I had also decided to strike out on my own. At a Bollywoodstyle dance competition called Anubhav ’93, organized at the Sangeet Samiti, I met Karan. I was wearing a big, fat gangsta pendant around my neck. I wore it outside my T-shirt, where it hung at around navel level, glinting proudly in the sun. This caught Karan’s eye. He walked over to me and introduced himself. He said he liked my style.

I watched the dance competition sitting with Karan’s gang. He was squabbling with his girlfriend so we didn’t get a chance to talk much that afternoon. But each time we met in Civil Lines at Osho’s STD booth, he would ask me how things were and if I needed any help.

My self-image had undergone a change in the last year or so. I no longer thought of myself as the self-sufficient introvert who liked doing things on his own. I had realized that if you were in an east UP town, and were mildly ambitious, you certainly needed ‘help’. It would be foolish to turn it down. As it turned out, I soon needed help with Divya.

Things were going great with her. She gave me a big bar of Cadbury’s and a ‘best friend’ card on my birthday. This was certainly an improvement on Rachna. On the Annual Prize Day in school, we even managed a finger shake through a slat in the grill. I was standing in the corridor waiting to collect my prizes; she was outside, performing her prefectorial duties: getting the junior prizewinners to stand straight and still. I could not call at her place because, as she told me, her brother had just eloped with a girl and her parents were very upset. If they found out now that a boy was calling their home and asking for her, they might not survive the double shock. My parents still did not have a phone, so I made an arrangement with my classmates, Ravi and Rishi Gupta. They were twins and lived in a neighbourhood not too far from mine.

I would go to their place under the pretext of doing ‘joint studies’. We would keep the cordless with us. Divya would call twice; the first time she would let the phone ring a couple of times, then cut the line. The second call would follow exactly a minute later.

We never let it go beyond the first ring because Mrs Gupta was a light sleeper and an instinctive slapper. During our conversations, Divya never ceased to remind me of my class topper status. ‘You always do well in exams,’ she would say good-naturedly. ‘You should concentrate on your books, building a career.’