Gotya spat the end of the matchstick out of his mouth and put a fresh one in. It was a recent affectation that he had picked up after watching Amitabh Bachchan do it in Deewar. “Tell that little runt to watch his bloody tongue. It seems to be in a slippery place.” Ashok and Manoj, Gotya’s most intimate cronies, snickered in agreement. “Tell him Gotya said he wants to speak to him. Tell him that!” Ashok moved up to the younger boy they were hassling and gave him a not-so-gentle shove. He staggered and nearly fell backwards. His three tormentors broke into a fresh bout of cackles.
Ashok then took the boy aside and told him, “Lucky for you Gotya was in a good mood, smarty-pants. Now you tell that shrimp friend of yours to come and see Gotya or else he’s in deep trouble, see? He doesn’t want Gotya to come looking for him, does he?” As he spoke, he felt the boy’s shirt pocket and found a 10-rupee note, which he promptly appropriated. “But… but that’s my mom’s money, man. She asked me to get some vegetables from the market. Don’t take that, please.” Manoj mimicked him and said, “Tell your mommy you had to feed some friends today. Ha ha ha.”
The boy looked stricken. He quietly straightened his clothes, ran his hand through his tousled hair and got on his old bicycle. He could still hear their sniggers as he rode away. He had to see Rohit and tell him. Right now. He must be home at this hour, tutoring those young schoolboys in Algebra, the boy thought.
He pedaled faster, until he reached the dirty old tenement building where Rohit lived with his parents. As he coasted into the compound, he got off the seat and stood on one of the pedals until the bike rolled to a stop. He jumped off, leaned his bike against the peeling, rain-streaked facade and started shouting, “Hey, Rohit! Come on out!” Rohit’s mom came out and shouted down from the common verandah that the flats on her floor shared. “Who is that shouting down there? What’s the big deal? Rohit is still busy with those kids. Just stop yelling and come on up, OK?”
“It’s all right, auntie. I’ll wait here. I’m all dirty from playing outside.”
In a little while, Rohit comes out, bounding down the stairs three at a time. He was short and small for his age—about the same build as the younger boy. The kind of boy who got picked on a lot at school. Especially once people saw his bright, blazing eyes and the clear, single-minded focus that resided there. He’s wearing an old, tattered pair of jeans and a plain white T-shirt. He comes up to the younger boy and says, “So, what’s the emergency, Deepak? What’s going on?” The boy tells him about encountering Gotya and his chums. “They threatened me, man. They asked me to tell you that they want you to go and meet them. I think you have pissed them off seriously, man. You shouldn’t have said, ‘No’.”
“I’ll be damned if I do this, yaar. You’ve got to be kidding me. Don’t tell me you seriously think I should do this. This is pretty screwed up shit, you know?”
“I don’t know, man. They are not nice people. I mean, they go around with that Hanumanbhai and all those other gangster-types. I’ve even heard that Manoj was showing off a gun in school, man. Why do you want to mess with them?”
“I see. So just because some overgrown, steroid-abusing idiot roughed you up one evening, you do whatever they ask you to do, huh? Even become a whore?”
“C’mon, man.” Deepak looked a little hurt but grabbed Rohit by his shoulders. “You are not a whore, man. You have a great brain and you will be hiring it out, that’s all. It’s like, you know, when you are an expert and people consult you or hire you to do stuff they can’t figure out themselves.”
“You forgot the criminal part, buddy. I am a scholarship student. If I get caught pulling this kind of shit, I will be disbarred from the university. My whole life will be ruined. You know my folks can’t afford to send me to private colleges. I need this scholarship to finish my education.”
“Damnit, man. I’m telling you. They’re going to beat you up. They roughed me up tonight. They’ll come after you until you agree to help them out. And besides, it’s not as if it’s for nothing. They’ll pay you good money. A thousand rupees per test.”
“Per test? What does that shit mean? They want me for more than one test?”
