What can you say about a twenty year-old girl who couldn’t die? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And nobody ever loved her. The lines above has been made immortal by Erich Segal’s epic romantic novel, however I have conveniently twisted the lines tonight as I sit back twenty odd years later to remember somebody who lived in my memories. It's about a girl who was on the cusp of becoming someone. A girl who may not have known what she had wanted right then and she may not have known who she was, but who did deserve the chance to find out like the rest of us.
I wonder if anybody else remembered her. Anybody, who had spent 4 years at the REC Nagpur during the early 90’s. Anybody for whom the Arts lobby was an essential part of his or her daily routine. Anybody who had the customary tea and toast at the canteen. Anybody, who was faintly acquainted with a vibrant young woman, a student whom my generation had tagged uncouthly as “Bade Miya” (Big Man).
It was the spring of 1994. The best spring that had ever happened to me. It was then that my school days had come to a conclusion and a new and much awaited chapter was about to unfurl - college. I still remember the glee and excitement of the first day vividly. It was unbelievable to enter an academic institution without a uniform. They were no bells. No restrictions. No monitors or prefects. Just an unfathomable sense of freedom that splurged everywhere like spring blossom. New faces. New books. New Professors and the new me all ready take my plunge into manhood. Even the ragging sessions seemed meaningful.
Well we were warned about it and I was quite apprehensive of my first introduction to the seniors. The much dreaded event finally happened was when we had all filed into the canteen during our lunch break. Around 30 odd seniors (you could make them out easily that they were seniors from their confident body languages) marched in and closed the door. We were informed that we were to write an essay about introducing ourselves only that we had to start each line with the words “unfortunately”. We were given 10 minutes to finish our scribe and then we were asked to read them out aloud like an announcer at the Moghul Court. “Unfortunately my name is Subaprasad Subramanium sir. Unfortunately I was born in Madurai sir” blurted out a shaky lad who was asked to go first. The hall erupted in acidulous laughter. Lucid comments flew from the senior crew making the speaker even more uncomfortable. Thus carried on the one sided session of humiliation till Piyali stood up to read her introduction. There were about 50 of us fresher’s in that canteen hall almost all of them were boys except five girls. During those days not many girls opted for technical studies as an option. Till then I had not seen the girls in my batch. She was definitely not someone who would turn heads. Dressed in a plain salwar and plaited hair she had whitish complexion and large profound eyes. Yes her eyes. That was the most attractive part of her body. They were intense. When my eyes met hers I had felt those eyes were piercing into mine, and I could swear at that moment that she could sensed the real me. The one without the makeup, without any façade. “Unfortunately I have been asked to introduce myself in this crude manner. Unfortunately my seniors aren’t abreast of normal introductory protocols”, she declared standing there. There was silence all around the room. We were all looking at one another like scared sheep. But you couldn’t miss the signs of silent approval from the 1st year people. She went on confidently using her strong grasp of the language to ridicule the seniors and did that very affluently. As she finished Jatin Thakur, the tall burly 3rd year student from Electronics walked surreptitiously upto her and said, “Let me have a look at that.” As much as we had enjoyed Piyali making a mockery of the seniors with her oration, but we started feeling that she could have avoided this. Jatin Thakur was a renowned thug. A Jat. Rumor had it that his father was an MLA from where he came from in Haryana and had hoods for his protection. Even the professors kept him at bay. But he just smiled at her and said. “Bangaali hmm?” and added “You Bangaalis are the literary sort let me see what you have written.” He snatched her piece of paper with visible disdain and said, "Here is a lesson in creative writing to you madam. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college”. “Well Bangaalis are good singers too I have been told. Come sing something for us baby”, he ordered as if to find an inlet to humiliate the girl. All this while as we sat there frozen, Piyali seemed completely nonplussed about the surroundings and started to sing a bade Ghulam Ali Khan Thumri. Now this wasn’t the time of the place for classical renditions. She was stopped midway by some other senior who spitted out “Sing something else Bade Miya. We want Bollywood.” Piyali coldly turned at him and replied “I don’t do Bollywood.” Things could have gone out of hand but the classes had started and we all sighed a sigh of relief. However what it did for her was that she was labeled “Bade Miya” for the next four years for her upstartish and brazen demeanor.
The mark of the immature man or woman is that he/she wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man/woman is that he/she wants to live humbly for one. Needless to say Piyali came in the first category. In the first year itself she was a part of strikes, causes, communities and everything that were a distinct deviation from the nice coy demure women with manicured hands, the ones who were pined for by all at the college hostels. But Bade Miya was a different metal all together. The food is bad at the canteen – Bade Miya is there. The fee structure has gone up – Bade Miya is there. The neighborhood tribal are sick – Bade Miya is there. Well she had become quite popular, but not in the sense a girl wanted to be popular in an Engineering college. The name Bade Miya was suggestive enough that people had allied her with the men and manliness. Strangely enough- she never complained. She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city. Agreed, that she was no prom queen and no enchantress who had closets full of love notes and clothes. But she was herself. You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kinds that liked to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls.
