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Out of the blue, this memory came flooding back the other day. I think it was the mention of Goa that triggered it. It brought out this spontaneous and happy giggle, which turned into full-throated laughter as the memory returned to regale me. 

"Mohinder lives in Goa," I announced, "and so do Linda and Jenny." 

All three are friends of mine from my teenage years. Linda and I were 15, and Jenny was perhaps 16. Mohinder may have been a year or two older. All of us were connected by circumstances that put us in close and constant proximity for about six months. 

Six months is a very long time to go by without incident, especially if one restless teenage mind stays true to her nature of being, well, restless. 

We had all sat around a wooden table, frequently in the expansive brick-paved front yard of my grandfather's house on Babar Road in New Delhi. We were homeschooled by my grandfather, and all three of us were studying for our 10th standard matriculation exam. 

Mohinder's situation was that he, being an Indian National Schoolboy's Cricket team member, had a commitment to the sport, which overrode his responsibilities towards physicality attending school. 

Linda and Jenny had moved to Delhi in the middle of the school year due to their father's job transfer, a Wing Commander in the IAF. 

Yours truly was a school dropout, to put it dramatically. However, the truth was that I was a distracted child not doing justice to the Royal sum, which was the monthly fee of my school, the Convent of Jesus and Mary in New Delhi. I had, therefore, been pulled out of school barely three months into the 8th grade. My grandfather knew precisely what to do with me. So, I joined his class of homeschoolers taking their 10th standard matriculation exams in six months. 

Back to Mohinder Amarnath. He was an accomplished and well-loved cricketer on the field. He was also, six days a week, completely out of his element, sitting around the table with two gushing girls (one of which was the school dropout), one very level-headed girl, and the schoolmaster, who did not appreciate nonsensical chatter during study hours. 

The nonsensical chatter was no problem for Mohinder at all. He mumbled at best when spoken to by the said girls and usually kept quiet with his head down and in his books. In plain words, he was a gentleman. 

That had no effect on the two gushing girls, certainly none on the school dropout. Remember, we already know she was very distracted, with an attention span that was everywhere, at any time. 

She was a precocious child with keen observation skills and an elephantine memory. The school dropout inevitably had trouble remaining undistracted. 

However, being human, the schoolmaster sometimes trusted his wards to be alone to write down their assignments—just the break the school dropout waited for. 

One such day, the school dropout grasped at her lucky break. She looked up from her notebook, and her eyes lingered on the object of her distraction, a pair of elegant metal cuff links. 

Laying her elbow on the table, she tilted her head sideways and low, almost resting on her forearm, as if in deep concentration. 

This form of concentration became her repose whenever their teacher stepped away or was engrossed in a book. Her focus, however, would be on the cuff-linked ends of the sleeves of the impeccably ironed business shirt of the said cricketer sitting across from her. 

"Mohinder, tere cuff links bahut sunder hain, your cuff links are so smart," she would sigh, as Mohinder tried not to hear what he heard. 

Back to their notebooks, and a few minutes later, again, "Mohinder, tere cuff links bahut sunder hain, your cuff links are so smart." 

This refrain went on for several days. 

By now, the gushing girl sing-songed her remark, enjoying it as it became a daily ritual, uttered usually more than once a day. She also realized her constant remark about his cuff links made Mohinder quite visibly uneasy, which she blithely relished. 

By now, Mohinder was finding it harder to un-hear her sing-song rhetoric, which only added to her enjoyment. He may have been silently blushing as well, but the gentleman that he was, he wouldn't let on. 

Just about the time the school dropout was looking for a new distraction, Mohinder's patience was fraying. 

Then the day came, like any other (except it was not), and the young teenagers all sat down around the table as they did every day and pulled up their chairs, preparing to open their books for the first lesson of the day. 

That day, Mohinder held out a long arm with his wrist downturned and hand closed; he thrust it toward the usually gushing school dropout. He held it there, waiting. Finally, the girl held her open hand, palm upwards, "Yeh kya hai, what is this?" she asked. Mohinder said not a word and dropped the objects of her adoration into her palm. 

The next day, like any other day (except it was not), Mohinder had another surprise for the school dropout gushing girl. Soon after he sat down at the table, Mohinder slid his downturned fist on the table towards her. Then he picked up his open hand, revealing a little brown box. 

"Yeh kya hai, what is this, she asked?" 

"Is mein woh cuff links aaye they, the cuff links came in this box, Mohinder said, adding, "Meri behan ne mujhe diye they, my sister gave these to me." 

The school dropout gushing girl still has them somewhere in her stash that has moved across three continents with her. 

Veenu Banga

November 5, 2023

4:32am