Fiction: Dev and his friends’s dreams unfold against the backdrop of a rapidly modernising India

Dev and I had been desk partners for a year when our academic year for class X started in the July of 1980. He was as sober and introverted as ever, though not as excruciatingly restrained as he had earlier come across. There was usually a gentle smile on his face but his laughter never reached his eyes. He was curious about academics but showed little curiosity in the people around him. There was something bottled up inside him which never came out. He seemed happy keeping to himself, but was neither unfriendly nor unpopular in the class. He avoided confrontation, his face was still and his eyes were sunken and contrasted between sadness and an intensity with which he was searching for something. He was always happy to share with me whatever he knew about history and current affairs and sports and science and literature, but didn’t quite seem open to go beneath that layer and talk about his life.

He seemed simple at heart yet somewhat complicated in his thoughts. He spoke so well when he did in both languages, yet when he would come home, he would listen more to my parents and my cousins than talk himself,...

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