Months are different in college, especially freshman years. Too much happens. Every freshman month equals six regular months—they're like dog months. It was no different at REC Nagpur as well. Piyali was a good student and we all used mob her for her class notes and drawings. Besides she was generous with the money too. If by the 15th of a month your money ran out – Bade Miya was always there as a savior. But strangely enough nobody wanted to further their associations with her beyond this. I remember in 2nd year there was news that a 3rd year computer science chap had taken a fancy to her. Well it was the biggest thing that happened in the campus since REC Nagpur won the inter college cricket tournament. Manish Kapoor was a tall, fair and handsome Delhite – on a Yamaha RX 100. He was a day dream for most of the 1st and the 2nd year girls. His father was a rich businessman and he used to throw birthday parties at a local discotheque. According to the grapevine Manish had been thawed and deliquesced towards Piyali during their trip for an inter college festival in Pune. Well we saw quite a lot of Bade Miya speeding away behind Manish’s RX 100 for about 2 weeks and then suddenly as abruptly as the whole thing had started – it came to an end. Just like that. Well most of us were betting on the longevity of the relation as Manish and Bade Miya were two different poles. Later on Manish had revealed in close circa that he was bored with her intellect, which had been apparently the thing that he had once found attractive in her. Besides Bade Miya didn’t subscribe to the list of North Indian do’s and don’ts that Mr. Kapoor had laid out for her. He had vociferously claimed that “Who gives a damn about Pablo Neruda when you’re out at the Seminary Hills on a moonlit night?” It was discovered that instead of branded cologne Bade Miya had done the grave blunder of giving Manish a “Collected Love Poems of Neruda”. He went openly expressing his discontent in trying to “Kiss the Encyclopedia.” But Piyali seemed normal as usual. On looking back now it was all in all a case of jilted male ego at the hands of the unimaginable – a smart woman. When you grow up as a girl in this world, it is like there are faint chalk lines traced approximately three inches around your entire body at all times, drawn by society and often religion and family and particularly other women, who somehow feel invested in how you behave, as if your actions reflect directly on all womanhood. Piyali had dared to cross that line. Piyali had dared to come across as a person whose mind and actions were not dictated by master species. This was offensive for any budding Engineering student who would desire amidst other things, a trophy girlfriend as a compensation for getting a B.Tech degree. Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy. I guess in this case there was a severe lack of both. As men we grow up wearing a mask, and our faces grow to fit it. Manish couldn’t come out of the socio-religio-sexo mask that had been handed out to him from his Lodhi Gardens background.
Usually when you ask somebody in college why they are there, they'll tell you it's to get an education. The truth of it is, they are there to get the degree so that they can get ahead in the rat race. We were all running our own vermin 100 meters – albeit for different trophies. But I was sure that Piyali was not running with us. The romantic fiasco with Manish had deteriorated the feminine face of Bade Miya further. She was slowly denigrating more as an object of wonder and occasional humor than as a woman. Her alienation from her own kind was clearly visible in the campus. The other girls found her supercilious and pretentious. They hated her intellect and derived immense satisfaction at her social ridicule. But the professors were quite fond of her and they made this evident during their lectures.
Piyali’s social activities had increased by the time she was in the final year. Alongside being the president of the literary club, she was editing the college magazine and had become the God-Mother of the junior students, especially the shy girls. To this someone had joked that I want to write a book called, "Bonfires and Bras," which follows around a young, braless feminist like Piyali who struggles to adopt in air conditioned rooms, as her hardened nipples cause her excess embarrassment. But these sundries never daunted Bade Miya. She smiled and concluded “Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others”. ‘Don't you find it odd," she continued, "that when you're a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you're older, somehow they act offended if you even try.”
During this time there was an incident of the flooding of Narmada. Piyali flung herself into its relief cause. The local MP had organized a relief party and Piyali had an important role in that. Well those were the days of Rock Concerts. We had a concert for almost all occasions. This was no different. A Rock Concert was organized to gather funds for the flood relief. Amidst some well known national names, our very own Nagpur college band would play there. The musicians of this band came from different colleges of Nagpur. We also had our very own Gaurav Tinakar the lead guitarist. We all were quite excited about the event. It was a chance to mingle with women from the arts faculty – the prime time women in the city. Every single Engineering male student waits these 4 years to get an advent into the arts faculty women. That’s where the prospective wives are sourced from. The nexus is always the same. Prospective NRI engineer boy meeting trophy arts faculty women. College fests are exhausting in a way. They are full of smart, funny people who are all used to being the smartest, funniest person in the hall, so they spend the whole time talking over one another, overlapping and overtaking the conversation to prove that they are the smartest, funniest person in the college, if not the entire planet. But amidst all this Bade Miya was relentlessly running around to get the show on stage. It was told that she would also be crooning a song along with the band. So every day we would see her leaving with Gaurav and hanging out at the Nagpur Rock Gods at a popular coffee shop. One day the news came that Gaurav and bade Miya are now officially a couple and they would be doing a 80s slow rock number on stage together. Suddenly the campus was ablaze with stories about Piyali and Gaurav. Some would even twitch a nose at couple calling them – drug laden junkies. Well life went on.
