With a flush of excitement and a deep, fulfilling sense of achievement, Tinku came down from the stage. Her dress fluttered behind her, as if failing to keep up with her joyous spirit in the evening. Looking exceedingly pretty, her eyes betrayed a sharpness uncharacteristic of just joy. “Hah!” she was telling herself. “Match that, arrogant hero!” In a razor-edged glance, she pierced through the crowd, still cheering, clapping and applauding her dance recital through to an unassuming boy mingled among the final year students. To the uninitiated, her glance would have been surprising indeed. Why would Tinku, arguably the heart-throb of every virile guy on campus be possibly glaring at this funny looking, short, queer spectacled character?

But to the students of the department, this was nothing new. Tinku considered Guplu her arch rival. Over the last 3 years, Guplu had been the source of half of her frustrations. First in the department? Guplu. Best in extra acads? Guplu. The apple of the teacher’s eye? Guplu.  Months of effort, nights of study, hours of practice – nothing seemed to be good enough to beat this “dumb mutt”. Tinku was exasperated of this seemingly human machine. Her own feelings for the little creature she had to call her classmate was a dazed confusion, but she convinced herself that it were a form of hatred. In her schooldays, she had been the female Guplu. Nobody was better than her. And she believed it. It was simply not possible. There had been times when she had faltered, but every time she had set her mind to it, added 2 hrs of work every day, she would win. Each time.

Until college. That was where this squirrel came along and ruined everything. Sometimes Tinku wondered whether the professors even knew she existed. It was so humiliating, so frustrating to lose. Time and again. Every time she added hours, Guplu always pulled it off better. Gigi, Tinku’s roommate had her own theory. “These fucking dick-heads, they only see the first year’s performance. After that the asses will pick their favorite, and come what may, pour more marks on the asshole. Don’t you worry Tinku, one day that stupid fuck will crash facedown before you” Gigi did not mince her words. She was not exactly soft-spoken, but more than once, she did speak words from Tinku’s heart. Not for nothing were they best friends. But that “day” seemed to be agonizingly far away each year. And the professors were not completely to blame, Tinku had had to tell herself several times in the past. Guplu WAS super-smart. But she deserved to be better, didn’t she?

In the girl’s hostel, and in fact the college at large, it was common knowledge that Guplu resided in Tinku’s head. Often Tinku had asked herself the same question. When she was in school, she had never really bothered about “competition”. At college, she spent half of her day obsessing about Guplu, thinking how he might be getting ahead of her right at that moment, planning where and how much more effort she would need to press in to emerge victorious. It was puzzling even to herself. “Why do I even care, if I am convinced I am better than him?”, she would ask herself on some of her more introspective days. “Why can I not just concentrate on my work and forget about him?” But these precious self-evaluations were rare. As soon as the next class-test was announced or the next homework handed out, Tinku was back in full armor. She had to win. What it was that she was trying to prove was not very clear, but the fact she did not manage to win wrenched joy out of her life.

Which was why the stage was precious to Tinku. When Tinku danced, the world watched, hypnotized. This was one area which had been spared of Guplu’s evil eyes. That hairy brown piece of stick could never dance. Gigi and Tinku had a joke among themselves, the day Guplu dances even remotely well would be the day babies would pop out of men’s penises. Sure it would hurt, but Tinku’s last refuge of sentiment would be hurt far more than that. It just could not be.

With a flutter of clothes, Tinku thus whooshed into Gigi’s arms, waiting in the backstage. “My sexy diva! Did you see that hairbrained Ostrogoth? He was filming you on his mobile phone! The balls of the fucker, what was he thinking? Jerk off material for the night?” Tinku laughed, and said “Well maybe he was hoping to mug that up too and manage to put a step in the right place for once!” “Haaah”, taunted Gigi. “Over my pierced vagina.” Which was a remote possibility since Gigi by and large hated boys.

