Excerpts from Above Average--2

Excerpts from Above Average
a novel by Amitabha Bagchi

[ Excerpt 1 ] [ Excerpt 2 ] [ Excerpt 3 ]

Later that semester Neeraj's reputation would explode out of the realm of student folklore into the world of faculty canteen chatter. He would come up with a proof for the notoriously difficult Reconstruction Conjecture. He would present his proof to a roomful of faculty members, including Kanitkar, who would take weeks to discover the flaw in his argument. He would have realized by then, or perhaps he already knew now, that making a minor mistake in attempting something hugely ambitious was worth much more than being entirely correct about something pedestrian. His proof would bring together logic and combinatorics in an impressively mature way, making it difficult for experts from either field to catch the error. It would be many years before I would realize that the night I met him in the CompC he must have been refining his understanding of logic programming as he worked towards that famously flawed proof.

That night in the CompC, with the future still a few months away, I sat with Neeraj in one corner jumping through Prolog's hoops and making it jump through ours. We corrected and augmented and fiddled as we built one idea on the other. He typed and I watched as our small logical expressions became bigger, as one concept laid the foundation for the next. When I had long forgotten the details of what we had done that night I remembered the pure joy of seeing mathematics and logic interlock and unfold on that old monochromatic screen in the Computer Centre. It was almost three in the morning when we walked out of the main building and headed for our hostels. The campus was bathed in the soft light of sodium vapour lamps. The parking lot looked forlorn and empty. Its concrete flooring, hidden by dense bunches of cycles in the day, glowed dimly in the orange night. Three or four cycles stood in one corner, their owners having decided to spend the night in the CompC. Walking past the sleeping trees we turned onto the long road which led to the hostels.

'How come your JEE rank was so low?' I asked Neeraj, immediately regretting the tactlessness of the remark. When he answered it was clear that he had understood what I was really asking: 'If you are as intelligent as everyone claims you are, how come you didn't make the top hundred at JEE?'

'I didn't study Chemistry,' he said simply.

'Meaning?'

'Meaning, I don't like Chemistry. I find it boring. So I didn't study it at all. I just went and sat in the paper, did whatever I could and came away.'

I was astounded. Everyone knew that in JEE even ten marks could be the difference between Computer Science in Kanpur and Electrical in Bombay, or Mechanical in Kharagpur and Metallurgy in BHU. I hadn't particularly enjoyed Chemistry myself, but I had studied it nonetheless, because JEE was something much much bigger than me, something I respected. To not study Chemistry would have taken as a kind of arrogance I could not even begin to imagine.

But, I was to learn in time to come, in Neeraj's world, to be true to your passion meant to neglect what didn't interest you. It was important for him to repeatedly point out how he never studied for his Humanities classes– the ones I always aced– and got Ds in them, how he had excellent grades in all the department classes but still had a low CGPA because of his singlemindedness. He was ranked in the bottom ten of the class, a badge he wore with pride.

'NT might be DR one,' he once said to me, referring to our class topper. 'But people give me as much respect.' My own position in the middle of the class was buoyed by my good grades in Humanities classes. I had no real passion for anything I studied although some of it interested me and I was competent at all of it. When Neeraj proudly reported that he had got a zero in his Management Studies exam or that there was a good chance that he might flunk in Rural Development, I felt like a hypocrite.

But, that night as we walked home, I kept my composure. Realizing he expected a shocked reaction, I kept quiet.

'Where did you go to school?' I asked.

He named a small public school in South Delhi. I had heard of it but didn't actually know anybody who went there.

'Is that a good school?' I asked.

'Yes, very good,' he said, missing the condescension in my question. 'I used to be in a government school earlier. When I was in class eleven I went myself and got admitted.'

'Yourself?'

'Yes,' he said. 'My father said that the government school was fine. There was no need to go to a public school and pay a lot of money to study.'

'Really?'

'My family is like that. When I told them that I was going to IIT they were very disappointed. They don't know what IIT is, for them Delhi University is the big thing. Actually I wanted to study Physics in St. Stephen's College. Do you know St. Stephen's? But my English marks were too low so they didn't take me.'

Some of my friends who hadn't made it into IIT had gone to DU colleges. They had spent a year preparing for their second attempt at IIT. And here was this guy for whom IIT had been the fallback.

'What does you father do?' I asked.

'He runs a restaurant in INA market,' he said.

I had been to INA market several times when I was younger, my mother used to buy fish there. I didn't remember having seen anything which I would call a restaurant.

'What kind of restaurant?'

'Mainly South Indian food,' he said. 'Also samosas and other snacks.'

'Vadas,' I said, as an old memory stirred in my head.

'Yes, vadas as well.'

'Is it next to a spice shop run by a bald guy who sells Ajinomoto?' I asked.

'Yes, yes,' he said. 'How do you know?'

'I think I've been there,' I said. 'Next time, I am going to ask for free food.'

'Of course, yaar. Whenever you want. Just tell them you're Neeraj's friend.'