In these last few years I have had the opportunity to form a sort of an academic relationship with Piyali. The factor comun between us was that we were from the same city and she was one of the few people in the campus whom I could converse in Bengali – as absolute essential in a Bengali life I feel. Across the years I had always found her confident, capable, and someone not waiting to be rescued by a man. I was in awe of her may be. She used to bring home made Bengali goodies for me when she came back from home after her vacations. We discussed politics, poetry and Rabindranath like any true blue Bengali amidst others. She used to laugh and remark “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” We would laugh heartily at this. We talked about our futures and my humble background. But never did Piyali speak about her romantic manifestos or the lack of it – save this time. She, I found really enjoyed Gaurav’s company and this overall hanging out with a band. She looked happy and would talk on hours about music. I learnt that Piyali had a background of extensive musical training – something that was quite prevalent among Bengali girls those days. But she went beyond that she had trained in Indian Classical vocals under one of the well known Ustaad. Her knowledge of music was also eminent. She would animatedly discuss the song list for concert with me – something that bewildered me as I was in no way a musical connoisseur. But maybe also because she had no one else to share her excitement. Two days before the event was to go live I saw Piyali sitting amidst a cloud of gloom in one of the forlorn corners of the campus staring absent mindedly at the space in front of her. I was hesitant to approach her for I didn’t want to disturb her reverie. But something told me that things aren’t good. So I quietly walked up to her and asked her how she was. She gave me a wry smile and said “I have taken my name out of the concert Dipu”. Now it was my turn to be amazed. “Why in the world would you do that?” I asked. “I learnt that the only way to get rock-star power as a girl is to be a groupie and bare your breasts and get chosen for the night. I learnt that the only way to get anywhere is through men. And it's a lie” she replied. I didn’t ask further. I sat quietly next to her. We sat for a long time without speaking to each other. ‘You know Dipu I have a brain and a uterus, and I use both, but funny people ask me to take off my brains along with my clothes as well” she said as got up to leave. I didn’t have any replies to this either save walking her back to the girl’s hostel.
Well in college gossip news travels faster than it does across BBC. The news of the Gaurav-BadeMiya break up became the coffee table topic for the next few weeks. It was learnt that Gaurav couldn’t accept being told of musical improvisations and off tune rifts during rehearsals. So one fine day (according to eye witnesses) he “cut her down to size”. This hacking was done in front of the whole band wherein she was told she is nothing but a groupie and a crooner and she needs to accept that. There were contrary vibes about Piyali’s superior musical talents as well. But they were few in numbers and severely faint. Well college ended amidst all this uneventfully. The world was littered with another bunch of B.Tech graduates who with stars in their eyes and dreams in their mind would go ahead to make a career out of a foreign bank. The less adventurous like me would opt for an M.Tech degree and end up working at a Govt. Civil engineering department. Soon Piyali, College and academic years vanished into imposed oblivion of career, marriage, kids and LIC premiums. For, after all, as you grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does one rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him. But many like me would prefer to spend that energy in doing nothing but swapping channels in the evening.
After 20 odd years I received a post about an alumni reunion. It was not that I was in touch with all the batch mates regularly. Most of my batch mates had done reasonably well and didn’t choose to stay in touch with an insignificant one like me. A few did make a few seasonal phone calls out of nostalgia, geographical proximity and also to have someone to whom their success can be flaunted on. I didn’t mind at all. One of them did the kindness of inducting me in the alumni. The venue was decided to be at a hotel in Nagpur. It was not difficult to manage a few days leave to meet people who had been sharing the same roof and food with me for 4 great years of my life. A kaleidoscope played in my brain of those 4 exceptional years of the hopes, the dreams and the disappointments. I was keen to see them. I grabbed the chance and confirmed my participation. As I met the guys at the banquet hall, I realized that nothing had changed much. My batch mates were only fatter and balder. But they were still trying to be the smartest and funniest in the room. Add to that they were also trying to be the richest and the most successful. One thing that didn’t change was their attitude about Piyali. “Whatever happened to Bade Miyan?” someone quipped amidst all the banter. “I heard she didn’t take up that GE job at the campus” someone replied. “So what is she upto these days?” “I don’t know but last I heard she was doing P.Hd” someone added. “That was after college, I heard she is running an NGO”. “Isn’t she on Facebook?” “No man. Arti had to go through a lot of trouble to invite her” Joshi added. “Oh! So is she coming?” Taneja queried. “She said she would” Arti replied. Suddenly the alumni had found the scrape goat. Reminiscing took a detour into Piyali’s inadequacies and idiosyncrasies. Bouts of laughter echoed the room as someone would talk of her misadventures with Manish or her interests in feeding stray dogs. Somebody even wanted to take a bet as to how she would look now – Khadi Kurta, jeans, Heavy Kajal, Kolhapuri Sandals, Horn-rimmed glasses – Ms. Intellectual. All of a sudden somebody said “Isn’t that Bade Miya?” And there was suddenly a hush inside the banquet hall. The one who walked in was definitely Piyali, but she was not dressed as my friends had described earlier. Draped in a Blue Sari and a pearl necklace she turned the heads of all that was assembled there. She looked stunning as if the moon was living in the lining of her skin. She had a figure that would give the NRI wives of my friends a severe complex. She spoke to everyone and laughed. Throughout the evening she kept everyone in awe with her talk, her humor, and her body her everything. Here was a chrysalis in action. She was indeed the CEO of a very big NGO in India. Her achievements made jaws drop. Her body made them drools. Finally the evening came to an end and out of the blue she asked me if I would like to join her for a coffee.
