Mozzarella

(Note: Short story. Fiction. Please read and comment)

“It was an April morning,

When they told us we should go,

As I turned to look at you, you smiled at me,

How could we say no?”

- Achilles Last Stand, Led Zeppelin

These were the words that were ringing in my head that day, for no particular reason. Hadn’t listened to Zep for quite some time now, so it was with a pleasant twang that I recalled the day when I heard ‘Heartbreaker’ for the first time and started imagining that I was playing the solo in the middle. And that with an acoustic guitar in my hands!

Plant stopped singing and I entered the elevator. Another boy of about my age entered behind me. I pressed the button for the 14^th floor and he nodded indicating that he was going there as well. A weird sort of foreboding enveloped me. Probably. Come to think of it, when we’re looking back at something in the past, we always tend to imagine all sorts of emotions that might’ve never been there at all. For instance, on the day that my IIT-JEE results came out, I would like to think that I was apprehensive of the outcome. That I was nervous and cried like a Chennai water resorvoir couldn’t when I found out that I wasn’t in. I don’t think any of that happened.

I felt the steady ascent of the elevator as an invisible force pushed me down. As I was staring pointlessly at the green interiors of the elevator, there was dull thud as the lift stopped and everything went black.

“Bloody hell! A power cut,” said I. “Oh no!” said the boy at almost the same time. A sound that was half a laugh and half a cough came out of me. I smiled at him, but he was busy hammering on the alarm button. Of course, in accordance to the great tradition of Lotus apartments it didn’t work.

“Damn nuisance, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yes. This is the first time I’ve been caught in an elevator like this,” said I. “Hope power comes back soon. I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon in this place.”

“Hm, neither would I. I’m Ravi. And you are…?”

“Prakash,” said I. “You’re new to this place, right?”

“Yeah, moved in last Thursday,” said Ravi.

“You’re studying in Chennai?”

“Oh yes. IIT. Mechanical Engineering. Going to the 2^nd year. And you?” he asked.

“I’m in MBEC. EEE. Same year as you,” said I, after a noticeable pause.

I have to mention something here. I could never speak immediately after someone said that he was in IIT. Yeah, I’m not in IIT, so what? Nor would you, if didn’t have a little luck. On the other hand, nearly all of my friends seemed to have luck. Maybe it wasn’t just that.

“Oh. I couldn’t clear the Mains. Did badly in Physics… missed the cutoff by some one mark,” I mentioned, rather unnecessarily.

This JEE talk fades out a little amongst us after we finish 1^st year, when we realise that there’s more to life than the JEE. But it does pop up sometimes and before you know it, you’re discussing the damn battery terminal polarities which could’ve swung either way in some question in the Physics exam.

“Hmm. It doesn’t really matter. IIT is not all that cracked up as it’s made out to be,” he said, with a small smile on his face. I couldn’t be sure in the dark of course, but something told me that there was a smile on his face. And irrationally enough, there was a faint glimmer of hatred towards him at that moment, which passed away in a millisecond.

“It’s bad though, isn’t it? That one question could change your whole life. Remember there was this question where you’ve got to mark the polarities on a battery and you marked them… Ahh, forget it. What am I…”

“Damn! You know what? I scraped through on that very question. Wrong answer there and I wouldn’t have made it,” said Ravi.

“Really? Lucky for you then,” said I before elapsing into a silence. He was silent as well. It isn’t a very comforting thought to stand beside someone whose future is very different from yours just because you chose the pineapple on the right he chose the nearly identical one on the left.

Nearly an hour passed with some small talk here and there. I found out that Ravi was a big fan of Deep Purple and Led Zep. Though this should’ve led on to some interesting conversations about what Zeppelin could’ve been if Bonham didn’t snuff it, it didn’t. And there was no sign of the power coming back, though statistically every passing moment increased the chances of that happening. Or maybe it didn’t. I was never any great shakes at maths anyway.

“This heat is really a killer isn’t it?” said I, breaking a long silence. Way to go, Prakash. Weather talk. The most effective way to start a conversation. Even ahead of, ‘Haven’t I seen you before?’

“Yes it is. Typical. You’ve used the most effective way to start a conversation. Even ahead of, ‘Haven’t I seen you before?’” said Ravi.

Something was wrong.

“Wait a sec…”

“I know what you’re thinking, Prakash. That something’s wrong?” said Ravi.

“You… you’re not…”

“Not what? Not real? I’m real, allright. Though reality is a pretty fickle concept isn’t it?”

“That’s my line!” I thought indignantly. “Tell me you just didn’t say that,” said I, sounding like the wrestler Booker T.

“You’re sounding like Booker T,” he said.

“What the fuck!” I lunged at him. Nobody could read my thoughts like a book. Unless…

Needless to say, I came up with empty air. He was behind me of course, though he was in front of me all the time.

“Wait this isn’t like one of those movies is it? Split personality? You’re fake!” I said, clutching my hair in desperation.

“You know I’m not, Prakash. You know I’m not…”

And I knew he wasn’t. Ravi was real. The elevator was real. The power-cut was real. And I was Jimmy freaking Page, playing the ‘Heartbreaker’ solo. It lasted for exactly 46 seconds.

“Hello, Jimmy,” he said.

“No, I’m not Page!” I screamed out.

“Ah, but you were. Just a moment ago,” he said.

I gulped some air and calmed myself as much as I could in the stale elevator. And simply asked, “Who are you?”

“You know it. Just look inside. Though the more pertinent question would be, ‘Who am I?’”

I knew the answer to my question of course. Ravi was me. More specifically Ravi was me when I didn’t screw up in that circuit question in the Physics JEE exam. He was simply what I would’ve been, had I marked negative on the right and positive on the left. Did I do the opposite? I’m not so sure now.

Ravi was not another personality, like an alter ego or something. He would disappear the moment I wanted him to. But did I? Did I want him to go away? After all I wanted to be in IIT right? So maybe I was in IIT. I was Jimmy Page for some time, wasn’t I?

“You are what you think you are, Prakash. That moment when you grab your acoustic guitar and listen to Heartbreaker, no matter how unbelievable it might seem you are Jimmy Page and you are playing it. From that moment when you marked negative on the right, you have been me…”

“Stop it! Stop it, you bastard! Quit saying that! You’re screwing up my mind,” I shouted, simultaneously slumping down to the elevator floor.

“Fine, then. You don’t seem to accept that you cleared the JEE. So be it. You’re of course, correct. You are a student of MBEC. You were never good enough, were you?”

“You’re lying! You wretched...”

The lights came on suddenly causing me to shield my eyes. The lift moved with a jolt. This sudden disorientation coupled with the heat caused me to faint for a moment. I recovered in a moment and saw that I was alone.

Ping! The lift had reached the 14^th floor. I walked out, almost expecting some silent spectre to follow me. Of course nothing did. I opened the door and entered my house. The first thing I did was to run to the mirror and look at my face. I still don’t know why I did that.

All I knew was that the elevator was a test. Would I accept what I had and look to the future? Or would I rue over what might have been and fantasize about it? I had left Ravi behind in the elevator. That I knew for sure. But who was to say there wouldn’t be a… say a Praveen in the future?

I opened the bedroom windows causing the sunlight to stream in and looking at the crazy people walking on the street below on this hot summer afternoon.

“Strangers passing in the street,

By chance two separate glances meet,

I am you and what I see is me.”

Only that I wasn’t Dave Gilmour. Or Jimmy Page. I was simply Prakash Chandran, 2^nd yr EEE student at MBEC.