We parted at the roundabout and I walked towards my hostel. But instead of going into the hostel, I went out through the gate and sat at the bus stop instead. In my head I tried to conjure up the several visits I had made to the dhaba which had suddenly revealed itself to be Neeraj's. An hour later when the eastern sky began to lighten my head was swimming with the fragrance of golden crisp vadas but I still hadn't been able to recall a single face from across the counter of Neeraj's dhaba.

continue to excerpt 3


home about contact policies submissions feature archives audio visual writing reviews forums art film & television food literature music society & culture elsewhere desilit parabaas sasialit sawnet upper stall	Excerpts from Above Average a novel by Amitabha Bagchi [ Excerpt 1 ] [ Excerpt 2 ] [ Excerpt 3 ] Later that semester Neeraj's reputation would explode out of the realm of student folklore into the world of faculty canteen chatter. He would come up with a proof for the notoriously difficult Reconstruction Conjecture. He would present his proof to a roomful of faculty members, including Kanitkar, who would take weeks to discover the flaw in his argument. He would have realized by then, or perhaps he already knew now, that making a minor mistake in attempting something hugely ambitious was worth much more than being entirely correct about something pedestrian. His proof would bring together logic and combinatorics in an impressively mature way, making it difficult for experts from either field to catch the error. It would be many years before I would realize that the night I met him in the CompC he must have been refining his understanding of logic programming as he worked towards that famously flawed proof. That night in the CompC, with the future still a few months away, I sat with Neeraj in one corner jumping through Prolog's hoops and making it jump through ours. We corrected and augmented and fiddled as we built one idea on the other. He typed and I watched as our small logical expressions became bigger, as one concept laid the foundation for the next. When I had long forgotten the details of what we had done that night I remembered the pure joy of seeing mathematics and logic interlock and unfold on that old monochromatic screen in the Computer Centre. It was almost three in the morning when we walked out of the main building and headed for our hostels. The campus was bathed in the soft light of sodium vapour lamps. The parking lot looked forlorn and empty. Its concrete flooring, hidden by dense bunches of cycles in the day, glowed dimly in the orange night. Three or four cycles stood in one corner, their owners having decided to spend the night in the CompC. Walking past the sleeping trees we turned onto the long road which led to the hostels. 'How come your JEE rank was so low?' I asked Neeraj, immediately regretting the tactlessness of the remark. When he answered it was clear that he had understood what I was really asking: 'If you are as intelligent as everyone claims you are, how come you didn't make the top hundred at JEE?' 'I didn't study Chemistry,' he said simply. 'Meaning?' 'Meaning, I don't like Chemistry. I find it boring. So I didn't study it at all. I just went and sat in the paper, did whatever I could and came away.' I was astounded. Everyone knew that in JEE even ten marks could be the difference between Computer Science in Kanpur and Electrical in Bombay, or Mechanical in Kharagpur and Metallurgy in BHU. I hadn't particularly enjoyed Chemistry myself, but I had studied it nonetheless, because JEE was something much much bigger than me, something I respected. To not study Chemistry would have taken as a kind of arrogance I could not even begin to imagine. But, I was to learn in time to come, in Neeraj's world, to be true to your passion meant to neglect what didn't interest you. It was important for him to repeatedly point out how he never studied for his Humanities classes– the ones I always aced– and got Ds in them, how he had excellent grades in all the department classes but still had a low CGPA because of his singlemindedness. He was ranked in the bottom ten of the class, a badge he wore with pride. 'NT might be DR one,' he once said to me, referring to our class topper. 'But people give me as much respect.' My own position in the middle of the class was buoyed by my good grades in Humanities classes. I had no real passion for anything I studied although some of it interested me and I was competent at all of it. When Neeraj proudly reported that he had got a zero in his Management Studies exam or that there was a good chance that he might flunk in Rural Development, I felt like a hypocrite. But, that night as we walked home, I kept my composure. Realizing he expected a shocked reaction, I kept quiet. 'Where did you go to school?' I asked. He named a small public school in South Delhi. I had heard of it but didn't actually know anybody who went there. 'Is that a good school?' I asked. 'Yes, very good,' he said, missing the condescension in my question. 'I used to be in a government school earlier. When I was in class eleven I went myself and got admitted.' 'Yourself?' 'Yes,' he said. 'My father said that the government school was fine. There was no need to go to a public school and pay a lot of money to study.' 'Really?' 'My family is like that. When I told them that I was going to IIT they were very disappointed. They don't know what IIT is, for them Delhi University is the big thing. Actually I wanted to study Physics in St. Stephen's College. Do you know St. Stephen's? But my English marks were too low so they didn't take me.' Some of my friends who hadn't made it into IIT had gone to DU colleges. They had spent a year preparing for their second attempt at IIT. And here was this guy for whom IIT had been the fallback. 'What does you father do?' I asked. 'He runs a restaurant in INA market,' he said. I had been to INA market several times when I was younger, my mother used to buy fish there. I didn't remember having seen anything which I would call a restaurant. 'What kind of restaurant?' 'Mainly South Indian food,' he said. 'Also samosas and other snacks.' 'Vadas,' I said, as an old memory stirred in my head. 'Yes, vadas as well.' 'Is it next to a spice shop run by a bald guy who sells Ajinomoto?' I asked. 'Yes, yes,' he said. 'How do you know?' 'I think I've been there,' I said. 'Next time, I am going to ask for free food.' 'Of course, yaar. Whenever you want. Just tell them you're Neeraj's friend.' We parted at the roundabout and I walked towards my hostel. But instead of going into the hostel, I went out through the gate and sat at the bus stop instead. In my head I tried to conjure up the several visits I had made to the dhaba which had suddenly revealed itself to be Neeraj's. An hour later when the eastern sky began to lighten my head was swimming with the fragrance of golden crisp vadas but I still hadn't been able to recall a single face from across the counter of Neeraj's dhaba. continue to excerpt 3