With envious eyes pouring into my Big Bazaar shirt I walked off with her. Piyali looked even more delectable now at such close proximities. Her perfume was making me nauseas. There was a glow all over her. Probably that came from her professional success or from the disbelief, awe and adulation that was showered on her for the last few hours. She took me to a bar in a terribly expensive hotel. I tried objecting saying “I won’t be able to afford that Piyali”. She dismissed my objection with a whiff of her hand saying “since when did you start footing the bills for us?” And there we were at the Bar at Center Point Hotel. I said “You look good. How have you been?” I asked. She took out one of her extra slim cigarettes and lit them. Taking a few deep pulls from them she replied. “Professionally or personally?” I said “both or whichever you feel like talking about”. She told me about her life. Her decision to not pursuing an Engineering career, about meeting a French lady who had helped her to start her first NGO. Her work with the tribal’s. The people who worked with her. As I listened to her in rapt attention, I realized that she was not talking about her profession or her career but herself, such was the intensity. She was always passionate about the things she did. By this time we had drowsed 3 large cognacs with Antigua coffee. I could see that she had started relaxing after the evening. I could also make out the stress that she had to go through to be there today. “Family? Tell me about your family Piyali” I asked softly. She burst out laughing. “Why do you men always beat around the bush?” she alleged. “You want to know if I am married, don’t you?” I was embarrassed and kept quiet. “One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries Dipu.” “My life had been a series of amazing discoveries – thanks to my unmanageabilities. But along with the discoveries came a lot of disappointments. Some of them you are aware of. Some happened in the last few years. Mostly personal disappointments. Yes Mr. Banerjee, to answer your question, I was married and not once – but twice. Both times for very short periods. You can say shyness eluded me even twice.” “But in my 40 years of life I have found out that the habit of looking at life as a social relation — an affair of society — did no good. It cultivated a weakness which needed no cultivation. If it had helped to make men of the world, or give the manners and instincts of any profession — such as temper, patience, courtesy, or a faculty of profiting by the social defects of opponents — it would have been education better worth having than mathematics or languages; but so far it hasn’t done much for my world.”
“I was no princess and I had to do it the hard way. I had to do something aside from looking pretty and wait to be rescued from a very early stage in my life. Slowly I started abhorring the idea of being a coy, demure doll for some successful man. To cook, clean and wait for him. But I was up against a tough opposition. I still am. I grew up with the notion that femininity is depicted as weakness, the sapping of strength, yet masculinity I found was also so fragile that apparently even the slightest brush with the feminine destroys it. Like my marriages. The men in my life always thought they were braver than me? They never guessed that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn't that I only loved a part of them. But I craved if they could ever love more than some of me “, she stopped to order another cognac. “Dipu women who display themselves as sex objects do not represent women as a gender anymore than the Chippendales or George Bush represent you men. Women are not a homogenous group who all get together to decide how or who they will be. But that’s what they are being asked to do. I find it revolting. I don’t have a problem cooking, cleaning, raising kids and fucking every day provided I am not labeled as someone who has been born to do only these. How can one judge if somebody is not good enough for somebody else? You are using me, ordering me, and judging me: how I cook your food; how I keep your house, how I dress, what I read, who I talk to and all of a sudden, you want me to give up anything that you don’t approve of. Who are you to approve or disapprove anybody or anything? And every time that option came something revolted inside me so much so that I had to ask the men in my bed that I would not be accepting roses from them anymore, and that they have pissed their last in my house.” She spitted these words out and looked out of the window into the night sky where a nice moon flickered. It was as if she was transported into another night to another moon. “Since I was a little girl I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be told that I was alright. I wasn’t as pretty as my sister, but I was smarter than her. My grades were better than her. But she had everyone wrapped around her dainty little fingers. No matter how hard I tried she would always be the queen. And I have been trying since then. Trying with whatever I had. In my case it was my brains and my vagina. But I always lost as I couldn’t separate the brain from the vagina. And I realized that men would admire me, lust for me, try to posses me, loathe me but no one would ever want to love me. Is it so difficult to love me Dipu? Would you have loved me and married me?” she whispered almost without looking for an affirmation. I could see her tear stained eyes as she looked at me. They were still the most beautiful eyes that I had ever seen. I wanted to hold her hand and say that I always loved her but I couldn’t answer her. I could see the same desolate, lonely Bade Miya sitting in front me – the one I had seen at the campus many years back heartbroken after she had split with Gautam. In my silence I knew I would never have the guts or the answer to her question. For common people like me hold the Piyali’s of the world either in a pedestal or a guillotine but never in a lover’s embrace, as we have small arms not enough to hold such a spirit. I strongly believed that she deserved someone special. And I was nothing special I knew it. I was a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. Such greatness is not expected of people like us. The writing on our walls is always that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. But I was middle class. My life was wrapped in several double standards that like a skin have gripped me. For me unfortunately I came from the same school of thought that Piyali was fighting. That very clan where one always like a woman who'd talk back to you may be just a little bit. "Girls with balls" were good we would say. Women with an actual mind of their own who could prove you wrong were, of course, castrating bitches that should be drowned in bottomless wells. I definitely didn’t have the grit to go against it. And I knew that I would go on passing this hypocrisy to generations to come. While the Bade Miyas would keep on asking us the same question over and over decaying into bottomless silence
I wonder if anybody else remembered her. Anybody, who had spent 4 years at the REC Nagpur during the early 90’s. Anybody for whom the Arts lobby was an essential part of his or her daily routine. Anybody who had the customary tea and toast at the canteen. Anybody, who was faintly acquainted with a vibrant young woman, a student whom my generation had tagged uncouthly as “Bade Miya” (Big Man).
