Memories of Mission Valley

“I’m going to get a girlfriend before the term is over,” Mohan announced.

I looked at him in shock. “Where are you going to find one?” I asked.

“Well, how about right here in the school?”

Arun and I laughed. “Mohan, what are you talking about?” Arun said.

“There’s a girl here that I’m interested in,” Mohan said. “And she’s interested in me. You may not call her my girlfriend, but I promise I’ll kiss her before the term is over.”

“Who is she?” I asked. It was hard to believe him, because the school was not co-educational back then.

Without answering, Mohan continued walking down the hill. Arun and I followed him.

“He’s kidding,” Arun whispered to me. “There’s no such girl.”

Mohan heard him. “Yes, there is!” he said, spinning around. “Let’s have a bet.”

I looked at him curiously, struck by the emotion in his voice. Arun, too, was looking at him, and he laughed when Mohan said the bet would be worth 100 rupees.

“So, you’re going to kiss a girl, right?” Arun said.

“No, not just kiss a girl. It’s going to be more than that, AB.”

I was dumbfounded. As I stared at Mohan, Arun said, “What do you mean? You can’t be serious.”

“I am serious,” Mohan said calmly. “Intimacy is serious.” Then, turning around, he sprinted towards the classroom.

Later in the evening, when we were in the dining hall, it became obvious that Mohan wasn’t joking. While some of my tablemates, including Arun, were talking excitedly about an upcoming cricket match, I noticed Mohan exchanging smiles with Swati, who worked in the kitchen along with her mother. Having dropped out of school in her village not long ago, Swati, who didn’t speak English, had moved with her mother to our campus, where Sawti’s father was our maintenance man. They all lived in a ramshackle building, which housed the support staff, whom we referred to as servants in those days.

Mohan’s smile had been so fleeting that, at first, I thought I was mistaken. Swati rushed back to the kitchen after depositing a big bowl of steaming rice on one of the tables, and I didn’t see her again that evening. But when Mohan grinned at me, I knew it wasn’t my imagination. I was flabbergasted. How could he even contemplate doing such a thing?

“Are you serious about your bet?” I whispered.

“Of course,” Mohan whispered back, still grinning. “And I’m going to win it soon if everything goes right. Please don’t say anything to Arun.”

Before we went to bed that night, Mohan sidled up to me in the dorm and took me aside. “It’ll happen tomorrow evening when everybody is watching the Saturday movie,” he said. “Can you bring Arun to the tool shed at eight? Swati is going to meet me there. She has the key.”

“This is a bad idea,” I said, nervously looking around to see if anybody was watching us. “Does she know what it’s about?”

“Kind of…I said it was important, that I had something to share with her. Just do it, yaar. What’s the big deal? She’s okay with it.”

“It’s a big deal, Mohan. I don’t think you should do it.”

“Fine,” he said in a huff. “You don’t have to be involved. Be a chicken.”

I didn’t see Mohan the next day, even in the dorm, and on Sunday I was stunned to hear that he was leaving the school. I didn’t speak to him again.

“You were in the American boy’s class, weren’t you?” the woman had said.

Of course, now I remembered her. It was Swati, though I didn’t find much resemblance between this amiable woman and the quiet, wispy girl I had known. The matron in charge wouldn’t be back till late in the evening, Swati explained, but I was welcome to look around after signing my name in the visitor’s book. “It’s not a problem; I already know who you are,” she added. Again, I was struck by how quickly she’d remembered me.

In the visitor’s book, next to his name and address, Arun had included the following comment: “Nice to be back. Brought back memories, good and bad. All the best!” After signing my name, I jotted down Arun’s information, promising myself to contact him once I returned to the States.

“We didn’t see Mohan again,” Swati said. “Do you remember him, the boy who was expelled?”

Startled, I looked up and saw her frown. But then she smiled again. It was as if she’d read my mind. “Yes,” I simply replied, and waited for her to say more. She didn’t. I didn’t either, as Swati opened another door and let me enter the main campus.

Murali Kamma is an Atlanta-based editor. Having been a dreamer and loner, he still cannot believe that he’s a responsible dad with a paying job. His fiction has appeared in Rosebud, Asian Pacific American Journal, South Asian Review, AIM (America’s Intercultural Magazine), India Abroad, Muse India, Trikone Magazine, and India Currents. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and India Abroad have published his columns.