Dream Chasers , livre ebook

Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd. - Vipul Mittra

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

100 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Six friends at university are pursuing the coveted MBA. Viraat, Sandy, Karan, Mallika, Vandana, and Preeto are a gang who hang out together and get into trouble together. And when the boys are not in their classrooms, they're indulging in some high octane fun-from experimenting with dope, riding bikes semi-naked to even sneaking into cabarets. To add to their complicity, they are all vying for the attention of the same girl--Mallika. As their term ends, a disillusioned Viraat discovers that his gang that was once inseparable has disintegrated and his wild, carefree days are now history. His past catches up with him faster than he excepts and he is left in the biggest rut of his life. Will Viraat get past the hurdles to pave a path of his own? Will he finally get Mallika, the girl of his dreams? Most importantly, are his dreams even worth chasing? The Dream Chasers is a hysterical and candid story about fate, love, and the follies of youth.

Informations

Publié par	Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
Date de parution	20 septembre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184004809
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0420€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Published by Random House India in 2013
Copyright Vipul Mittra 2013
Random House Publishers India Private Limited Windsor IT Park, 7th Floor, Tower-B A-1, Sector-125, Noida-201301, UP
Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road London SW1V 2SA United Kingdom
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author s and publisher s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 9788184004809
For my wife Gitanjali, my daughter Megha, and my son Mehul-whose love, care, and affection keep me inspired.
1
IT WAS 3 AM. THE ONLY PLACE WE COULD FIND PARANTHAS was at Omi Dhaba near the PGI Hospital opposite University Gate. The three of us had gotten onto the dilapidated Vespa scooter semi-naked. It was not unusual for us to ride out like that, as a threesome; though it was indeed unusual to be virtually naked at this hour. All our smelly clothes lay soaked in a blue bucket beneath the waterless tap, in the froth and lather of cheap washing powder. So we had no other way of getting out but in our undies that had holes in all the wrong places.
Sandeep Galgotia or Sandy drove the scooter. It once belonged to his father who had given away his scooter and his son to each other. Sandy was the eldest among us, having done his two MAs in subjects as diverse as Music and Anthropology, before joining the present course, MBA. The only question that he had answered wrong in the interview for the B School was the full form of the acronym MBA , and the interviewers had laughed so much, so loud and for so long that in that moment of excitement, they awarded him 80 upon 100. They thought he was joking when he said MBA meant Management of Business Aims ; but had stopped laughing when he had stuck to his description saying that s what they should call the degree even if it had a different nomenclature. Because business without an aim is like a lost buffalo. They selected him.
Sandy remembered only love songs and a few romantic odes by Keats from his previous two degrees. He was short and as fair as bleaching powder sprinkled on a commode seat. He had no moustache, no beard, no chest hair, no hair on his arms and legs or any other parts that peeped through his underwear. Due to his utter fairness and hairlessness, girls considered him harmless. But he thought they loved him. He was also the richest of us all because he owned the Vespa.
Karan Kaushal sat in between Sandy and me. He compensated for Sandy s hairlessness in a way that made them appear as though they were made for each other. His forehead was always covered with a mop of hair that fell from from his head, while the rest of his face was hidden behind a generous beard. His eyebrows were Gorbachevian, and his arms and legs too were well-carpeted. When I met Karan for the first time, I resisted shaking his hand, afraid to be left clutching clumps of hair that he might shed. Later, I discovered that he used shampoo instead of soap while bathing. Karan spoke slowly and with emphasis, stressing each word, as though he was forever on the podium. He laughed without a smile. He wore thick glasses that hid the fact that he had once flunked his Math paper. He had an inbuilt defect that made him treat even unknown girls with excessive decency. His slow-motioned, emphatic speech made him the brunt of many girlie jokes. Girls felt safe pulling his leg and he too, like Sandy, thought they loved him because they always giggled in his presence, without reason, like passers-by bowing in front of roadside shrines.
The last chap was me, Viraat Nijhawan. I was the youngest of them, the tallest and the most reserved. I had whiskers and a tough jaw and my hair was always slicked backwards. I was focused on studies and had rarely spoken to a girl before I joined university. Sandy told me that at times my large eyes scared the girls, like police beacons scaring away innocent people. At times, I thought that was a good thing. I always tried to be meticulous in my ways and so my undies had fewer holes. I lived in town with my parents, but had come to stay at the boys hostel for the past few weeks to help the others during exam time. Girls kept away from me, and at times, I too believed they loved me, but were only being shy. The three of us hung around together all the time-except for when we were chasing Mallika.