It was the spring of 1994. The best spring that had ever happened to me. It was then that my school days had come to a conclusion and a new and much awaited chapter was about to unfurl - college. I still remember the glee and excitement of the first day vividly. It was unbelievable to enter an academic institution without a uniform. They were no bells. No restrictions. No monitors or prefects. Just an unfathomable sense of freedom that splurged everywhere like spring blossom. New faces. New books. New Professors and the new me all ready take my plunge into manhood. Even the ragging sessions seemed meaningful.
Well we were warned about it and I was quite apprehensive of my first introduction to the seniors. The much dreaded event finally happened was when we had all filed into the canteen during our lunch break. Around 30 odd seniors (you could make them out easily that they were seniors from their confident body languages) marched in and closed the door. We were informed that we were to write an essay about introducing ourselves only that we had to start each line with the words “unfortunately”. We were given 10 minutes to finish our scribe and then we were asked to read them out aloud like an announcer at the Moghul Court. “Unfortunately my name is Subaprasad Subramanium sir. Unfortunately I was born in Madurai sir” blurted out a shaky lad who was asked to go first. The hall erupted in acidulous laughter. Lucid comments flew from the senior crew making the speaker even more uncomfortable. Thus carried on the one sided session of humiliation till Piyali stood up to read her introduction. There were about 50 of us fresher’s in that canteen hall almost all of them were boys except five girls. During those days not many girls opted for technical studies as an option. Till then I had not seen the girls in my batch. She was definitely not someone who would turn heads. Dressed in a plain salwar and plaited hair she had whitish complexion and large profound eyes. Yes her eyes. That was the most attractive part of her body. They were intense. When my eyes met hers I had felt those eyes were piercing into mine, and I could swear at that moment that she could sensed the real me. The one without the makeup, without any façade. “Unfortunately I have been asked to introduce myself in this crude manner. Unfortunately my seniors aren’t abreast of normal introductory protocols”, she declared standing there. There was silence all around the room. We were all looking at one another like scared sheep. But you couldn’t miss the signs of silent approval from the 1st year people. She went on confidently using her strong grasp of the language to ridicule the seniors and did that very affluently. As she finished Jatin Thakur, the tall burly 3rd year student from Electronics walked surreptitiously upto her and said, “Let me have a look at that.” As much as we had enjoyed Piyali making a mockery of the seniors with her oration, but we started feeling that she could have avoided this. Jatin Thakur was a renowned thug. A Jat. Rumor had it that his father was an MLA from where he came from in Haryana and had hoods for his protection. Even the professors kept him at bay. But he just smiled at her and said. “Bangaali hmm?” and added “You Bangaalis are the literary sort let me see what you have written.” He snatched her piece of paper with visible disdain and said, "Here is a lesson in creative writing to you madam. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college”. “Well Bangaalis are good singers too I have been told. Come sing something for us baby”, he ordered as if to find an inlet to humiliate the girl. All this while as we sat there frozen, Piyali seemed completely nonplussed about the surroundings and started to sing a bade Ghulam Ali Khan Thumri. Now this wasn’t the time of the place for classical renditions. She was stopped midway by some other senior who spitted out “Sing something else Bade Miya. We want Bollywood.” Piyali coldly turned at him and replied “I don’t do Bollywood.” Things could have gone out of hand but the classes had started and we all sighed a sigh of relief. However what it did for her was that she was labeled “Bade Miya” for the next four years for her upstartish and brazen demeanor.
The mark of the immature man or woman is that he/she wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man/woman is that he/she wants to live humbly for one. Needless to say Piyali came in the first category. In the first year itself she was a part of strikes, causes, communities and everything that were a distinct deviation from the nice coy demure women with manicured hands, the ones who were pined for by all at the college hostels. But Bade Miya was a different metal all together. The food is bad at the canteen – Bade Miya is there. The fee structure has gone up – Bade Miya is there. The neighborhood tribal are sick – Bade Miya is there. Well she had become quite popular, but not in the sense a girl wanted to be popular in an Engineering college. The name Bade Miya was suggestive enough that people had allied her with the men and manliness. Strangely enough- she never complained. She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city. Agreed, that she was no prom queen and no enchantress who had closets full of love notes and clothes. But she was herself. You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kinds that liked to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls.
