Page 15

Samarth entered the school Monday morning with big hopes.

He ran up the stairs and down the corridor, earlier than usual.

The bustle of students standing outside classrooms, chatting, some half-asleep, some dancing around like they had been high all night, crossed his path.

Samarth greeted all those he knew, nodded at those he didn’t but who came to say hi, handing out high-fives to juniors or seniors or friends.

Being on the Polo Club and getting selected back-to-back for tournaments put him on the ‘famous’ list. Being a prince added to it.

Samarth though, was out for one particular princess today.

He skidded to a stop outside the classroom, schooled his features, clawed his fingers up the hair falling on his forehead.

It didn’t stay put, and fell back down. He just pushed it to the left, hoping it didn’t look too bad.

Then he took a deep breath and rounded the entryway and stepped inside the class.

His eyes went straight to the corner row by the door, third bench. And halted.

Ava — half-splayed in the corner, doodling on her palm with a pen, hair back up in that high ponytail, locks falling down her sides.

As if she sensed him, her eyes rose from her palm and sparkled in an instant.

Samarth’s heart somersaulted. Only his father’s face had transformed like this when he walked into a room.

Hi, he mouthed, beginning to make his way towards her. He began to lower his bag beside her when Tulika pushed his shoulder — “Bro, what? That’s my place!”

Samarth turned to her with his best smile — “Do you want to trade it for my window bench?”

Tulika glanced from him to Ava, back to him and then at the window seat.

“I will if you two tell me what’s going on,” she cocked her hip out, giving Ava a look. Samarth began to diffuse that question when two words were thrown from behind him.

“We’re dating.”

Samarth felt his face redden and a smile he couldn’t curb pull up his mouth.

He turned, eyebrows raised at Ava… now his girlfriend as per the newest class announcement.

She was doodling on her palm, legs drawn up, back to the wall, while people around them abandoned whatever they were doing to stare at them.

“Oooohhhh…” somebody started and the rest followed suit, hooting. Tulika slapped his back and grabbed her bag. Samarth chuckled, lowering himself beside her, ignoring the whistles and the hoots. Ava didn’t even glance up.

“What are you writing there, my name?” He leaned back on the backrest, hoping he sounded a little flirty. The way she sputtered, he knew he didn’t. He was such a dud when it came to it. He hoped he would be able to pick it up soon to make her red like she had been the last few days with him.

She turned her palm up to him. He squinted, taking it and pushing his head into it.

“Channel with a small x?”

Her palm smacked his nose.

“Ow!”

“Chanel, Samarth. Pronounce it right. It’s sacred.”

“What sacred,” he rubbed his nose.

“The brand.”

“Why are you writing brand names on your palm?”

“Because I like the logo.”

“Good moooorning, Ms. Shanaya…” the class stood up singing in unison.

“Good morning, please be seated…” Ms. Shanaya trailed, her gaze directly zeroing in on him. She frowned, then glanced back at his place that now Tulika occupied.

“The sinus still going on, Samarth?” She asked, concerned.

“No, ma’am, I am fine,” he smiled. She smiled back — “Then why are you there? Go back to your place.”

Shit.

Ava’s low snort vibrated from beside him. He poked her side under the bench, she kicked him back.

“Go back to your place. Tulika, come back here.”

“Go, I might write your name on my other palm then,” Ava joked as he reached down to pack his bag. Before he got up though, Samarth grabbed her clean palm, opened her pen one-handed and wrote in small letters —

Behind the stables after class

Then, in bigger, bolder letters —

SAMARTH

When he swung his bag up to leave, Ava’s hair was covering most of her face. And it was red behind all that black.

————————————————————

Samarth stood behind the stables, hands on the fencing. The hills rolled out from here, rising gradually like a little child’s painting. All green and lush right now. But come winter, and things would start turning silver.

It was early evening, and the sun was still bright in the sky.

It beat down on him, but Samarth had grown up playing in the dry scorching summers of Nawanagar.

This was balmy to him. Unlike the painting of his home — those dry rugged landscapes, trees that were green only a few months a year, and the stepwells and lakes that had cropped up every few hundred metres thanks to his ancestors and now the government.

Samarth had a sudden longing for home. For the heat of Nawanagar to tire him out even before he had swung his foot up the saddle.

