16. Danish Roy

  'How's it going?' asked my brother dressed in grey sweats when he joined me at the breakfast table.

  'It's okay. Quite strange actually, all we got in our school were slaps from our teachers. This is different,' I said.

  'True that! Remember that time you didn't polish your shoes and they made you run ten laps and you fainted? I really thought Dad would sue the school or something,' he said.

  'Instead he slapped me. Good memories. Thank you for reminding me.'

  He chuckled. 'Come, I will drop you to school today.'

  'There's no need for that.'

  'Oh, shut up!' he said, pulling me by my arm and dragging me to the driveway.

  'Fuck!' I shrieked.

  In the driveway, behind our eight-year-old Innova and the three-year-old Honda City, stood a two-seater Mercedes SLK!

  I tried to feel happy for my brother but all I felt was envy piercing through my veins. I started to calculate how much it would have cost him, how much he must be earning, and how many years, if not lifetimes, it would take me to have the same car sitting in my driveway. Will I ever have a driveway?

  I forced a smile.

  'It's a gift from the investors. It's not mine,' he said, sensing my mood. 'But I can drive it around till the time I can buy one myself.'

  'Congratulations, man!' I said and hugged him so he couldn't see how jealous I was. I thought about money a lot those days. My brother was successful, a paper millionaire, and would be rich for the rest of his life and beyond. When I will be forty, he will be buying cars more expensive than my house, and my kids will hate me because their cousins will always have better phones/PlayStations/clothes, and my wife will wish she'd married him.

  I thought about this a lot. About the power and the feeling of superiority money brings which I didn't have and in all probability never would. A lot of my fellows from schooldays were already in big jobs, married to powerful women, settled abroad, people I wouldn't want to meet ever again in life.

  He dropped me to school and wished me luck for the day. As he looked at the school while driving away to his meetings held in glass cabins inside buildings that rose up to the clouds, I wondered what he thought of his big brother.

  'Hey,' I said. 'How are you doing today?' The girl was waiting outside my room. I unlocked the door and took my seat.

  'She's not forgiving me. And I feel like killing myself right now,' she said in a matter-of-fact way. Then suddenly, she said, 'Don't worry, I wouldn't do that because I will not be like my mother.'

  'Your mother?'

  'She tried killing herself. It's a long story. But don't tell anyone.'

  'I won't.'

  'You can't, there is client–patient confidentiality.'

  'No, there's not. I'm a counsellor not a psychiatrist.'

  'Oh.'

  'Don't worry, I won't.'

  'You need to talk to Namrata. You can make her forgive me. It's pulling me back. Unless she forgives me, how will I be the woman I want to be!'

  'And what is that woman you want to be?' I asked.

  'I'm still figuring that out, sir.' Just then, the bell rang. She waited for it to stop before she spoke again. 'I need to go for my class now. Mr Sharma will mark me absent even if I am a minute late. I'm counting on you, sir.'

  For the next hour, I downloaded and read articles about forgiveness, and how to move on if people refuse to forgive you. Frankly, the essays were a whole lot of bullshit. I had to do something for the girl, and it wasn't only for her, it was for me. My job had started to make me feel important and needed, as if I could make a difference, like my existence wasn't a total waste.

  So I got up and started to look for Namrata in the school records. Twenty minutes later, the peon explained to me that I didn't have to look for students, and if I wanted a student to come, he or she would have to report to me—no questions asked. A bit like a dictator. I liked that. I called for Namrata.

  'Can I come in, sir?'

  'Yes, yes, come in,' I said. I had a book in my hand, a thick one which I had picked up moments before Namrata had walked in, to look smart and knowledgeable, so she would take me seriously.

  'Is it something I did, sir?' she asked nervously.

  Never had people been nervous in front of me. It was always the other way around. Even salespeople in stores and fast food joints made me anxious.

  'No, it's, in fact, about what someone else did,' I said. 'Aisha. Do you know her?'

  'Yes, I do, sir. She's the worst person I have ever met in my entire life. 

I'm not going to forgive her.'

  'Namrata, you—'

  'I can forgive Dolores Umbridge but not her!' she said, throwing a Harry Potter reference at me. She clutched the sides of her chair as if trying to grind them to dust.

  'But Dumbledore would have wanted to you to forgive her. Remember how he asked Potter to let Pettigrew go?'

  'But it was Pettigrew. Aisha is like Bellatrix Lestrange! She killed Dobby!'

  'Look. She's trying to change and I can sense that. In my history of dealing with people like her I have noticed that a single apology from someone they have wronged goes a long way in helping them become better people.'

  'I don't care about her! She destroyed me!' she shrieked, spitting all over my face. I felt like those little kids in Jurassic Park who turn and find a baby T-Rex baring its fangs, dripping slush over their faces.

  'She's trying to make amends. Give her a chance. Draw her away from the dark side,' I said. If Harry Potter references is what worked with her, why not?

  'But—'

  'I understand she must have been really mean to you. But it's your chance to be a bigger person and forgive her. Think about what she did to you and if you would want to weigh yourself down by holding a grudge against her for the rest of your life. Meet her halfway?'

  And within seconds, Namrata dissolved into a sentient puddle of tears.