Page 119 - The World's Best Boyfriend

relationships existed and only those relationships endured where people were
willing enough to compromise on love, careers and sexual freedom.
A year back, he got an offer from a leading engineering college in India. He

wouldn’t have taken the job had they expected him to be on his top game. But
one meeting with the dean, Prof. Mitra, told him that he was just required to be a
poster boy of their faculty, nothing more. It worked out well in the beginning,

but slowly he was drawn back to the laboratories and the research. It was the
only thing he was good at. And soon, he dived headlong into it for it was the
only thing that could fill the void left behind by love.

And then walked in Aranya, the most vulnerable, insecure, adorable girl he
had come across in years. She was a little, fat Raghuvir in a female body. That’s
what he remembered thinking the first time he met her. Strangely, he never

noticed the discoloration on her face, her body. And even before Raghuvir had
started taking classes for her batch, she had slipped in little notes of appreciation
for Raghuvir’s work, the list of numericals she hadn’t been able to solve, and a

comprehensive list of alternative solutions to the prescribed questions.
She was nothing like the girls Raghuvir had been with earlier. Maybe that was
a sign?

Curious, he had first tracked her down to the library where she sat at the far
corner, almost hidden behind the tower of books. It’s strange to say this, but it
was love at first sight. Unlike Raghuvir, or the girl he was in love with, Aranya

was a hard worker. Her assignments reeked of years of back-breaking work she
had put in to sharpen her mind. She wasn’t gifted, but her attention to detail was
exemplary.

By now he had heard stories about her Hitleresque leadership but there was
something very honest about her behind the carefully constructed facade of
being indestructible.

It was hard for Raghuvir to tell when he really started to feel something for
the girl who walked the corridors of the college alone, always clutching an
armful of books. At first he mistook it for pity. But time passed and he knew it

wasn’t so. He wanted her to be around. She was nothing like the other girls who
fawned over him. She was different and he began to think that maybe she was
the answer. He was looking at all the wrong places. Maybe she was the normalcy

he was looking for.
She reminded him of his old days when he used to isolate himself from the