Aam panna, jugs of nimbu paani refilled all around the palace for everybody to keep their energies up, stick kulfis every night…

gola parties thrown in the palace for all the kids, his Dada Sarkar’s bribes of kisses to sneak him an extra cup, Hira ben’s stories going late into the night under the peepal tree in Raviraj Garden until most of them fell asleep…

his Papa’s bed, where the two of them would lie like vegetables in 16-degree-AC after a long hot day, talking about everything and nothing.

That longing made him take a long deep breath.

He had spoken to his father just last night.

He spoke to him every night. And yet, it didn’t feel enough sometimes.

Samarth worried about his father. A lonesome king, without any support, running the kingdom and pursuing his passion for environmental conservation and management, overseeing the various state-owned businesses including textiles and oil refineries, and then going to play a match or two of cricket at their club to groom the new lot of players of Nawanagar.

That was, when he was not travelling around the globe.

“Hey,” Ava’s voice startled him out of the thoughts of his home. His Papa, to be specific. But for Samarth, his Papa was his home.

“Hi,” he smiled, turning his head as she came to stand beside him. He took her bag from her shoulder and set it beside his, by the fence. Ava’s forearms came to rest near his, her already small height going smaller as she leaned in and squinted up at his face.

“What?” He asked.

“Why are you sad?”

“I’m not sad. Who said I am sad?”

“You look sad.”

“Because you didn’t write my name on your palm,” he joked.

Her nose crinkled — “You are missing your palace, no?”

“You eavesdrop on people’s inner conversations or what?!” He straightened.

“No,” she chuckled, melting into the fence, her dark, glossy hair glinting in the rays of the sun. Her skin glowed, the tiny red dots of pimples on her forehead looking even ruddier. He hadn’t seen something more beautiful in his life. And he had seen a lot of beautiful things.

“You always look at the hills and the sun before you talk about your palace and your Papa,” Ava observed.

“Even when we sat together, you would be lost outside and then out of nowhere you would start blabbering about Nawanagar horses or that corner in your Dada’s room where you hide when your Papa bores you… what do you call it?”

“Save Me From Papa Club,” Samarth pronounced, awed and overjoyed and exalted that she remembered so much. He didn’t remember even telling her these things!

“So, missing home, right?”

“Maybe,” he stepped closer to her, opening his hand for her. She eyed it, hesitated, then set her hand in his. Samarth caressed the skin of her knuckles. That feeling of a minute ago, of missing home — wasn’t so strong anymore.

“We are official now, huh?” He asked.

“You are such a fattu! Why couldn’t you say it out loud when Tulika asked?”

“Because we hadn’t decided if we are telling everybody. And without your consent, I can’t do such a thing.”

Ava smiled, her body floating closer to his, almost into his.

Samarth widened his stance, giving her enough space to select whichever spot she wanted to touch or lean on.

She chose his bicep. So he turned to the rolling hills, the sun still up in the sky, Ava’s head on his bicep, their fingers tangling and untangling, playing some game of their own.

The silence that reigned then was supreme, and so peaceful.

He inhaled a long breath. Exhaled. That feeling of missing home? It was gone. Completely.

————————————————————

Samarth felt like a criminal. He had never done this. Never broken the rules, forget breaking the laws.

“Eheeh,” Harsh smacked his backside from below him on the ladder. Samarth kicked back, making the ladder vibrate.

“Fucker, stop wiggling!” Gopi hissed from above him, almost to the window. He glanced down at him and scowled — “Why are you still down there? Climb up!”

Samarth glanced up at Ava and Kresha’s window, then back down at the green garden. The night had fallen thick and dark, it was the weekend, and the matron and security were all bundled tight as per Kirti didi’s latest intel to Harsh. But still his conscience didn’t let him…

“It’s wrong, Gopi… we can’t climb into girls’ room like that.”

“The said girls invited us!”

“Still…”

“So you’ll go hungry? Because I didn’t eat dinner, expecting the girls to have ordered something fancy for us.”

Samarth scratched the back of his head. He had skipped dorm food too because Ava had invited him to this dinner — a Badri gang dinner. Only, Samarth hadn’t thought too hard about reaching the venue.

“What if somebody sees us? What if the matron comes?”

“Fuck it, go back. I am hungry.”

Gopi flipped back and kept climbing, his dark T-shirt a marked contrast as he reached the open window of the girls’ dorm room lit up in warm light. Samarth decided to climb back and leave. He took one step down and another smack to his backside.

“What?!”

Another nudge and smack. “Ehh!”