‘I’m extremely confused.’

‘Why are you here, then?’

‘Because he wants me to be a slave to people like you,’ said Madhav. This was blunt and unacceptable, especially as it came from the university topper. This was one of those situations wherein he knew he was going off track but couldn’t help it. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. Madhav felt like a victim, trapped by his own emotions. He adjusted his spectacles and blurted out, unthinkingly.

‘You know, this is the biggest problem with our nation—we all are in rooms like this one, trying to please someone who ranks higher than us. I’m in this room, trying to please you; the principal’s secretary is trying to please him.’ Madhav laughed as they looked at him in surprise.

He finally took a seat. ‘Did I ask you to sit?’ the old man questioned, even though he had pretty much given up on him by then.

‘Do I seriously need your permission to sit? I mean seriously? This chair is meant to be sat on, right?’ That was it. He had crossed the line.

‘Do you even want this job?’ the man asked, finally raising his voice.

‘I don’t. I never wanted it. He wants it. He’s always wanted it,’ Madhav declared and removed his spectacles.

‘Who are you talking about? Who wanted it?’ the woman asked.

‘You will never know him,’ he replied, as the old man called out for the college’s HR and placement executives.

‘I can’t believe this is the topper of your college,’ the lady said to the placement executive. They told the college officials all that Madhav had said and done. The HR head then dragged him out of the room. After a long discussion, the placement cell blacklisted Madhav, despite him being the university topper. Madhav smirked and walked out of the campus gates.

2

Madhav did not tell his family about the interview but he couldn’t hide the results of his final semester exams. He had topped yet again and, to lighten the tense atmosphere at home, his mother planned a small get-together.

Standing naked in front of the full-length mirror in his room, Madhav tried to figure out why he was so irked by all this appreciation. And then the usual questions began to harangue him yet again—who the hell am I? What have I really been doing with my life?

He stared deeply into his eyes, scrutinizing his irises, and rolled his eyeballs back into his head. And thus began his daily routine of self-deprecation.

A knock on the door jolted him back to the unwelcome present.

‘Madhav, come out! Everyone is waiting for you,’ a female voice shouted, knocking thrice on the door. Madhav wrapped a towel around his waist and ran to open the door. It was his mother, in a beautiful cotton sari. She looked happier than usual that night. Her son had topped his college. It was a dream come true for her but she, of course, wasn’t aware that she had shared this dream with someone else, someone whom she had never really known.