Manoj never took Pran seriously and that troubled him further. He would just laugh away every negative move initiated by Pran making him feel more and more chagrined. Pran was isolating himself from everyone and then seeking the friendship of a new woman, sometimes older than him because such a woman was easier to access. He found women who needed him as much as he needed them and spent a week or two with each and then got fed up of them and started abusing them. Of course Sonali was always in his mind; he tried to find her in these women. Manoj was a contrast also because of his consistency in his relationships. His love for Sonali grew slowly but steadily and then came a time when he would tolerate nothing against her. He would use his muscle power when necessary to keep the riff raffs away from her. He was becoming her bodyguard because he could sense that a girl as outstanding as her needed one. He was a little confused, though, whether to treat Pran as simply a riff raff. Pran was a year senior than Manoj in the Department, and could pose to be serious-minded when it was necessary to do so.
A football match between the University of Allahabad and the Delhi University was one of the events of that session. All eyes were focused towards that coming event. Manoj was the centre forward for his team and he put his life and soul into practicing for the match. Early in the mornings he was seen running with the ball alone on the field and in the evenings he would practice with the rest of the team. In the evenings Sonali came and sat in the stadium watching the practices. She had other friends who also wanted to watch their boyfriends play. This was a convenient place for Pran to tap Sonali. He came there and passed wicked comments on her, sometimes very damaging for her reputation. But she was cool and could manage him with little difficulty. In one of the practices Pran came and sat right behind Sonali. Then in the absence of anything better to do, he began to bark in her ear like a street dog, making funny sounds. Sonali’s friend, Neela, asked Pran what he was doing to which Sonali said, ‘Don’t bother, it’s only a dog.’ Everyone sitting there laughed at the remark and Pran got infuriated and said something very unpleasant, ‘Yes I am a dog and you are a bitch. Come I’ll tell you what a dog can do!’ There was a commotion among the students sitting there and Sonali got up to leave. Manoj noticed that something was wrong and he dashed towards where Sonali was. He soon discovered the exchange of remarks between Sonali and Pran and caught hold of Pran’s collar. ‘If you uttered another word I will make you an impotent dog! Do you hear?’ Pran rushed outwards from the stadium. He went straight to the liquor shop, bought a bottle of rum and tried to drown his frustration in it. This incident made Pran miserable and his desire to take revenge grew more and more.
Sonali still gave Pran some attention. She was too smart to ignore him totally. She believed that by talking to him pleasantly she would be able to control him better. So whenever he came up to her with a query or a remark she gave that disarming smile and Pran would be virtually at her feet. But she equally knew that allowing him too much liberty could be harmful for her self
-interest and so she decided to draw a line of how close she would let him come. Pran knew that she liked Manoj and he could see that he was gradually losing the race but he was persistent in his effort to get her goodwill. It slowly became a kind of game the two played, the dog and the cat.
With Manoj there was no game playing. He was getting into a serious affair. In the 1960s and 70s there were probably more serious love-affairs than there are today. The reason was that youngsters did not have to do as much to succeed in life. There was a smaller population and people knew which way they were heading. There were no TVs, no computers, no mobile phones, no iPads and so on. In order to keep the minds engaged people had to depend more on other people than on gadgets that helped to glorify their solitude. Instead of delving into the virtual world that technology has brought to our doorstep, the people of that time had to encounter the world of living reality. Today youngsters find much on the Internet to satisfy their curiosity; they experience everything there before getting to the actual experience of growing up. But in those days they had to grapple with actual people to taste these experiences. This was one of the reasons why parents spent more time with their children trying to equip them with the consequences of intermingling and with advice not to trust unknown people.
Manoj Singh Rathore was now in the thick of a serious affair, an affair which had thrown his studies, his career and everything else to the winds. He was a man of property and he knew that he could afford to plunge into an affair that was like hibernation from the world of reality. It was a total leap into the dark, with no concern or care for the future; a total surrender to the calling of the heart. He only thought of two things; Sonali and football. Sonali could not have expected a more complete response from him. The two were dovetailing into each other’s lives with perfect adjustment. With each other they were be complete, without each other they would be in pieces.
