Three Winters

I am standing in a village on a morning like this one - crisp, with a definite nip in the air and a howling wind to match. I am cold but sweat is streaming down my face. I am watching my classmates perform a play on the value of sending the girl child to law school. Villagers sit around and watch without expression. They yawn a lot and begin to disperse quietly once the play is over. Always alive to the call of duty, I quickly corral one mustachioed gentleman attempting to leave with his cow. You have a daughter, why don't you send her to law school? I say. My daughter is a good girl, my friend notes generously. The comment is a little off-topic, but promising. People can pay for her if she does well, you know, I say with greater enthusiasm. Educating a girl child is educating the family, he says, as though repeating something off a billboard somewhere. So why don't you educate yours? I interject cleverly, with the feeling that I have caught him on a fine point. He sighs deeply and raises large grey eyes to mine - Arre beta, she is the only child… there is no help. A pause, and - you know how it is... he says. I plainly do not, but he does not elaborate.

After an uncomfortable silence of indeterminate length, I hand him a small booklet with a phone number to call if he ever ends up wanting to educate his girl child at a discount. He takes it quite happily from me. I already know that he will feed it to his cow.

We write up a report for our camp - "Visited Chotagaon village in Chotagarh district and performed several plays highlighting the importance of creating diversity in national law schools. Distributed pamphlets highlighting the same." We put this on our blog.

I dedicate a bullet point on my CV to the above statement in its entirety.

I take a sip of elaichi tea and cringe; are all college cafeterias obsessed with sugar? I give the plastic glass to the resident nogoodrascal dog, who stupidly pushes his whole snout into the glass and cannot take it out. He howls in perverse harmony with the wind, while I think about another winter..

I am sitting in front of an Important Person in his office. I sent you an email, I say. I saw it, very regrettable, he says. I am very disappointed. It was plagiarism, I say clearly, and he is a professor. Important Person agrees in soothing tones. Tomorrow I will email him and tell him his article cannot be published, I say, because he is a plagiarist. I’m afraid you cannot do that, says Important Person in the same gentle tones – (I am not prepared for this) - and why is that? I say, stupidly. He raises his old, brown eyes to me and sighs - "He is after all your teacher, is he not? Arre beta you know how it is...

He looks like a wise toad behind his glasses. I feel like a fly who has just been swallowed.

I look down and watch as my breath mists up his glass tabletop. I can't tell how long I sit there, perfectly still. It is our flagship journal, I finally say, without looking up. This one we will not send to Harvard, eh? says Big Man, with a small laugh. Do you want more tea, son?

One month later, I am standing outside a local press, shading my eyes from the sun, watching glossy piles of our new prospectus be brought out to be taken back to campus and posted to the law-school-ward headed masses. I read the front cover. "An institute of national repute in the field of legal education and pedagogy" it says. I open it and smell the paper.

It feels smooth and smells dirty.

It is the last winter in law school, the onset of this very one; I sit on the other side of a table in a beautifully appointed room, all teak and velvet (not unlike, I imagine, a high class bordello). I stuff myself awkwardly into a cushioned chair and face yet another powerful man, who sits in the chair opposite mine. You had shortlisted me for an interview, I say politely. I was wondering why you never took that interview, I say politely.

We liked your CV, but we ended up filling that position unexpectedly early, he says.

Filling it without taking any interviews, I say carefully, without meeting his gaze. It was not a question unless you wanted it to be one; just the gentlest interrogatory inflection - I had planned it so inside my head.

The briefest pause follows, and then - Yes, we found a candidate who was...closer to home, he said.

Closer to home, I see, I say. This time also, I am careful to keep any particular tone out of my voice. He is gentler in his reply - You have a good CV. But in this industry, you know how it is, we take many favours. Sometimes, well, we have many friends we are grateful to…