Will She Be Mine by Subir Banerjee Read Free Book Online Page A

window behind your chair.”
    “There’s no window behind my chair in the gymkhana, you lout.”
    “Sorry, then she looks at the wall behind,” he said without batting an eyelid. “I feel bad some people have to struggle so hard. In my case, she looks at me directly. She values my views and tries to engage me in talking to her. I’ve noticed women like her never miss a man when one’s around.”
    “Let’s ask her in our next meeting and clarify.”
    “What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.
    “Whether she looks at the wall behind me or directly at you.”
    “Are you crazy?”
    “Yes, I’m crazy as well as determined enough to ask her that. After that she can use her judgment how to deal with you.”
    He hurled a small writing pad at me, which I dodged.
    “You got me wrong,” I said innocently. “I’ll tell her that since your fall from the staircase at the girls’ hostel, you regularly hallucinate, and it’s good to stay away from you during this period. Anyway,” I added quickly before he could issue a rejoinder. “She soothes our nerves in a heavy editing session. But Ranadey’s a jerk.”
    “He's a liability,” he nodded in ready agreement, his mind still searching for a suitable repartee to my jab.
    “Shall we kick him out?”
    “Who do we replace him with? Editing this newsletter is my only distraction. I can't compose music like you or dabble in medicines- but in my own way I too like being creative sometimes instead of burying my head in engineering books all the time. This magazine is my only outlet in that sense.”
    I had no solution in sight. We were somehow trapped by the magazine and Ranadey’s imposing presence. “I find him quite irritating. We should have picked a junior professor, not an opinionated, senior one like him.”
    “I felt a frail person like him would be fairly harmless,” he said thoughtfully. “I usually measure up a guy physically, assessing whether I can beat him in a fist fight if it ever comes to that.”
    “You jerk, was that your criterion for picking the editorial board?”
    “Well, only for the men. For the girls my criterion is obviously different,” he said with a lurid smile and we broke out laughing.
    “Anyway, whatever gave Ranadey the idea that he's the editor?” I asked, resuming our dialogue. “He keeps telling what to include in an edition and what to omit. We do all the hard work while he just sits there to enjoy Sheila’s company and approve.”
    "Because he dare not disapprove- or there’d be no articles left to print," PS prophesied tiredly.
    I’d realize later in life that most bosses were like Ranadey. They did little value add to your work, but duly approved it and tried to justify their superiority by picking on you. They dared not disapprove but had to show some reservations all the same, just to show their worthiness, and resist losing their relevance altogether.
    Getting articles was tough enough in this academic institute. At this rate we’d soon have to fabricate news to fill the pages. The newsletter was slowly turning into a liability for us. Gradually, after the first edition was out, the girl left our editorial board, followed by the boy, both citing academic pressures. From that point onward we were left to do everything ourselves, with no more volunteers left. And that literally meant the two of us, me and PS.
    We wrote the articles, edited them, incorporated the views of Ranadey and Sheila, ran to a city press by an institute bus to fetch the proofs and again ran back to submit the reviewed content for printing. Electronic publishing had still not caught on.
    We consoled ourselves that we were the pioneers and so the initial grind seemed of titanic proportions. Finally, after the initial cranking and sputtering, nearly two decades later I noticed my alma mater had started publishing a regular electronic newsletter somewhere along. It was a solace to think our efforts hadn’t gone entirely in vain.

    Though PS