Ransa: dead or tamed?

N. was of my age. He weight-trained, ate 'Rajdarbar' Gutka keeping at least five packs in reserve, smoked hash, drank beer with abandon, did petty thievery when occasions arose, was quick to anger, and made lewd passes at girls he considered available because of their short dresses. He said No to every possible convention, and did all these things before he had finished school. He was a great friend of mine. Apart from a great love for Chicken Biriyani and Tandoori Chicken from a certain Punjabi Dhaba in Govindpuri that I shared with this Brahmin boy, we had little in common. I was a cold, dry as dust, conventional, puritan.

I sometimes wonder now what drew me to him. Perhaps his irrational loyalty and die-for-you kind of senttimental friendship, which works well in a certain age with certain kinds of romantics. I also prized him as a good-at-heart vagrant, who I was going to reform with my conventional goodness. But what really drew me to him was a sense of power that emanated out of his physicality, his half-invented sexual exploits, his reputed links with some notorious Gujjar politicians from Gadhi and a capacity for raw, physical violence. He walked with a swagger and was everything I could never be. He was, seemingly, the 'Ransa' of my school days. Ransa or Rananjay Singh, who, apart from Piyush Mishra, really made Anurag Kashyap's Gulaal work for me.

But there was an important difference between Ransa and N. Unlike Ransa, my hero could never revolt against his father, and was subservient to him even at the height of his seeming debauchery. His father imposed his will over the whole family, and ran the home like a regular tyrant. In due time, N. shed his old habit, friends and love like a snake skin, and entered into a new, conventional life which his father desired and imposed. Perhaps, most rebellions are not the rebellions in the way we see them but only a desire to age faster and show off. But, why does it sadden and anger me more to see a rebel getting tamed rather then be killed or destroyed? And is it right to feel that?