Well, what more can I say? Subhashree.. The beautiful angel turned my life 360°. Imagine, the best girl in the whole class was my best friend!
And, for the records, we had sat together on that single bench on the guys’ side, every semester thereafter!
We spent time together chatting about family, life, past, present, future, ambitions and what not!
Her father was working in Abu Dhabi as a Mechanical Engineer. She had a younger brother who was doing his Engineering in Sastha Engineering College, Tamil Nadu. He was also a topper just like her, I guess.
She rented a house in Ambattur (close to my college), and stayed along with her mother.
She had been a topper all her life. And here she is, hanging out with a loser!!
I was all so excited. I used to visit her house often during week-ends, telling my parents that I was going to do combined studies with her. Subha’s mom was as friendly as she was. Can you imagine that?
We went to movies together, roamed around on her bike, ate out and then went back home.
Else, we sat back in her house, chatting with any other batch mates who came online on Yahoo messenger, or watched TV together, or she used to entertain us on her Veena – she was a trained Carnatic singer, and Veena player!
At college, “officially”, talking to guys was a taboo and was strictly forbidden. But Subha, never gave rules a damn. She would speak to any and every guy she developed a crush on, and then, she would tell me how wonderful Balaji Prasad was, what Mani says, how Saranya cheated Madhuvanth, so on and so forth. They were all interesting stories. Trust me, if anyone else had spoken such things to me, I would have simply shut the conversation saying: “Please don’t gossip to me. I don’t like it and I have better things to do”. But with Subha, I seemed to enjoy gossiping for once in my life.
“I always wanted to be a doctor. I had been a topper all along, and not once in my life did I ever dream that I would be in this college, studying computers.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks
“Its ok Subha, past is past. We can’t change it. Let’s put it behind us”
“Do you know how much it hurts when I see a name plate saying, ‘Dr. XYZ, MBBS, MD something something?’ you’ll never know the pain”
“May be I won’t. But had you become a doctor, I wouldn’t have met you. So, I guess it’s better you became an engineer”, and I winked an eye at her.
“May be yes”. She smiled, and put her head on my shoulders.
In spite of all this, she was always very cheerful. She would always motivate me saying one day I would get to learn French and that I would definitely speak fluent French.
When the thought of French pierced my heart, I would involuntarily rest my head on her shoulder, an indescribable succor.
She was one woman for whom, I would have done anything. She made me feel alive and awesome in-spite of all the hardships life so heartlessly imposed on mankind. She was one spell that drove away all the negative spirits that surrounded me. Her presence gave me the confidence to conquer almost anything on earth, do you know why? She encouraged me like no one else.
“You can always be what you want to be. Its all in your mind. Be patient and it will definitely happen one day”.
She made me believe in myself. She made me realize that all my dreams were achievable, only that I had to put in the right amount of effort and desire. Yes. That was the true magic she created in my life. The goddess who bestowed the boon of self-confidence on me. I began looking at Brahmins differently. I will not say that every Brahmin is like Subha, but definitely, Subha is not one among those many Brahmins who mocked at me in school.
Shalini silently existed next to us, but we seldom bothered her, and she was almost always lost in her own dream world – for she had a boyfriend, somewhere in her native, waiting for her.
When classes were boring, Subha, Shalini and I quietly played a lot of games, sitting in the first row, right under the teacher’s nose
Every semester, at home, my scores were compared with four others: Subhashree, Devi, a son of my mom’s colleague (not my college) and of course, undoubtedly, Divya