Can Love Be Judged?

4

We were walking down the corridor, towards the ground, the Dean walking briskly ahead and I following him, trying to match his pace. Once on the ground we headed for the stairs and I realized we were heading towards his office. For a second I thought he knew about the bench, but then I shook my head, if that was the reason we were going to his office then keshav would have been tagging along with us. But he hadn’t stopped keshav when he was leaving which told me this was an entirely different matter. We entered his office as the guard outside held the door open for us. His room was cool due to an air conditioner wheezing on the far wall. The second thing I noticed was the smell of fresh flowers. There was a mahogany table in the middle of the room, the table had a lot of things all meticulously arranged including a paper stack sitting on top of which was a paper weight, a pen stand right next to it, a telephone and a vase which had the fresh flowers in it.

“Sit, Aarav” he said to me pointing towards one of the chairs.

I sat down and looked at him, hoping he would let me in on what he wanted from me. But instead he just sat down and picked up a magazine. It was a sports magazine I could tell by the cover photo of Virat Kohli, the Indian captain posing after a win. He removed a bookmark and started reading from where he had left. I waited. After 10 minutes went by I ran out of patience I was about to say something when the door opened and Vishakha walked in. The Dean looked up and kept the magazine down.

“Sit down please, Vishakha” he said to her pointing to the chair beside me.

“I’m sorry sir, it took so long” she said apologetically.

“It’s okay. Take a seat and we shall begin” he said

She sat down and gave me a confused look. It was evident that she herself had no idea why she was here.

“I presume both of you have heard about the debate competition being held in a week” the dean began.

We nodded our heads in affirmation.

“I want you two to participate in it from our college” he paused. We looked at each other. Vishakha had topped the English class this year and I had been the runner up. It was clear why the two of us. It also meant that his presence at the washroom corridor wasn’t a coincidence he was there looking for me, he probably must have asked some classmate of mine who had told him where to look for me.

“This competition”, he continued, “has been held for years and the last time we won I was not the dean. I’ll be retiring in a couple of years and I want a trophy for this college right there on that shelf” He pointed towards a shelf on the left wall.  It had lots of different trophies, sports, debates, music one could tell by the shapes they were made in.

“I have seen this college earning trophies in each and every extra-curricular activity except for debates. We never got students capable enough to win. We always came sixth or seventh. Not even in the top five. A pity.”

I looked towards the shelf, there were only two trophies for debates over all these years.

“Your records Vishakha”, he said pointing to her “have been amazing, and so have been yours, Aarav”, he looked at me with ambition. “I have a feeling if you two work hard and give your best, we may have a trophy on that shelf after all”

He looked at us “You guys have a week to decide and work it out between yourselves. I’ll check back on you in a couple of days. Any questions?”

“Yes sir”, Vishakha said “are there any other students participating from our college? We can form a group and work together, I think that would be--”

“No Vishakha”, the dean interjected “I only want you two on this, no distraction and no nuisance. Is that clear?”

“Yes sir!” we both said in unison

“Good, now go home, you don’t need to attend any classes today. I want you both to solely focus on this competition, you’ll come back here and report to me on Wednesday is that clear?”

“Yes sir!” we said again.

I had collected my bag and was walking out of the college gate when I spotted Vishakha at the bicycle stand. I called out to her. She stopped and waited clearly annoyed.

“Give me your number how are we going to communicate about the topic?” I said when I reached near her

“Who needs to communicate? I’m going to nail that competition all by myself” She said impatiently “now move I have to go, direct sun light is bad for my skin”

I moved back and she went out of the gate steering towards the road.

“As expected” I muttered under my breath.

I took my usual route back to my home. When I entered the gate granny was on the porch. She was surprised to see me.

“Hello-hello! Look who’s here! Let me guess, did you finally got expelled because of your loud mouth?” she asked sarcastically

I laughed. “No, granny, I got permission to skip my classes because I need to prepare for the debate competition”

“Oh, is it? I see! Didn’t you tell them it comes naturally to you?” she said back with a smile

I laughed again, “No, I said I’ll have to learn it from my granny”

She laughed back.

We entered the house together. “Dad is at the office?”

“Yes dear and your mom is out shopping with Sheila”

Sheila was our housemaid. We had hired her a few years back, she helps mom with cooking and shopping. She is a nice girl very efficient except for sometimes when she lies for no reason or does something really stupid, like serving breakfast in front of an empty chair.

When I point that out to her she’s like “Oh, I’m so sorry, didn’t sleep properly last night, my brain isn’t really working”. I sometimes think she has some problem which she never shares with us. Something which troubles her when she goes to sleep. I asked mom and dad, even granny, no one knows anything, she doesn’t talk much to anyone, except to granny, with her she can talk all day, but then with granny anyone can talk all day. Maybe I’ll ask Sheila one day about it.