Page 50 - The World's Best Boyfriend

12

Aranya noticed how pale the waiter’s face was after that boy, whose face looked

familiar, drove away on his motorcycle leaving behind a bloodied bandage. She
burped.
‘The food was good,’ she told the waiter. Frankly, she wasn’t an authority on
food. Everything bathed in oil, sprinkled with cheese, dipped in sugar syrup

tasted good to her. She hadn’t had sex but it couldn’t be better than a creamy
bowl of pasta.

She caught the bus that would take her to DTU, her home for the next four
years away from her tyrannical parents. It would be a new start for her and she
would not be ignored and taken lightly there, she had decided. Unlike school,
she would rule the college with an iron fist.

The bus dropped her off at the gate of her new college, from where she
walked to her hostel, her home for the next four years. She signed the register,

submitted photocopies of her existence and shifted into her barren, prison-like
room.
Before long she unpacked, changed, threw her clothes inside the cupboard,
arranged her books, put bedspreads, and flopped on the bed, thinking about her

first day in engineering college—where she would be the cause of
disappointment to a lot of expectant guys. ‘Screw them,’ she thought.

She was dreaming soon.
‘Come out!’ the voices shouted outside. She woke up with a start . . .
‘Come out!’ the voices shouted again.

Ten minutes later, she was standing with fellow students from the first year in
front of a motley group of seniors, boys, uncles pretending to be boys, and a
smattering of girls.

Things had changed quite a lot for Aranya since primary school. No one
mentioned the story of the naked, diseased girl any more but the repulsion
towards her disease remained. Her condition was always a looming shadow over

her associations with people. She knew it was always at the back of everyone’s
minds, like it was on hers.
‘Introduce yourselves,’ said a fat senior whose gut was far bigger than

Aranya’s.