Laughing, the two came to the front of the stage. “And now? Sweet revenge!!”, Gigi whispered. Tinku inhaled deeply in anticipation. Yes. Revenge. To say that this semester she had put in her everything would be an understatement. The final departmental scholarship. This time it had to be hers. Guplu was faltering this semester. He was noticeably thinner and looked tired; no doubt he was pressing against himself to match up to the elevated efforts of his competitor, Tinku thought. He had missed many classes, especially in the early hours of the morning. Strategically Tinku had pushed in her maximum devotion and discipline into those grey hours of the dawn, so much so that professors now noticed her and remarked about the absence of Guplu. In a last minute attempt of desperation (“dickless underhandedness” as per Gigi) Guplu had gone so far as to borrow her notes from the morning classes. Hate him as she might, Tinku could not say no. For one, there was a certain honor in Guplu asking for notes from her: it made her feel semi-victorious already. Plus Tinku made sure this happened in the presence of a professor so that they would notice who was calling the shots this year. Lastly, and Tinku least liked to admit this, Guplu’s manners were at the opposite pole of Gigi’s. When someone asks you that nicely, its hard to say no. After all, Tinku WAS a nice girl too.

And the moment arrived. The HOD strolled up to the podium, and after what seemed to be an eternal speech very much similar to what had been said last year, with the addition of special mention of Tinku for her performance, he proceeded to announce “the much awaited name – winner of the departmental scholarship.” Tinku breathed faster. “This year it has been really tough, and the boys’ and girls’ hostel seem to have given each other a hard run! But finally, it goes to..” … “Tink..” Gigi started whispering. But somewhere there, they both froze. Ice ran down their spines as the name they last wanted to hear was uttered. Tinku and Gigi’s dumbstruck expressions were lost in the rave of cheering that came up from the boys hostel side. Even some girls were cheering. Tinku’s eyes swelled with tears while Gigi looked on, still disbelieving,  and looking thoroughly concerned at Tinku.

Hot blooded rage flooded Tinku. Her vocabulary was suddenly replaced by that of Gigi’s. “That ignorant mother-fucker, he stole my notes, MY NOTES, missed classes, and after all this, he gets the prize and I don’t!! Today I’ll just rape him here on the floor”. Tinku whooshed past an open-mouthed Gigi and went up to the stage and whispered into the HOD’s ear. The old man beamed a smile, and bent forward to the mike. “And it seems the hero of the night has more than one trick up his sleeve! Reliable sourced inform us that Guplu has been practicing tap-dancing on the sly. Come on now!! A show for the night!”

In a wave of cheers, Guplu’s voices of mild protest were drowned. Exasperated, he walked up to the stage and spoke, “The reliability of the source is indeed very low, for I am probably the last person on earth who could dance.” Tinku came back red-eyed to Gigi, who stared at her. “What have you done!?” she said. “Humiliation that he rightly deserved”, said Tinku, head held high. For once, Gigi felt she was going too far, but she was interrupted by the HOD. “Oh come on, everyone says that! Stop being modest! Music on the floor!!”

And so it started. Guplu, with no alternative, plopped on the floor, with Titanic’s rapid music playing in the background, trying to do something that would remotely help him leave the room without a face blushing crimson. Despite the obvious giggles and suppressed laughter and jeering, it seemed like Guplu would survive the night. And then it happened. Guplu turned on the floor like a poor duck, and there was a twanging sound. The next thing, Guplu was on the floor, looking up at the ceiling, trying hard to hold his tears, gasping, screaming soundlessly.

The party ended in a fiasco. The general opinion was that Guplu’s ankle was fractured. Gigi and Tinku hurried back to the girl’s hostel as people were starting to mention here name with dark connotations. People seemed to have suspected the foul play. Some of the boys were shouting indignantly, and seemed to be rallying together to the HOD for some form of action. Tinku did not know what to feel. Angry? Happy? Worried? Guilty? The confusion clouded her mind as she rushed back and tried to coax herself to sleep.

Next day morning the expected thing happened. Tinku was called before the HOD. Gigi was now getting really nervous. “Just tell him you were playing a joke and you had no idea that he could not dance. Say something. Anything. This could get very nasty….” Tinku hastened off. What a lovely run-up to her birthday indeed. Missed 15000 rupees of the scholarship. Lost again to that useless god-damned creature. And now what? Detention? Expulsion?

Tinku walked into the HOD’s office, head bowed down. She did not exactly have a plan yet. The HOD looked up from his screen of emails. “I would have told you something about last night, but it seems like this stupid hero bragged about the wrong thing to the wrong person. Well, a timely email at least, otherwise the professors felt you would be in trouble. He is hospitalized, and I would ask you to at least pay him a visit.”