Mallika Mattoo was the most attractive girl in the entire university, and she was our classmate. She was part of our gang during the day. In her presence, the three of us boys were like three rivals-separate, distinct and competitive. We were like three blades of a fan jutting out of a common axis, connected yet rotating around an unattainable utopia. Following one another in a wild goose chase; going fast, but going nowhere. We were obsessed by the same dream while Mallika was generally indifferent to our approaches. Together we were a gang of dream chasers, infected by the new-age mantra that made a virtue of chasing one s dreams and following one s heart, irrespective of where that might lead one to.
Sandy, stop the scooty man! shouted Karan. There is a puncture in the tube.
Sandy made the scooter wobble and shake as if to prove Karan right, and brought it to a screeching halt. I swung my leg over the stepney to get off the scooter, feeling the breeze enter the side of my underwear to tickle my crotch. Karan got off in the same fashion and must have felt no breeze brush him as he was too hairy. Sandy got down from the front like a lady. He never risked revealing his hairlessness and so he always got off his scooter from the front, coyly.
Often, I had wondered why girls bicycles had no rod connecting the seat to the handle; and why girls alighted their bikes, mopeds, and scooters from the front, not lifting and swinging their legs all the way back and over, the way the boys do. But as we alighted the Vespa, it suddenly struck me and I shouted, Hey dudes! You remember, I keep wondering why girls get off bikes from the front? Now I know the answer. I think it s a hymen-protection measure.
Voila! Karan patted my bare back.
Really! Sandy chuckled. What about all my ex-girlfriends from the Music and the English departments, who had no hymen left in them? There was pride in his voice.
Sandy, in that case, your ex-girlfriends can easily ride and get off their bikes the proper way. The way men do, said Karan. So, guys, the next time you see any girl getting off a bike like a man, be sure that she has been de-hymenized by Sandy. Ha-ha! Karan hated it when Sandy boasted of his past victories.
Sandy grimaced and lunged toward Karan, who ran off, teasing him even more. Sandy ran after him, shouting abuses. I watched with disgust as my two semi-naked friends circled a lamp post that had a cluster of moths hovering around its flickering yellow bulb, scorching their tiny wings and showering the two semi-naked humans below with moth-wing-powder. A sleepy stray dog below the lamp post howled at them for creating such a ruckus at this hour. In the distance, beyond the dusty, moth halo of the lamp post and across the road, I could see the silhouette of the waiter at Omi Dhaba. Hands on hips, he waited for the underwear-clad gang to place its orders so that he could shove greasy food into our stomachs and go back to sleep beneath his blue plastic sheet.
Finally, I shouted, Hey stop it, guys! Or I will tell Mallika first thing tomorrow morning about all the crap you guys keep talking about. The threat worked and the two warring boys separated. Huffing, they stood gaping at the scooter. I pulled at my hair and cried out, Let s fix the damn tube and order food. I am famished. My stomach growled in affirmation so loudly that for a moment, I thought that the scooter had re-started on its own.
The paranthas, with the repeated heating and frying, resembled deeply tanned leather. They were stale and to the two of us who had been seated behind Sandy, they smelled quite like the armpits of the front rider. We knew how the other s armpits smelled as we had just ridden the scooter bare-chested, stacked like spoons.
The paranthas are not fresh, I muttered.
Yeah. They kind of stink of sweat, grimaced Karan, emphazising each word.
Come on, guys. They aren t so bad, Sandy consoled us. He obviously did not have to smell an armpit on our way to Omi Dhaba.
Hey, Omi! Karan shouted to the weary dhaba owner, what is this? Rubber from a burnt tyre? He held out a parantha and dangled it in the air. Omi stared at us, digging his ear for wax with his little fingernail. I was sure that Omi s ear wax was an essential ingredient in the paranthas.
Forget it, Karan, I said, No point cribbing about it. This is all we can get at this unearthly hour. I chewed with effort and said, By the way, your mess food is worse. The rajmah we had for lunch yesterday was just gross. It was soggy and smelly, as if it had been ingested and puked onto our plates from the intestines of a street beggar. This is so much better. I laughed meanly.
Stop it, you scum, Sandy yelled. He then yelled out to Omi. You know, tomorrow is the last exam, Omi! We will be free birds.
Omi paused digging his ear and smiled at us.
How can you say that, Sandy? I said as I wiped my oily fingertips on the elastic of my underwear. I was chewing the last bite of the rubbery paranthas that had been decorated with some bright red spicy pickle. With parantha-slurry inside my mouth, I mumbled, It is only the end of the second semester. We still have another year to go after the summer internships.
Still, as of now we will be free birds.
Y