Dr. Piyush Roy’s Student City returns with Season 2, following Avi and Rahul through friendship, loneliness, campus life, youthful mischief and unexpected bonds in a nostalgic Pune B-school world at the turn of the millennium.

Student City — The Journey So Far

In the first eight parts of Student City, Prof. Dr. Piyush Roy has taken readers into the emotionally charged world of a Pune B-school at the turn of the millennium. Through Avi’s observant, often self-deprecating eyes, we have met the charismatic Rahul, the enigmatic Anisha, the emotionally volatile Tammy, the outspoken Pam, and a colourful group of classmates negotiating ambition, friendship, attraction and identity. What began as a story of campus friendships and rivalries gradually evolved into a deeper exploration of loneliness, belonging and the complicated emotional politics of young adulthood. By Part 8, Avi’s housing troubles led him unexpectedly into Rahul’s orbit as a roommate — marking the end of his long relationship with solitude and the beginning of an unlikely friendship. Now, in Season 2, that new equation begins to reshape Avi’s world.  

STUDENT CITY – SEASON 2: Part 1

Living alone till now had become a habit for me — the severely independent recluse. I loved my loneliness, seeped in its bounties of pampered narcissism, a way of life that I had begun to associate even with fun, of late. I had rarely ever thought of letting anyone into my closely guarded fortress of solitude. However, as that miasma disappeared with a sudden predictability, was I happy, for not even a tear was shed at the loss of – loneliness – my closest buddy of the last three years.

And Rahul got a ‘bakra’ to make the mandatory month-end trips to the landlady’s house for paying the rent, in cash, in person. That was one exercise he simply loathed. Not that our landlady was any less ‘weird’; it would be an understatement and injustice to the word. Her reactions ranged from an affectionate unpredictability to threatening bouts of thrusting her overgrown kids’ company onto us. Making matters worse was one more of Rahul’s many attitude problems. He would be the last person on earth to oblige anyone out of turn! Coming back to the rent-paying trips, we always inadvertently landed at her place around dinner time, and she would diligently, without fail, always persist, “Oh, why don’t you join us for dinner?” followed up in the same breath with a… “But I think you would have already had it by now. Next time you should inform me when you are coming and we could all have dinner together.”

Rahul’s favourite bet was that he would treat me to a ‘tower’ of beer the day she offered anything beyond a glass of warm water. The day, though, came soon, maybe because of a change in our arrival time. That day we decided to pay her rent in the morning, on our way to college. That way, I felt, we could escape her forced conversations. Rahul warned, though, God save us from the events of the day that introduced itself with a dekko (peep) of her idiosyncrasies.

It happened to be a working Friday that coincided with one more of those many faith-centric festival-related holidays that every Indian academic calendar celebrated as a lived manifestation of its secular ideals. So, it was an off day for her kids too, who went to the same government-run college, where their dad and mom had studied, and met, and fallen in love. But that was at least a score-and-a-half years back, when she might have been less cranky. After all, a Punjabi gentleman did fall in love with her, and stuck to marrying her, in spite of it being an outside-the-community marriage. Old ties were broken, to be healed and renewed when the son was born and Dad Punjabi went on to become a successful contractor, building quite a few houses for many, and managing to squeeze in three in the name of the son, the mother, and their holier-than-thou daughter. Today what remains is a portrait of those struggling but happier days of a ‘just married’ couple, next to another garlanded, but more recent portrait of the same strapping hubby with a toothless grin, a father who was no more, but below whose kind visage, we joined his gabby daughter and grumpy son over a plate of bananas and misal pav.

For every one word Grumpy managed, Gabby continued with nothing less than a paragraph, though she was supposed to be the sober of the two and the younger one too. Grumpy, we were told, was of our age, though his stoic obesity and tired looks would make our hassled old professor Gureja, a full-of-life jockey in comparison. It wasn’t long before we were enlightened on the secret behind the banana and pav benediction. Grumpy was new to the town, so his mother wanted us to take him out on all our movie trips. Grumpy loved action flicks and swore by horror tales, she provided an insight. It was supposed to be of some help.

“No Mama, you are confusing Dinky’s (Gabby’s real nickname) tastes with mine. I watch only Hindi movies, starring Govinda; his dances are mind-blowing.” The first full sentence he had managed to utter that day, eventually drowned in the landlady’s cold stare, (obviously she must have been reminded of those pelvic-thrust numbers, Govinda has so well institutionalised himself for.)

Gabby promptly put words to the stare; “Oh, they are so silly and down market. That’s why I prefer pure unadulterated Hollywood thrills.”

“Me too,” blurted Rahul, giving way to the next stare, this time a softened one though (from me), bordering on surprise warning, that clearly said, “Control yourself yaar. Please, no flirting happening here. This family means business.”

Rahul buckled down with a wink, knowing of the impending diatribe. “Anyway, Gabby is not your type at all,” I reasoned to him on the way home, though grudgingly admitting again, he did have a way with the girls, after all. Was I sounding envious? Let’s drop the issue right now for other pressing matters to take shape. Moreover, it wasn’t even politically correct to get into such feelings so soon, what with the goody-goody days having just begun.

“Come on! It’s not always that God comes down to educate ignorant homo sapiens like you on the mundane aspects of an exciting existence.” Rahul began with a tug at my arm, sliding down, to rest around the waist.

“So, what am I going to be enlightened today on?” I played along, with a wink and a shoulder nudge, melting in the slow arm wrap.

“The finer aspects of graceful ogling and compulsory straying.”

“Spare me the agony, Rahul.”

“And rob you of the ecstasy, Avi. My honourable friend, I can’t do that to you. Hell hath no greater an ignominy than an ignorant wanderlust let loose in the company of women. You need my expertise, which you are lucky to have for free. The joys of having Rahul, the Casanova, as a roommate.”

“I bow to thee, my Luck, and now should we proceed home.”

I requested the waiter to pack another bottle of Old Monk, with a litre of Coke, our favourite drink combo, because Rahul was definitely in a mood of drunk abandon that evening. Indicated not by the above words, but a rising decibel fast attracting the attention of nearby diners in a next-door bar. Sweet home, here we come, a tottering drunk supporting a muttering one, on that Friday night, prior to the Ides of March. Two unknown individuals, two contrasting characters in God’s creation, had met to make a home out of a room. Rahul was family.

And how soon!