught any of the references—Annu whatever, some sidhu. But it did not not seem to matter. Then again, maybe our generation was different. We had, after all, grown up in a flatter, more concordant world.

I turn to do you think the absence of common past matters, dude?'I asked.

He looked up drowsily, spewing Blue smoke.'Huh?'he said.' what? Do you want to go back?'

'go back where?'I asked.

'back.'sarkar sounded desert.

'okay, back,'I said.

'I can go, I guess, if you are tired,'he said.

'no, I am fine. You decide if…'I said.

'no, I am fine. You decide', he said.

'no, I am fine. You decide', I replied, liking the sound of the words.

'no, I am fine. You decide', he said.

'no, I am fine. you decide,'I said.

'okay, I just made it offers can make a decision,'he said.

Vinod came back just then and asked,'should we go back?'

Sarkar and I looked at each other and burst out laughing, nearly falling off the cot I'm rolling about uncontrollably. The hot Ash from the joint fell on my forearms and the sudden burning sensation felt good.

'let me ask again. Should we leave now? It is almost dawn and classes begin in a few hours,'vinod said.

I could not explain the effort to dissect the issue logically. Sarkar seemed lost in thought as well.

'let's just go,'vinod this is what happens when you smoke that ganja of yours.'

Sarkar seemed to break from his trance at this comment and uttered his only coherent thought of the day.

'I smoke it in protest, man,'he marijuana exist naturally as a plant. Who is the government to ban god's creation? It is like me wanting to make potatoes illegal because I don't like the way they taste.'

Wow, I thought, this sounds profound. What did he say again?

The chillybbangalore air slowly knocked me back into my senses on the right back. As we went back to our rooms, I was a triffle worried about the classes scheduled to begin in a few hours, as was vinod, no doubt. Sarkar did not seem to care one way or the other, and in fact suggested in final round back in our rooms, which both we know that I declined. I checked the time: 4:30 a.m. classes begin at 8:00 in the morning. Of course, none of us had done any pre-work whatsoever. For the second day in a row, I had smoked up and barely slept, and though the IIM seemed like a cool place so far, an assortment of unsolicited advisors had assured me that academics would be brutal and unmanageable. Lying on my bed stoned, this seemed incomprehensible. Whatever, I thought, as i drifted off to sleep.

I had seen worse before. How bad could this be?

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***