“Well, Ashok told me they’d already arranged everything with the examination center peons—seat numbers, IDs, everything. Gotya will personally take care of each supervisor on a case-by-case basis. Most of the supervisors will be from the other school that Manoj goes to, so they know who they are and Gotya says he knows how to take care of anyone who won’t cooperate. Basically, it’s just 10th Grade Algebra, Geometry, Physics and Chemistry. That’s four thousand rupees.”
“Do you even realize what you’re saying? Do you realize I can get arrested for impersonating another student? Wow, I can’t believe this. This is, like, way beyond bizarre.”
Deepak looked very troubled. “So that’s it? You won’t do it then?” Rohit shook his head. “Will you at least go and meet them?” Rohit patted Deepak’s cheek and said, “If that gets them off your back—yes, I’ll go see them.”
The next afternoon, Rohit went over to Gotya’s. From a distance, he could see Manoj and Ashok standing near the gate to Gotya’s house. They spotted him and immediately started calling out, “Hey, asshole. Get your butt in here, on the double. Gotya doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” Rohit merely shrugged in response. Ashok caught him by his shirt collar when Rohit reached near him. Just then, Gotya stepped out of the house. “Hey, hey, don’t treat boy genius like that. He has an important job to do. So you finally decided to come around, huh? Come on, let’s go somewhere where we can talk in peace.” They sort of ganged up around Rohit and led him to the nearby children’s park, which was usually deserted at this time of the day. They picked a little corner covered by trees and sat down on one of the concrete benches.
It was quiet in the park. A gentle, reluctant breeze rustled the dried and fallen tree leaves, while Gotya slowly broke another matchstick and put in between his teeth. Rohit looked at the three boys, looking rather disinterested and faintly amused. A local train shooting past at high speed on the tracks beyond the park broke the rather ominous and uncomfortable silence.
Manoj started the conversation. “See, we’ve got all the angles covered. All you gotta do is get in there and write the goddamn paper for Gotya. Nobody will even look at you, not the supervisor, not another student, nobody.” Gotya nodded in agreement. Ashok added, “Our boys will be around, in case anything goes wrong—you know, in case someone decides to get all pious or some shit.” “That’s ‘holier-than-thou’,” muttered Rohit under his breath.
Rohit hadn’t responded until then to any of their comments. Gotya stared at Rohit for a long time, while nobody spoke. Then he looked at his buddies, adjusted his matchstick dramatically and said, “You know what I think? I think this one has decided he’s not gonna work with me. He ain’t speaking shit to me right now and he ain’t agreeing to shit. So I guess, this one’s gotta learn the hard way. Too bad, ‘cos I kinda like him.” Ashok began by doing his favorite move, the old shove from the back, but this time Manoj was ready on the other side to make sure Rohit went down. Once down, all three went for him with their legs. Manoj was wearing those terrible PVC sneakers that hardened with the first touch of monsoon and now they rained on Rohit’s torso without compunction. Then Ashok pulled Rohit up by his shirt collar. Gotya slapped his face a couple of times and then roughly held him by the chin while asking, “Are you done playing with me, asshole? Or do you want some more?” In response, Rohit smiled benignly at the trio, which sent Gotya into a mad fury. He flailed at him again and, again, Rohit went down. This time all three noticed something they’d missed the first time—Rohit was actually trying to break his fall by using his entire right arm and not just the wrist joint. Manoj had kind of noticed it when they first started hazing Rohit, but he saw it clear as day now. “Stop, stop, stop,” he yelled at his friends. “This little piece of shit is crazier than we thought. He’s trying to deliberately break his own arm!” Gotya stopped in mid-kick and stared at Manoj. Then he looked at Rohit who spat out some blood but continued to smile in his half-amused, half-mocking way. “You… you bastard. You dare laugh at me?” Gotya screamed. “I’ll kill you and your mom and pop and everyone you know, motherfucker. I’ll fucking kill you, you hear me?”
