Chapter 3: The Humans

"Finish your dal or you're not getting up from the table," the canteen aunty said to Jai in her no-nonsense tone, wiping bits of food off the steel counter with a dripping wet cloth that smelled of: yesterday.

It was Monday lunchtime at Mahadevi Verma School, Pune, and most of the kids had finished their lunch, but Jai had started late because Jai started everything: late. Lateness was not a flaw in Jai's personality — it was a: philosophy. The philosophy that life happened at Jai's tempo and anyone who wanted Jai to move faster could: adjust.

Jai was a relaxed human whose dark curls sat on top of his head in the same unhurried manner with which his limbs moved around his body. He had the kind of good hair and skin that could only be achieved through good genes — the kind that no amount of Himalaya face wash or YouTube tutorials would allow you to: replicate. He was popular and knew how to look someone up and down just long enough for them to wish for that kind of attention: again.

"This is bakwas," Jai muttered to his friend Mohit, who was sitting next to him and had already finished eating.

"Arre, there are people who get hardly any food at all," said Mohit, raising both eyebrows. "My nani always says — "

"There are people who would refuse to eat this even if they were starving," said Jai. "I mean, this is not even a vegetable." He picked a soggy beige square from the dal and watched the bottom half fall back in with a plop. The plop of: defeat. "It's against my principles to eat something that could be twelve different things and even after swallowing I still can't tell what it is." He let go of the remaining bit and watched it drop back into the watery dal.

"It's good for you," said Mohit, who never had such problems with the canteen food because Mohit ate everything with the cheerful indiscrimination of a: Labrador.

"Dancing all night is good for me," said Jai, knocking the steel thali slightly so the dal started pooling toward the rim, just as the canteen aunty turned her back. "Cutting chai from Raju's tapri is good for me. This — " He gestured at the thali. "— this is punishment."

The boys began to leave as the dal started dripping off the steel counter onto the floor — the specific drip of institutional food escaping institutional: captivity.

"Bye, Aunty!" Jai called toward the kitchen with his widest grin, swiping a samosa from the snack counter on his way out. "I don't know why they think they can treat us like bachche here," Jai continued as they walked down the noisy school corridor — the corridor that smelled of phenyl and Dettol and the accumulated sweat of six hundred teenagers — out toward the ground to join a game of cricket. "They think they're our parents. But not even my parents would make me eat that: dal."

"They are legally our guardians while we're in school," said Mohit, the boy who knew rules the way Jai knew: charm. "I don't know why you refuse to eat the healthy food just because it looks weird, but happily drown yourself in Old Monk at every house party."

"That's good for the soul," said Jai, putting one hand on Mohit's shoulder and breaking into a grin that showed every tooth he: owned. "The rum, the dancing, the girls. Good for the soul. Being force-fed boiled lauki? Good for: nothing. That is what will make me sick." He removed his hand. "That is what will put me in a bad mood and being in a bad mood: kills you faster than any disease."

"Whatever," said Mohit, who was used to Jai's speeches — the speeches that Jai delivered with the conviction of a man who had lived: extensively and who was, in fact: seventeen.

"If you are chill and happy you could eat Maggi for every meal of your life and outlive someone who drinks karela juice but is: miserable," Jai added with the certainty of someone who believed this: completely.

The two boys dropped their bags by the makeshift cricket stumps and ran onto the dusty field under the warm September sun — the Pune September sun, which was: gentler than Mumbai's but still: emphatic.

*

Jai and Harini queued alongside each other outside Sharma Ma'am's Maths class.

"Come in, come in," Sharma Ma'am called, one hand holding the door open, the other holding a steel tumbler of chai that she was trying not to spill while motioning them inside.

The students walked past her — her erect posture, her cotton sari (always cotton, always starched, the specific aesthetic of a teacher who believed that discipline started with: fabric), the familiar smell of Pond's powder trying to mask the chai.

"Shirt. Shirt. Tuck in. Shirt," Sharma Ma'am barked at nearly every student as they entered, including Jai.

Of course, it did not actually matter whether a shirt was tucked in or not, but creating the rule gave the school a chance to establish authority on an issue that affected: no one. And it gave the students a chance to push back at that authority to regain a little: control. The teenagers who needed the most control — often due to a lack of it at home — would, when challenged on an untucked shirt, subtly fold it up instead. Or they would untuck it again as soon as they sat down, confirming to themselves that they still had: power.

