Day 2 on the college bus:
I love the morning breeze, no matter how cold it is.
Mine was the second stop. Devi embarked two stops after mine. Looking forward to meeting a friend felt great and the breeze only added charm to the feeling. There she came – in green chudi with the dupatta pinned on both sides.
For the records, if you did not know, all girls in my college (or prison to be more precise) were to be wrapped in chudidhar and dupatta pinned, and no sleeveless! Else… Fine of Rs 15/-
No ID Card? Fine
Found speaking to boys? Go meet the Chairman – (The goonda-man Mr. Muthuramalingam), bring your parents to college, etc.
Forget the punishments, back on the bus, my friend was coming. She saw me, found me and sat next to me.
We talked and talked till we reached college. No, she wasn’t talking things about others, it was just about us and I liked it. Gossip is one thing I cannot tolerate. Not even in my dreams.
We proceeded together to same class room. We sat together. Pop, came my cousin and dutifully occupied the seat next to Devi. Oooh… That was the end of all goodness.
I made it a point that nothing negative should distraught my happiness any further. I started to spend time with Devi - talk to her, lunch with her, roam around together. I never worried about Divya, unless she asked for something, or I had something to tell her. Luckily, pretty soon, she made friends with a girl named Chitra, and there ended my burden. Happy again!
I sit on the row next to the boys, because Devi was a very reserved person, who did not want anything to do with “boys”.
A lean, bespectacled handsome guy sat to my right.
The class in-charge entered the class- Mrs. Jayanti, a stern-looking, short, dark, bespectacled, smartly-dressed professor. She warmly welcomed us into the prison and said she would be handling Chemistry for us.
The roll calls began…
And I found out! The bespectacled fellow was Balaji Srinivasan.
Professors came in one after another, introducing themselves, telling us what to expect out of the jail, reminding us that we had come here to study and not to flirt, so on and so forth. Eight periods of non-sense done, with each session having a separate roll-call, we finally packed our bags back home.
The goal of any engineering college is always one and the same: Study well, get good grades, get a job, that’s exactly why you study, job.. job and job.. dream of nothing else. Placement numbers make their hoarding boards, and my college was one in the lot! They tell you what to dream. None of your business to dream your dream. Mind it!!