“Go ahead, kill me. Who’ll write your goddamn paper then? You?” Rohit’s smirk was now slightly crazed—with a broken nose, streaks of blood and the beginnings of a black eye nicely adding to the overall effect. Manoj stepped in between the two to help Gotya save some face without actually maiming Rohit. After all, as Gotya had pointed out earlier, the little shrimp had a job to do. As Rohit stood to the side wiping his face, Manoj pulled the good cop routine on him. “What the hell is the matter with you? You are a poor boy. You could surely use the money. Plus I’m assuring you, you have nothing to worry about except the actual tests. What’s the whole point of getting beaten up like this? You will do it, one way or the other. So why go through all this?”
Rohit was now experiencing the shakes and couldn’t hold his hands steady enough to wipe his bleeding nostrils clean. But even though they couldn’t see his smile through all the gore, they could all sort of sense it lurking underneath. Finally, Rohit asked Gotya through his broken nose, “Zo you guyz ad abzoludely zure. No broblems, huh?”
Ashok looked at Gotya before replying, “Look. Once we say so, it is so. You don’t have to bother about those things. Just come to the exam center on time with the ID we’ll provide you beforehand. Rest is all in your head. I mean, you gave this exam 2 years ago and practically aced it. How hard can it be for you now?”
Rohit appeared to consider something for a bit before saying, “Awright den. Bud I deed haff de cash id advance. Ad the textbooks ad ID. OK? Oderbise, do deal.” The three of them stepped aside to consult with each other. Finally, Manoj came up to Rohit and said, “Let’s walk back to Gotya’s. We’ll give you a thousand bucks and the books. Come by again on Sunday to pick up the ID stuff. We’ll give you another thousand on the day of the first paper. And after the last paper, we’ll give you two thousand more. How’s that sound to you? Deal?”
Rohit agreed and shook hands with Gotya before they started walking back to Gotya’s house. They stopped a little distance from it so that Gotya’s mom wouldn’t notice Rohit’s rather unpleasant appearance and ask funny questions. Soon, Gotya came out with the books and the cash. “I have only 600 now. Don’t worry, we’ll give you the rest. Just go home, get some ice on that eye and nose and start studying. You have a lot of revision to do. All the best.” His benevolent smile seemed rather forced, after the events of the last half hour. He almost patted Rohit on the shoulder, but Rohit stepped away and started walking back home before that happened. He still had the funny grin on his face, though.
The following Sunday, Rohit again walked over to Gotya’s place. No one seemed to be there. He was debating whether to wait or not, when Gotya’s elder brother Prashant came by. He politely enquired who Rohit was. When he said he was a friend who was supposed to “help” Gotya with his finals, Prashant said, “Oh, you have come for the text books, haven’t you? Wait a minute. Gotya told me where they are and also instructed me to give them to you when you came by. He has gone out on some errands.” So Rohit collected the books and went back home. He climbed the stairwell that was missing a couple of light bulbs and reached the space-starved one-bedroom apartment that he shared with his parents and little sister. He went to his little nook in the living room that was demarcated into individual spaces by his mom’s sarees drying on a nylon clothes line. He kept Gotya’s books in one of the two drawers that were allotted to him in chest of drawers he shared with his sister. Then he went out to the verandah and thought ahead to the tests in a couple of weeks. Deepak came by a little while later to hang out. They walked to the railway station to buy mints and chatted about the upcoming tour of India by the West Indies cricket team.
It was the middle of a blistering hot summer morning when Rohit reached the school that had been designated as a test center. He observed many students standing in the shade of the giant banyan tree in the schoolyard and reading from their cheat notes. Occasionally, they would look up into the sky with their eyes closed, memorizing passages. He wondered how anyone could actually try to memorize algebraic theorems—his idea was that if you couldn’t dig the underlying logic, you couldn’t make sense of them anyway. As he approached his designated hall, he noticed many of Gotya’s friends and mates all around the center. Are they here to wish him luck? Can’t be. He’s not giving the paper, is he? Perhaps, they should all wish me good luck. It’s me who’s gonna need it. When he reached the door of the exam hall, Gotya and Manoj came up to him. Gotya said, “Hope you revised everything well. Do a good job. Algebra has always been my favorite subject.” Gotya glanced at Manoj before they both burst into loud guffaws. Rohit went up to the desk with Gotya’s ID number and sat down. The exam was about to begin. The supervisor walked in with the question books. Gotya and Ashok walked in and took the supervisor aside. They talked for while and Gotya gave him an envelope. The supervisor opened the flap, peeked inside and transferred it into his pocket. Gotya and Ashok left, after which the supervisor began distributing the answer books.