The students shuffled into their assigned seats. Jai untucked his shirt as soon as he sat at his desk. He sat in the middle row, as he always did, with a bag that was empty, as it always was, and started the lesson in need of a pen, as he: always did.

Harini sat at the back. Her equipment was laid out with precision — geometry box aligned parallel to the notebook edge, pencils sharpened to identical points, the handwriting that fell neatly on each line the way rain fell into: channels. Harini kept to herself. Her detachment from the social world was puzzling to the other students — on the rare occasions they: noticed her.

Sharma Ma'am uncapped her marker and wrote across the whiteboard in her angular Devanagari-influenced English: The Golden Ratio. She underlined it. Added the date on the right.

"So — what do we already know about the golden ratio?" she asked, clicking the cap back on and turning to face the class.

The low-level chatter dissipated. The ensuing silence told her she would be starting from: scratch.

"The golden ratio," Sharma Ma'am began, perching on the corner of her desk — the specific perch of a teacher about to say something she loved, "is used to determine whether something will look pleasing or not. It is a mathematical formula that can determine whether we will consider an object, or animal, or person — regardless of culture or personal taste — as: beautiful. Our principal is obsessed with it. Insists every Class XII batch studies it."

There was murmuring. Then Harini — who rarely spoke in class, who existed in the back row the way shadows exist in: corners — put up her hand.

"Yes, Harini?" Sharma Ma'am asked, surprise colouring her voice.

The class turned around. Two thin shafts of afternoon light streaked through the window blinds and lay across Harini's face. She had the kind of face that mathematics would: approve of — abnormally high cheekbones, large dark eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses that tried but failed to: hide them, the kind of face that held: proportions that the golden ratio was designed to: describe. Her hair — thick, black, the kind of hair that most girls would display as: trophy — was used by Harini as: curtain. Protection. The barrier between herself and: everyone else.

"So, there is such a thing as objective beauty?" she asked.

"Well, yes," Sharma Ma'am replied with a smile. The smile of a teacher who had just heard the: right question.

Sharma Ma'am continued explaining the lesson plan and the class turned back to receive instructions. All except Jai. He continued looking at Harini, who had begun writing something in her notebook — writing with the focused intensity of someone recording something: important. Not Sharma Ma'am's words. Something else. Something that the question had: unlocked.

He was intrigued by the idea of objective beauty. And for the first time — in five years of sharing a Maths class — he was intrigued by: Harini.

Eventually the bell rang and the students filed into the corridor.

Jai jogged to catch up with Harini — who was, as always, quick to leave. He approached and tapped her shoulder — a little harder than intended, the specific calibration failure of a boy whose physical interactions were usually: rough.

"What?" Harini spun around.

"Nice to meet you, too," said Jai.

"Meet? We've been in the same class for five years, Jai," she said with a sigh that carried: exhaustion.

"Haan, but we've never really talked, have we?"

"And suddenly you have something to say to me?"

"What were your thoughts on the golden ratio?" he asked.

"You heard them. I said what I was thinking in class."

"I heard what you were willing to share with the class. I didn't hear what you then wrote in your little notebook," he said, giving her a quick flash of the grin that worked on: everyone.

"I wrote what I said and what Sharma Ma'am replied," said Harini with a completely straight face. The face of a girl for whom the Jai-grin: didn't work.

"Bakwas. Show me," said Jai, sticking out his hand.

Harini took half a step back. Looked at his hand, which he quickly moved back to his side. Looked up at him.

"You're genuinely interested in my thoughts on the golden ratio?" she finally asked.

"I am genuinely interested in your thoughts on the golden ratio, yes."

"Chal hatt," said Harini. Get lost. She began to walk off.

Jai ran after her, jumped in front of her, stopped.

"I'm going to create objective beauty and sell it," he blurted out.

Harini adjusted her bag on her shoulder and looked at Jai for the first time — actually looked. She looked up at his curls, down over his baggy school trousers, to his polished school shoes (the only part of his uniform that was: maintained, because Jai believed shoes were: character), then back up directly into his eyes.

"Meet me after school in the library," she said. "I'll show you what I wrote."

"The library? I've never been in there. I can't go in there, it's for — "

But Harini was not listening and had already walked off. The specific walk of a girl who had extended an invitation and who would not extend it: twice.