The Girl - IV

The spectacled guy seated 3 arms distance to his left, made notes voraciously. The morbid girl, who sat at the same distance to his right, now seemed immersed in the day's newspaper since time immemorial, a time-independent sullen expression smeared on her face. The middle aged clerks sat at their respective places behind the counter, minding their own business, least bothered about anything beyond the perimeter of their chairs.

The sound of the old ceiling fans, the occasional flipping of pages and footsteps of trespassers, periodically broke the eerie silence that descended on the main lobby. He glanced again at the clock that hung atop the entrance. He fancied he saw it smile at him- 11:10 AM. Why not? He was supposed to meet her in the most deserted place in the university- the library.

"I'd need help with the 4th assignment sheet..."

"Let me see..."

"I haven't really started. I guess we could solve it together sometime... Library... Tomorrow? 11?"

He only heard the word 'together'.

"Eh... Sure. Free after 11."

"11 it is", she said hopping on to her cycle.

That was 19 hours ago. Since then, he'd spent an enormous amount of time wondering at her intention behind this seemingly suggestive rendezvous. Sentiments and primitive biological urges had prevented him from arriving at any conclusions. He was too puzzled to draw any. Only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love.

Although the exploits of the Sunday gone by, should have been evidence against the case of ‘The Woman in Black’, ‘Shakespeare in Love’ persistently chose to ignore the signs. But denial, Psychology suggests it is some sort of a weird mental condition- reluctance to reconcile with reality. It is also the most predictable of all human responses.

Meanwhile, 10 minutes had started seeming like eternity. He hated to wait, particularly in anxiety, which was one reason why he preferred crashing into an exam hall as late as safely possible. 'The Girl' was making him anxious like never before, even more than he'd felt in his 2nd attempt at JEE.

The next time he glanced up, she was there- finally. Few more minutes and he'd almost have started hyperventilating. A small side bag, whose strap ran from her right shoulder to down left, followed her on her back, adding vastly to her casual attire. Her strides were fluid but measured- every part of her lissom form moving in such perfect harmony and clockwork precision- enough to teleport you to an alternate reality with scintillating winds and a background score of violins and saxophones.

The crimson top over fitting jeans gave her the geometry of women sculptors chisel into statues and artists brush onto portraits. She was beautiful and 15 minutes late. He wanted to complain. But all that anxiety had somehow instantly dissolved in her cherubic form. She raised her tender hands waving ‘Hi’ with such supreme grace and feminine austerity, even the yester-year’s Dreamgirl would’ve been jealous.

He could’ve bet several eye-brows must have been raised as the exotic specimen of physical perfection made way across the empty lobby to the boy, no-one by now knew existed in that space-time...

(to be contd...)

The Girl - V

Vagabonds of Punterland - I

Initiation

Standing in the testosterone charged 10×10 cubicle now seemed like an arduous exercise.  His slender neck, making an obtuse angle with his aching back, gave excruciating pain as it was becoming exceedingly impossible to keep eyes glued to his 3rd shirt button- head bowed before them in a gesture of eternal submission and perpetual servitude.

People and noises enveloped him and he’d always had this condition- claustrophobia- a mutation gone haywire perhaps. Reserved as a duck as he was, talking or walking a way out of people and situations gone bad was a trait he’d always desired more than an Adamantium transplant.

43 hours ago, this walking paraphernalia of social awkwardness had arrived at this place, knowing he would make a great engineer. He had no idea his first lesson after school would be the toughest among all to follow.

The pile of consumed smoke buds in one corner of the room made him feel he was amidst the Costellos and Al Capones of India. The walls- as much as he could observe- had been turned into a canvas for what seemed like dark arts, wherever they weren’t marred with stuff that you’d normally come across in public toilets.

As a clueless newbie stranded in this savagely customized place with 16 eyeballs glued to his startled form, ready to mutilate him at the fall of a hat, he would never feel more sorry for having fallen on the earth one-freaking-year after some random citizens.

He had learnt why electrons passing through 2 closely placed slits behaved both as particles and waves or what the odds of 2 people in a room of 100 having the same D.O.B were. But for the still unrefined renditions of Chaos Theory dealing with dynamical systems depending on initial conditions, a lot more complex than multivariable differential calculus and probability theory was the unfathomably labyrinthine subject, way beyond the reaches of functions and equations and far more complicated than anything under the sun- basic human nature.

He could not comprehend their vocabulary, periodically marred by swear words he’d never heard before. What he did know however, was that for some reason, they despised him. His bizarre introduction, a horrible attempt at singing and a pathetic stint at dance had fetched him neither sympathy nor relief.

The decibel level in the room had now soared to intimidating proportions. The dense translucent cloud of Goldflake fumes clogging the ill-ventilated space had started challenging his pulmonary capabilities.

His favourite Puma belt hung on his sunken neck and he’d lost his Denim jacket to the clumsy brat on extreme left. One more ‘silly mistake’ and his Levis jeans would be the property of the Hulkian guy at the centre- the alpha male.

Poor short term memory made worse by the horror, served him ill and he had failed to recite their names in the correct order, yet again.  Nor had he been able to memorize even one of the 6 ‘formats’ he was being taught by them, ones which every freshman was supposed to learn in such interactive sessions as a part of the place’s misplaced notions of culture and legacy.

Impromptu oral oriented mental abuse is a lot like prison- the first few minutes are the hardest and it’s tough to reconcile with reality because faces bite you. Then there comes the pain and it’s not physical (well, not entirely) but worse, that of the spirit- the very substance that you’re made up of. In the hitherto continuum of life, then comes a point of discontinuity where you got to make a choice as to what kind of an individual you want to be. And it totally depends on what you are willing to compromise to not lose what you stand for.

This moment will agitate the deepest recesses of your soul; those you never knew existed. Irrespective of the choice, very soon there will be a point where you’ve had enough and nothing makes a difference anymore, for you are a different man now. Faces intimidate you no longer because you’ve seen yourself, your Tyler Durden, in one of them and you’ll never forget it. 

You don’t care about the end for it’s merely an aberration. You’ve learnt the greatest lesson of your life- it is only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Now, you look like you wanted to look, you talk like you wanted to talk and most importantly, you're free in all the ways you were not. Then, and only then, redemption is bliss.

25 minutes later, his shirt lay close-by, soiled. The Levis was bundled in one small heap at his feet. His Ray ban specs adorned the broken dustbin. And after seeing what it had gone through, he was sure he would not put on the Puma again for quite some time.

They had reduced him to the bare minimum, breaking first his body and subsequently, his spirit. The new mouse was still far from learning the old clicks that you require to save your grace at this place.

He would’ve run the best 100 m of his life as he sped out of their deathly hallows into the open. When his lungs finally met respite and the perspiration on his body felt cool, he was back to where he belonged, exhausted and abused.

Back to his senses, he could only recall the one wrong turn and the words with which all of this had started- “Oye! First Year…”

Vagabonds of Punterland - II