As the students hunched over their answer sheets, Gotya and Ashok stood near the iron-grilled windows and watched their plan materialize. They laughed and joked and occasionally caught Rohit’s eye while he pondered over a question, at which moments they gestured for him to pay attention to the paper.
Two-and-a-half hours and five foolscap supplement sheets later, Rohit left the hall to be greeted by Ashok and Gotya outside. “How did it go? Was it very tough, even for you?” asked an anxious Gotya. “No problems, man,” replied Rohit. “A couple of them were tricky, but I got most of it.” He had a smile that somehow reminded Gotya of the afternoon at the park. It bugged the hell out of him. “So what are you grinning for? Don’t you have a Chemistry paper to study for, asswipe?” Gotya fumed. “Don’t worry. I’m on it,” replied Rohit before rushing out of the school compound.
At the end of the last paper—Geometry—Gotya, Manoj and Ashok were waiting for Rohit outside the school. Rohit asked Gotya for the rest of the money, since he had kept his part of the bargain. Gotya smiled (on him it looked more like a hound’s grimace) and nodded at Manoj to speak. Manoj said, “See, we all know you are a little smartass. We want to be sure you did keep your end of the deal, because we can’t simply take your word for it. So that means we will have to wait for the results to come in, won’t we?” Ashok added, “Don’t worry, you twerp. It’s only four months away.”
Rohit acted appropriately shocked at the suggestion that he had somehow duped them and adequately disappointed at having to wait for his compensation. However, Deepak had dropped in at the school to get Rohit and he consoled him as they walked away. Gotya had offered to buy lunch for Rohit before they left, as his gesture of good faith. Rohit had declined and taken off with Deepak.
Before he had gone but a few steps, he doubled over on Deepak’s bicycle. Deepak was startled until he realized his friend was laughing so hard he couldn’t stand straight. Deepak laughed with him, while his eyes enquired of Rohit for the reason. Between his fits of laughter, Rohit gasped, “I got them, buddy. I got them real good this time. Plus I got paid 600 rupees for it. How crazy is that?” Another laughing fit. “Come on, let’s go to the movies or something. But let’s go to the pau bhaji place before that. Or how about a masala dosa? My treat, OK?”
Two months later, Rohit received a letter from the Indian Institutes of Technology that he had received admission into the Nuclear Physics program, having achieved an All-India rank of 302 from among the 50,000 odd prospective students who had given the entrance examination. He won a cash award of a 1000 rupees at a felicitation ceremony from the local Rotary Club. The Club’s president, Mr. Navin Ashar, applauded his effort. “Congratulations and good luck. Hope you go on to get a Ph.D. from M.I.T., my boy,” he told him while handing over the envelope.
While in his first week of classes at IIT Mumbai, Deepak came over to visit Rohit at his hostel one weekend. Rohit was walking back from his first swimming lesson at the Olympic-sized swimming pool when Deepak ran into him, bursting with the news. “Man, you are something else, aren’t you? The whole thing has exploded in their faces.” Smiling, Rohit said, “I told you. You didn’t believe me. So what happened?” Deepak related how the results of the tenth grade Board exams had come out on Tuesday. Pretty soon, the news had spread like wildfire through town. The district education inspector was being notified, apparently: Gotya had accomplished what no student in the history of the Education Board had done. “Can you believe it? He secured 100/100 in Algebra, Geometry, Physics and Chemistry. Ha ha ha ha.” Deepak laughed, slapping high fives with Rohit. They were laughing as they walked towards Krishna Palace restaurant, with Deepak explaining how the supervisors and everyone else had maintained their innocence and so the district education inspector took the decision to conduct a re-examination of the four papers only for Gotya, in his presence. They were still laughing when they returned to the Convocation Center on campus to watch a screening of Salaam Bombay.
Reflections 