If these two were the only ones is question, everything was right in their lives. But the problem was that there was a discordant other. Pran was getting charred from inside at the thought of the two getting into a more and more harmonious relationship. Every day he would plan out something to destroy their love for each other. He would either send Sonali a letter in another’s handwriting saying that Manoj was making a fool of her. Or he would write to Manoj in a similar fashion, that he had seen Sonali in Pran’s room. But these did not work. He then sent Sonali a letter, written in his own blood, in which he warned her of serious consequences if she did not consider transferring her feelings to him.
‘Dear Sonali,
By now you should have known that I cannot do without you. Life for me is life with Sonali. Without Sonali, everything else is like death. I need you Sonali, please try to understand. Others can live without you, I cannot.
If you do not pay heed to what I say, do that at your own risk. For I know not what I’ll do if I don't get you. I’ll probably pull down the skies or I'll burn up everything. How can there be life in this universe if my life has gone over to another’s world?
I write this with my own blood in the hope of drawing your attention towards myself.
Yours in hope.
Pran’
When Sonali showed Pran’s letter to Manoj, he didn’t know how to contain the fire that suddenly up-surged within him. Sonali insisted that nothing be done in haste. But Manoj lost his composure. He had to do something after seeing the letter written in blood. He just left Sonali near the Philosophy Department and sprinted towards Pran’s room. Sonali tried to follow him but Manoj did not allow her to accompany him. Within a few minutes he was there. Manoj banged on Pran’s door loud enough to make his hands seem made of stone. Pran opened the door and stood face to face with Manoj. Before a minute could pass Manoj had seized him by the neck.
‘Wait, Manoj, wait; stop it! Let us settle the matter more amicably.’
‘Amicably? You bastard after doing everything, you want me to spare you?’
‘You think you are right and I think that I am right. Let us discuss the matter and settle our quarrel through dialogue!’
‘First let me settle you with my hands, the dialogues will follow.’
Saying this, Manoj gave him a tight blow on his face. Pran fell down. He still had the presence of mind to talk sense with his rival, even as he sat on the ground.
‘Manoj, by fighting like a beast, are you trying to suggest that the one who wins a physical bout is the one who is right.’
‘I am not interested in that crap. I am trying to set you right. Get up you scoundrel!’
‘You are such a brute! You are no more than a hoodlum, a lout. Will Sonali ever be happy with you? What an uncivilized bloke! You are still living in the last century. You do not deserve a girl as gentle and well-brought up as Sonali. She is drawn towards your body at this time, but she’ll soon discover that you are no more than an animal that uses brute force to settle disputes. She will hate you when she gets to know what you really are.’
‘You are no saint to make Sonali love you. She already hates you. Whether she will hate me later is yet to be seen. Get up you bugger, you want me to believe that I am an animal?’
Sonali had rushed to me in the meantime and we both came running towards Pran’s room. I asked Manoj to step aside and let Pran get up so that things could be brought under control. But Pran was so clever that he tried to put Manoj on the defensive.
‘Look Sanjeev, this Manoj is so full of himself that he cares nothing for us. You are senior to him, even I am senior to him, we both like Sonali, yet he wants to have her all to himself.’
This statement embarrassed me and as I tried to find ways of clearing my position and my guilt, Manoj rushed down towards him and gave Pran two tight fists on his face. I tried again to separate the two, but my mind was no longer working clearly. Pran had awakened the dormant feelings that I had built up for Sonali and I had to work hard to try and prove that Pran was lying. Pran had clearly put me on the defensive. With one statement he had thrown me out of the race. After that day I found it difficult to face Sonali. I had to forget what I had once wanted. Pran was clever indeed. Even in such a difficult moment he was managing to remove one hurdle from his path.
I somehow managed to stop Manoj and Pran from getting into a dangerous fight that day but I knew that this could not be prevented for long as both had decided that they would not give up Sonali. Sonali also began to avoid me as she already had enough men interested in her. Her trust in me had lessened after Pran revealed my feelings for her.