Months are different in college, especially freshman years. Too much happens. Every freshman month equals six regular months—they're like dog months. It was no different at REC Nagpur as well. Piyali was a good student and we all used mob her for her class notes and drawings. Besides she was generous with the money too. If by the 15th of a month your money ran out – Bade Miya was always there as a savior. But strangely enough nobody wanted to further their associations with her beyond this. I remember in 2nd year there was news that a 3rd year computer science chap had taken a fancy to her. Well it was the biggest thing that happened in the campus since REC Nagpur won the inter college cricket tournament. Manish Kapoor was a tall, fair and handsome Delhite – on a Yamaha RX 100. He was a day dream for most of the 1st and the 2nd year girls. His father was a rich businessman and he used to throw birthday parties at a local discotheque. According to the grapevine Manish had been thawed and deliquesced towards Piyali during their trip for an inter college festival in Pune. Well we saw quite a lot of Bade Miya speeding away behind Manish’s RX 100 for about 2 weeks and then suddenly as abruptly as the whole thing had started – it came to an end. Just like that. Well most of us were betting on the longevity of the relation as Manish and Bade Miya were two different poles. Later on Manish had revealed in close circa that he was bored with her intellect, which had been apparently the thing that he had once found attractive in her. Besides Bade Miya didn’t subscribe to the list of North Indian do’s and don’ts that Mr. Kapoor had laid out for her. He had vociferously claimed that “Who gives a damn about Pablo Neruda when you’re out at the Seminary Hills on a moonlit night?” It was discovered that instead of branded cologne Bade Miya had done the grave blunder of giving Manish a “Collected Love Poems of Neruda”. He went openly expressing his discontent in trying to “Kiss the Encyclopedia.” But Piyali seemed normal as usual. On looking back now it was all in all a case of jilted male ego at the hands of the unimaginable – a smart woman. When you grow up as a girl in this world, it is like there are faint chalk lines traced approximately three inches around your entire body at all times, drawn by society and often religion and family and particularly other women, who somehow feel invested in how you behave, as if your actions reflect directly on all womanhood. Piyali had dared to cross that line. Piyali had dared to come across as a person whose mind and actions were not dictated by master species. This was offensive for any budding Engineering student who would desire amidst other things, a trophy girlfriend as a compensation for getting a B.Tech degree. Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy. I guess in this case there was a severe lack of both. As men we grow up wearing a mask, and our faces grow to fit it. Manish couldn’t come out of the socio-religio-sexo mask that had been handed out to him from his Lodhi Gardens background.
Usually when you ask somebody in college why they are there, they'll tell you it's to get an education. The truth of it is, they are there to get the degree so that they can get ahead in the rat race. We were all running our own vermin 100 meters – albeit for different trophies. But I was sure that Piyali was not running with us. The romantic fiasco with Manish had deteriorated the feminine face of Bade Miya further. She was slowly denigrating more as an object of wonder and occasional humor than as a woman. Her alienation from her own kind was clearly visible in the campus. The other girls found her supercilious and pretentious. They hated her intellect and derived immense satisfaction at her social ridicule. But the professors were quite fond of her and they made this evident during their lectures.
Piyali’s social activities had increased by the time she was in the final year. Alongside being the president of the literary club, she was editing the college magazine and had become the God-Mother of the junior students, especially the shy girls. To this someone had joked that I want to write a book called, "Bonfires and Bras," which follows around a young, braless feminist like Piyali who struggles to adopt in air conditioned rooms, as her hardened nipples cause her excess embarrassment. But these sundries never daunted Bade Miya. She smiled and concluded “Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others”. ‘Don't you find it odd," she continued, "that when you're a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you're older, somehow they act offended if you even try.”
During this time there was an incident of the flooding of Narmada. Piyali flung herself into its relief cause. The local MP had organized a relief party and Piyali had an important role in that. Well those were the days of Rock Concerts. We had a concert for almost all occasions. This was no different. A Rock Concert was organized to gather funds for the flood relief. Amidst some well known national names, our very own Nagpur college band would play there. The musicians of this band came from different colleges of Nagpur. We also had our very own Gaurav Tinakar the lead guitarist. We all were quite excited about the event. It was a chance to mingle with women from the arts faculty – the prime time women in the city. Every single Engineering male student waits these 4 years to get an advent into the arts faculty women. That’s where the prospective wives are sourced from. The nexus is always the same. Prospective NRI engineer boy meeting trophy arts faculty women. College fests are exhausting in a way. They are full of smart, funny people who are all used to being the smartest, funniest person in the hall, so they spend the whole time talking over one another, overlapping and overtaking the conversation to prove that they are the smartest, funniest person in the college, if not the entire planet. But amidst all this Bade Miya was relentlessly running around to get the show on stage. It was told that she would also be crooning a song along with the band. So every day we would see her leaving with Gaurav and hanging out at the Nagpur Rock Gods at a popular coffee shop. One day the news came that Gaurav and bade Miya are now officially a couple and they would be doing a 80s slow rock number on stage together. Suddenly the campus was ablaze with stories about Piyali and Gaurav. Some would even twitch a nose at couple calling them – drug laden junkies. Well life went on.