Tinku did not believe her ears. Nothing? Not even a scolding? All for one email? And from HIM???

“Well, before I forget. There is something that was delivered at the department for you. Too big to be parceled to your hostel. You need to sign here and pick it up.” Pick what up? What could have been delivered at the department, of all places? Tinku signed in a daze of confusion, relief and some anticipation of surprise, pleasant or not.

To say that a birthday gift could make a person happy explains nothing of what Tinku felt when she went into the inventory to take her delivery. It was THAT synthesizer, the one that she and Gigi had swooned over and practically prayed for every night before sleep. It had been given to her. For her birthday. It was all hers now. Every tune, every beat, every rthythm from her dreams would come alive now. But who had sent this? Tinku hunted all over, but in vain. No name tag, and the department inventory manager of course could not say who had ordered this. Only the price tag hung on… “Rs 14,999, incl of all taxes”. Something about that number hit Tinku. And hit her hard. So hard indeed that she ran without knowing anything else to the hospital.

Guplu was asleep on the bed. Good for him indeed, thought Tinku. 15 days of bedrest, the nurse had said. It was lucky that he only tore a couple of ligaments, they had expected a fracture outright. She went and sat down beside the sleeping figure. For once, she did not feel the flood of hatred. Instead, it was replaced by questions. Too many questions. Looking by the bedside Tinku found her own notes in photocopy, put neatly into a clip folder. She reached into the bag and opened the folder. On top, letters from the Dean said that the problem with the mess in the boys’ hostel had been resolved, and that Guplu should kindly end his daily fasting, and ask his fellow boarders to do the same as the leader of the group. In a small footnote, the Dean thanked the now-sleeping recipient for his active involvement in pressurizing the contractors and bringing the issue to a relatively fast closure.

Tears welled up in Tinku’s eyes as he realized now the cause of all those missed classes. Drops fell from her eyes liberally as she thumbed through her notes in the rest of the folder. Each one of them had been so carefully kept in just the right order. Each page had been studied, side notes made, diagrams completed, derivations corrected and small observations thought about. With a soft smile, Tinku accepted her defeat. Even she did not value her own notes this much.

But the remaining questions were answered by the still open laptop by Guplu’s bedside. Emails list showed a confirmation of the deposit of 15000 rupees in an account, followed by an online order for a synthesizer, to be delivered to the hostel, or the department on failing. This had been ordered yesterday, when according to the nurse, Guplu was just back from an X-ray. Tinku was speechless. A little mail some way down read “Dear Sir, I humbly request you not to punish any one for the accident that happened today. It is indeed true that I was taking tap-dancing lessons, and happened to say a little too much about it for my level to some friends. Please treat this purely as an accident.”

Years of hatred now suffered total unemployment. Out of tender affection, Tinku pulled up the laptop to herself, and guiltily began going through the contents. A little folder proclaimed “The Best Artist in the World”, and inside she found two neat subfolders, marked Songs and Dances. As she went through them, for the first time in her life, Tinku felt something towards Guplu that she had not imagined 2 days ago. If she had ever thought this was possible, Gigi would have probably laughed until she died of suffocation and still continued laughing as a corpse. Her every little performance from like forever was there. The song she sang on the first day in college in Fresher’s Introduction, the silly ones in the canteen, the marvelous dances during the Socials. Every little piece of it was there. There were videos she would give her every treasure to have a copy for herself. There were songs she did not even remember she sang. There were performances she did not think anybody had cared to record.

Then it happened. The cloud that had shrouded her mind, prevented her from honestly answering those pestering questions of introspection, lifted. She felt she was dreaming, and it was not really her. Some surrealistic image of her got up leaned over Guplu’s tender sleeping face, and kissed him on his lips. Blushing like a fresh rose waking up to a new morning sun, Tinku hustled out of the ward, careful not to wake the inmate up. Outside, Gigi was waiting, adamant.

“What the fuck milady? Not even a phone call! What was Gigi supposed to think huh? That the wicked old fart pimped you out? And what are you doing here? You came to see Guplu!?!??! Whats WRONG with you? I though you hate…”

Tinku rushed to Gigi and pressed her palm hard against her lips. Hugging her hitherto best friend tightly, she mumbled “No Gigi, I was wrong. I love him”