Two months to the Finals
The blue dust-laden books lie at the furthest end of my study table. I hate this subject; I should have never chosen to study it. Only, my father looked at my coursework and said, “Don’t you want to add a humanities subject this year? It will make your resume look well-rounded.”
Both of us knew that it didn’t really matter how my resume looked, I was going to join his business after I graduated. It was pre-decided. Had been for ages.
My mother died when I was born, and my father had hoped that I’d take after her. They’d been very much in love, and she was the joy and desire of his life. If he blamed me for her death, he had never said so, but he had always hoped that I would be like her.
In that hope, he was partly successful. I look like my mother. Exactly like her. But, in all other aspects, I am like my father. I love logic, math, and algorithms. I love business, statistics, and weird forms of calculus. I’m moody and grumpy. I can’t make people laugh; I am not charming, bold, or outgoing. I cannot talk to strangers or be a ray of sunshine on a gloomy day.
No, I’m the clouds that rage. The winds that blow. I am my father – though he doesn’t want me to be.
My mother was a poet. And so, in my efforts to please my father, I took poetry as an optional subject in the hope that I could be like her, at least in this. My father smiled when he handed her books to me; I basked in his approval for that brief moment.
I should have known better. My heart lies elsewhere, so for now, I ignore the books and get back to my theorems.
One month to the Finals
The library is bursting at the seams. Outside, the rains pour. And on the steps, all the people in my poetry class sit, with Rohit leading them. I glance at the group; I should be sitting there and trying to absorb as much as I can just to at least pass my exams. But I can’t, I don’t want to.
My girlfriend Laya looks at me quizzically, “Have you finished studying for the paper?” she asks.
I shrug.
I haven’t. I’m dreading it. And yet.
Rohit, a childhood friend, in-house poet, writer, philosopher, and the last person I want to see, drops by my room that evening. Maybe he saw me glancing at him in the library.
We don’t talk much now. At one point, we were inseparable. Like two peas in a pod.
Till that night when………he told me he loved me. I’ve stayed away from him after that. My entire life has been about pleasing my father. And a life in which Rohit is my partner is not a life my father can envision.
Rohit is a rebel; his father and my father are friends, and whenever they meet, he has these crazy arguments with my father, which he tends to win. No wonder my father doesn’t approve of Rohit.
I have a girlfriend. I am a university topper. I play basketball. I am not a poet.
Yet, the heart desires things that the heart can’t have, and I desire Rohit, despite everything.
Now, I don’t know mostly what to do or say. What do I say to someone who told me long ago that he loved me? What do I say to my father? And most importantly, what do I want for myself?
“All done, Teju?” he says, evoking a childhood name now forgotten by everyone else.
“It’s Tejaswi, and that’s none of your business.” I snap back, involuntarily looking at the books. The truth is that the feeling of never-ending despair has taken permanent residence in my stomach. It makes me hostile.
“Now now Teju,” he smirks. His eyes follow my gaze and take in the dust and the books.
“I can help you with that you know.”
For a moment I consider it, but that would mean I would be in Rohit’s debt forever and where would that get me? In love and in debt with the same man. In a world where my father doesn’t know the term gay exists.
“No thanks, Rohit, and again, it’s Tejaswi.”
Rohit shrugs, his lips pull into a half smile. “Bye Teju” he says before he leaves.
Four days to the Finals
I’m going to fail.
It’s going to be this epic result where I’ve aced all the compulsory subjects and failed in the optional, the only subject that matters to my father.
These books don’t make sense. They smell of dust and jasmine (Did my father gift my mother the jasmine? Or was it someone else?)
Each time I open them I sweat, my heart rate increases and I think I’m going to die.
Rohit finds me slumped over my books in the afternoon.
“Come, let me help you,” he says. His voice is gentle and so, I let him tutor me. It gives me an excuse to spend some time with him, without letting him know how I feel, I hope.
Night before Finals
We are done with the shorter poems. I understand a few. And I can quote many, all of which Rohit assures me is a plus.
That leaves 30 marks from the 80-mark essay.
Rohit spends two hours trying to explain The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to me and fails miserably.
“How can you not understand this!!” he exclaims.
“It’s confusing, and why does the poet say one thing and mean another thing?” I ask.
“Did you even attend class?” he says. I shrug.
“It’s poetry Teju! It’s not logic or calculus. Why don’t you think a little deeply and see what you really feel about the poem—or well if you can’t just cram this synopsis and vomit over the paper.”
“And have the Professor fail me?” Professor Myti hates it when we very obviously reproduce the synopsis from a “Notes to exam” book.
Rohit sighs. “You need to delve deep to discover the heart of a poem, maybe bare your soul. Do you think you can do that? Be honest, be unafraid?”
His words sting. His proximity isn’t helping either.
All my life I’ve loved him. All my life I’ve loved my father.
How is it fair that my choices can only let me pick one?
“You don’t understand.” I say, tired, “Let’s just finish this.”
“Don’t I?” he says, refusing to even acknowledge the second part of the sentence.
“No, you don’t!”
He looks at me. Disappointment mingles with sympathy. And I know. Know then that he still loves me. Like I do him.
And before I know what I’m doing, before I can think of what I’m doing, I’m kissing him. His lips beneath mine, his face in my palms.
To my relief, to my infinite relief, he kisses me back.
The morning of the Finals
I wake with a start. Rohit is slumped next to me. We are very late.
“But you know nothing, Jon Snow!” he exclaims as we hurry to the exam hall.
He is wrong. I know that he loves me.
I wonder how I will explain to my father that I’m in love with a boy, I’m sure the word gay is not even in his vocabulary.
I open the exam paper. The short bits are the ones I studied for. Ten down, 30 to go.
Then I glance at the long questions.
There at the very end of the paper is the question, ” Why does the Ancient Mariner stop and tell his tale to the wedding guest?”
I glance at Rohit and begin to write.
I will pass, this exam at least.
Sruti Sagaram 