In these last few years I have had the opportunity to form a sort of an academic relationship with Piyali. The factor comun between us was that we were from the same city and she was one of the few people in the campus whom I could converse in Bengali – as absolute essential in a Bengali life I feel. Across the years I had always found her confident, capable, and someone not waiting to be rescued by a man. I was in awe of her may be. She used to bring home made Bengali goodies for me when she came back from home after her vacations. We discussed politics, poetry and Rabindranath like any true blue Bengali amidst others. She used to laugh and remark “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” We would laugh heartily at this. We talked about our futures and my humble background. But never did Piyali speak about her romantic manifestos or the lack of it – save this time. She, I found really enjoyed Gaurav’s company and this overall hanging out with a band. She looked happy and would talk on hours about music. I learnt that Piyali had a background of extensive musical training – something that was quite prevalent among Bengali girls those days. But she went beyond that she had trained in Indian Classical vocals under one of the well known Ustaad. Her knowledge of music was also eminent. She would animatedly discuss the song list for concert with me – something that bewildered me as I was in no way a musical connoisseur. But maybe also because she had no one else to share her excitement. Two days before the event was to go live I saw Piyali sitting amidst a cloud of gloom in one of the forlorn corners of the campus staring absent mindedly at the space in front of her. I was hesitant to approach her for I didn’t want to disturb her reverie. But something told me that things aren’t good. So I quietly walked up to her and asked her how she was. She gave me a wry smile and said “I have taken my name out of the concert Dipu”. Now it was my turn to be amazed. “Why in the world would you do that?” I asked. “I learnt that the only way to get rock-star power as a girl is to be a groupie and bare your breasts and get chosen for the night. I learnt that the only way to get anywhere is through men. And it's a lie” she replied. I didn’t ask further. I sat quietly next to her. We sat for a long time without speaking to each other. ‘You know Dipu I have a brain and a uterus, and I use both, but funny people ask me to take off my brains along with my clothes as well” she said as got up to leave. I didn’t have any replies to this either save walking her back to the girl’s hostel.
Well in college gossip news travels faster than it does across BBC. The news of the Gaurav-BadeMiya break up became the coffee table topic for the next few weeks. It was learnt that Gaurav couldn’t accept being told of musical improvisations and off tune rifts during rehearsals. So one fine day (according to eye witnesses) he “cut her down to size”. This hacking was done in front of the whole band wherein she was told she is nothing but a groupie and a crooner and she needs to accept that. There were contrary vibes about Piyali’s superior musical talents as well. But they were few in numbers and severely faint. Well college ended amidst all this uneventfully. The world was littered with another bunch of B.Tech graduates who with stars in their eyes and dreams in their mind would go ahead to make a career out of a foreign bank. The less adventurous like me would opt for an M.Tech degree and end up working at a Govt. Civil engineering department. Soon Piyali, College and academic years vanished into imposed oblivion of career, marriage, kids and LIC premiums. For, after all, as you grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does one rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him. But many like me would prefer to spend that energy in doing nothing but swapping channels in the evening.
After 20 odd years I received a post about an alumni reunion. It was not that I was in touch with all the batch mates regularly. Most of my batch mates had done reasonably well and didn’t choose to stay in touch with an insignificant one like me. A few did make a few seasonal phone calls out of nostalgia, geographical proximity and also to have someone to whom their success can be flaunted on. I didn’t mind at all. One of them did the kindness of inducting me in the alumni. The venue was decided to be at a hotel in Nagpur. It was not difficult to manage a few days leave to meet people who had been sharing the same roof and food with me for 4 great years of my life. A kaleidoscope played in my brain of those 4 exceptional years of the hopes, the dreams and the disappointments. I was keen to see them. I grabbed the chance and confirmed my participation. As I met the guys at the banquet hall, I realized that nothing had changed much. My batch mates were only fatter and balder. But they were still trying to be the smartest and funniest in the room. Add to that they were also trying to be the richest and the most successful. One thing that didn’t change was their attitude about Piyali. “Whatever happened to Bade Miyan?” someone quipped amidst all the banter. “I heard she didn’t take up that GE job at the campus” someone replied. “So what is she upto these days?” “I don’t know but last I heard she was doing P.Hd” someone added. “That was after college, I heard she is running an NGO”. “Isn’t she on Facebook?” “No man. Arti had to go through a lot of trouble to invite her” Joshi added. “Oh! So is she coming?” Taneja queried. “She said she would” Arti replied. Suddenly the alumni had found the scrape goat. Reminiscing took a detour into Piyali’s inadequacies and idiosyncrasies. Bouts of laughter echoed the room as someone would talk of her misadventures with Manish or her interests in feeding stray dogs. Somebody even wanted to take a bet as to how she would look now – Khadi Kurta, jeans, Heavy Kajal, Kolhapuri Sandals, Horn-rimmed glasses – Ms. Intellectual. All of a sudden somebody said “Isn’t that Bade Miya?” And there was suddenly a hush inside the banquet hall. The one who walked in was definitely Piyali, but she was not dressed as my friends had described earlier. Draped in a Blue Sari and a pearl necklace she turned the heads of all that was assembled there. She looked stunning as if the moon was living in the lining of her skin. She had a figure that would give the NRI wives of my friends a severe complex. She spoke to everyone and laughed. Throughout the evening she kept everyone in awe with her talk, her humor, and her body her everything. Here was a chrysalis in action. She was indeed the CEO of a very big NGO in India. Her achievements made jaws drop. Her body made them drools. Finally the evening came to an end and out of the blue she asked me if I would like to join her for a coffee.
