Thus, another semester passed by uneventfully. Exam times with Devi helping me and the semester holidays were spent at Nagercoil, my native, with my grandmother.
Bang!! The third semester was going to start and I dreaded to get back to a college that made me feel terribly bored.
Start of a new semester. No new dreams. Only dreads. I made no efforts to make friends, and effortlessly, I already had the best student for an enemy!
Horrible though, nonetheless, to college I went.
As usual, the bus reached late at college. The next tough task, was finding the classroom. I finally found that unfortunate dungeon, full of dirty desks with seats attached, and a teacher’s desk. Mind it; our college teachers did not have the luxury of a chair. The college management found it unnecessary for teachers to sit and teach, but why does a human being not realize that a person cannot go on standing for 50 mins without a break? What if that teacher has two classes back to back? Would they be standing for 1 hour 40 mins? Yes they obviously should. Heartless and pathetic indeed!
Back to the third semester, all the girls’ seats were taken, and only the first row of the boys’ bench was left. Already I did not have friends. To add to it, now, I do not even have a place in the class. I was standing at the doorway, feeling hopeless, on the verge of tears!
Subhashree entered just then. I thought: “Oh, her friends would have reserved a seat for her. She is going to laugh at me today”. I was totally frustrated, when, suddenly, Subha turned to me and said: “Hey, shall we both sit in the first row on the boys’ side?”
I stood there, not knowing what to reply. I was dumb struck!
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???? What did she just ask me? She already hates me, and now why does she want to sit with her? To insult me further may be, by showing others that she was way too intelligent for me?
As I was thus lost in thought, she shook me back to reality, “Hello. What say? Anyway, there is no other seat that we can take. All other girls’ seats are occupied. But I will sit on the side to the boys. You sit in the middle.”
I thought, ‘Ok. Let me sit in the other corner of the seat. If I am able to exchange seats with anyone, I will do it. Of course, Subha is a wonderful girl. Who wouldn’t want to sit next to her after all?’
Shalini, another hosteller came and joined us on our seat. I was about to ask her to get in, when, to my astonishment, Subha pulled me to her, showing the vacant place to Shalini, while having a casual chat with her.
Now, what was happening? I began to get nervous.
During the break, I usually visit Devi. I was getting ready to leave, when Subha asked me, “Do you have any work during the break?”
Nervous enough, “No”, I blabbered
“Then come with me. I want to meet our second sem professors and tell my scores to them”
I dutifully followed her to the staff room. Now, was she trying to get friendly with me? Or was she trying to show off that her frontal lobe was doing a better job than mine? I don’t know. But it just didn’t look like she was trying to fool me…..