Okay to start with, it was autumn. The leaves had a
different shade; the kind that says they
are growing old and getting ready for fall.
The fine arts department of Santiniketan organized a
seminar on Art History and I had to go and sit there and understand nothing but
note down everything, for making news out of it for my University Chronicle.
I
thoroughly slept through it.
I had a partner to go with and I made a deal with
him; pre-break he would note down and I’d sleep and post-break vice versa.
So when I woke up during the break, I shamelessly
had puffy eyes. I yawned and reached for my partner’s notebook, “Wrote everything?”
He stretched his arms and said casually in his Malayalam
accent, “Mostly. I’ll go get food now,
and then I can sleep”; the last part of his sentence had a certain smirk.
I caught his expression and rolled my eyes, “I am hungry. Let’s for now concentrate on
food. Please.”
He agreed to it and said, “Let’s go out. I have a Malayalam friend waiting outside. I’ll go meet
him and then we three can go for lunch.”
I nodded and started walking towards the door of the
seminar hall, avoiding eye contact with people who I suspected had seen me
sleeping.
When I walked out of the building, I saw this guy.
Curly
hair, checked shirt; first three buttons undone, talking to almost everyone of
the crowd that came out, smiling at everyone, and visibly looked very popular.
He came towards my partner and greeted him in
Malayalam. Of course I understood nothing. I just blankly stared.
Then my partner introduced me to him, “This is the friend I was talking about.”
I formally smiled and he returned the smile with a
bigger one.
I was intolerably hungry and with no further greetings
exchanged, I started ranting about food.
The popular guy stared at me and said, “I’ll go Arashri Market. I don’t have money.
There’s a shopkeeper who lends me food when I’m running short of money.”
My partner chose to go with his friend, and I took
the opposite way to the University canteen.
When we returned, the seminar was still due to
resume. So I, my partner, and his friend went out for a smoke.
His friend asked me,”Hey, you’re from Kolkata right? I know Jadavpur University.”
I smiled back and said, “That’s quite famous.”
“Actually
I’m shifting to Jadavpur next year for a course in Philosophy”,
he wanted to keep the conversation going.
“But
you joined here this year, right?” I was searching my bag
for a lighter.
“I
love Philosophy.” He said stretching his arms in the air
and making patterns, I don’t know why.
Then he broke into a dramatic dance moving his arms
and body saying, “Philosophy is my girl
and I’m the warrior fighting for her.”
Both I and my partner looked at him in disgust, and
praying people around can’t see us with him.
After all this circus done, we climbed the stairs
back to the seminar hall. You should have
seen the reluctance on my face when I realized it was my turn to note down and
my partner can sleep.
My partner went out to pee, leaving me with his
friend for company.
I pretended to pay attention to the seminar to avoid
talking to him, especially after the little jig he had done outside and
embarrassed his company.
He conjured up a topic for conversation out of
nowhere, and that ended with asking for my number.
I pretended to not hear.
But this damn guy kept asking.
I finally said, “Why
do you need my number? We can anyway meet here.”
“So
I can text you.” He said as if that’s something so
stupid to ask.
I gave him my number and didn’t even ask for his.
To be continued…