With envious eyes pouring into my Big Bazaar shirt I walked off with her. Piyali looked even more delectable now at such close proximities. Her perfume was making me nauseas. There was a glow all over her. Probably that came from her professional success or from the disbelief, awe and adulation that was showered on her for the last few hours. She took me to a bar in a terribly expensive hotel. I tried objecting saying “I won’t be able to afford that Piyali”. She dismissed my objection with a whiff of her hand saying “since when did you start footing the bills for us?” And there we were at the Bar at Center Point Hotel. I said “You look good. How have you been?” I asked. She took out one of her extra slim cigarettes and lit them. Taking a few deep pulls from them she replied. “Professionally or personally?” I said “both or whichever you feel like talking about”. She told me about her life. Her decision to not pursuing an Engineering career, about meeting a French lady who had helped her to start her first NGO. Her work with the tribal’s. The people who worked with her. As I listened to her in rapt attention, I realized that she was not talking about her profession or her career but herself, such was the intensity. She was always passionate about the things she did. By this time we had drowsed 3 large cognacs with Antigua coffee. I could see that she had started relaxing after the evening. I could also make out the stress that she had to go through to be there today. “Family? Tell me about your family Piyali” I asked softly. She burst out laughing. “Why do you men always beat around the bush?” she alleged. “You want to know if I am married, don’t you?” I was embarrassed and kept quiet. “One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries Dipu.” “My life had been a series of amazing discoveries – thanks to my unmanageabilities. But along with the discoveries came a lot of disappointments. Some of them you are aware of. Some happened in the last few years. Mostly personal disappointments. Yes Mr. Banerjee, to answer your question, I was married and not once – but twice. Both times for very short periods. You can say shyness eluded me even twice.” “But in my 40 years of life I have found out that the habit of looking at life as a social relation — an affair of society — did no good. It cultivated a weakness which needed no cultivation. If it had helped to make men of the world, or give the manners and instincts of any profession — such as temper, patience, courtesy, or a faculty of profiting by the social defects of opponents — it would have been education better worth having than mathematics or languages; but so far it hasn’t done much for my world.”
“I was no princess and I had to do it the hard way. I had to do something aside from looking pretty and wait to be rescued from a very early stage in my life. Slowly I started abhorring the idea of being a coy, demure doll for some successful man. To cook, clean and wait for him. But I was up against a tough opposition. I still am. I grew up with the notion that femininity is depicted as weakness, the sapping of strength, yet masculinity I found was also so fragile that apparently even the slightest brush with the feminine destroys it. Like my marriages. The men in my life always thought they were braver than me? They never guessed that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn't that I only loved a part of them. But I craved if they could ever love more than some of me “, she stopped to order another cognac. “Dipu women who display themselves as sex objects do not represent women as a gender anymore than the Chippendales or George Bush represent you men. Women are not a homogenous group who all get together to decide how or who they will be. But that’s what they are being asked to do. I find it revolting. I don’t have a problem cooking, cleaning, raising kids and fucking every day provided I am not labeled as someone who has been born to do only these. How can one judge if somebody is not good enough for somebody else? You are using me, ordering me, and judging me: how I cook your food; how I keep your house, how I dress, what I read, who I talk to and all of a sudden, you want me to give up anything that you don’t approve of. Who are you to approve or disapprove anybody or anything? And every time that option came something revolted inside me so much so that I had to ask the men in my bed that I would not be accepting roses from them anymore, and that they have pissed their last in my house.” She spitted these words out and looked out of the window into the night sky where a nice moon flickered. It was as if she was transported into another night to another moon. “Since I was a little girl I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be told that I was alright. I wasn’t as pretty as my sister, but I was smarter than her. My grades were better than her. But she had everyone wrapped around her dainty little fingers. No matter how hard I tried she would always be the queen. And I have been trying since then. Trying with whatever I had. In my case it was my brains and my vagina. But I always lost as I couldn’t separate the brain from the vagina. And I realized that men would admire me, lust for me, try to posses me, loathe me but no one would ever want to love me. Is it so difficult to love me Dipu? Would you have loved me and married me?” she whispered almost without looking for an affirmation. I could see her tear stained eyes as she looked at me. They were still the most beautiful eyes that I had ever seen. I wanted to hold her hand and say that I always loved her but I couldn’t answer her. I could see the same desolate, lonely Bade Miya sitting in front me – the one I had seen at the campus many years back heartbroken after she had split with Gautam. In my silence I knew I would never have the guts or the answer to her question. For common people like me hold the Piyali’s of the world either in a pedestal or a guillotine but never in a lover’s embrace, as we have small arms not enough to hold such a spirit. I strongly believed that she deserved someone special. And I was nothing special I knew it. I was a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. Such greatness is not expected of people like us. The writing on our walls is always that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. But I was middle class. My life was wrapped in several double standards that like a skin have gripped me. For me unfortunately I came from the same school of thought that Piyali was fighting. That very clan where one always like a woman who'd talk back to you may be just a little bit. "Girls with balls" were good we would say. Women with an actual mind of their own who could prove you wrong were, of course, castrating bitches that should be drowned in bottomless wells. I definitely didn’t have the grit to go against it. And I knew that I would go on passing this hypocrisy to generations to come. While the Bade Miyas would keep on asking us the same question over and over decaying into bottomless silence
