I have been resorting to poetry in these last few
posts, but this time I’m determined to get back to prose. Maybe I should start
with something light and cheerful (and presumably lame)
There were three of us. 'Hair spree', revolutionary of her own right, flamboyant
and artistic, with her dark mane that fascinated many. 'Intelligent blonde’,
fashionista in the making, easily excitable sitcom buff. And good old yours
truly, who is much too popular to need an introduction (!)
Fate brought us to the First Bench. One sleepy afternoon when we were
settled at the back of the class, a certain bejeweled beauty, in Castafiore tones,
ordered us out for breeching her code of occupying the First Bench. In a
desperate attempt to win back her favors, we established our permanent dwelling
in the sacred First Bench. Sure, we were mocked and laughed at, pitied and
dubbed as nerds, but our resolve remained unshaken. And whom am I kidding, after one semester of
staying there, we love our humble home.
On cold damp mornings, our spirits
would be further dampened by a pool of rainwater collected under our desks for
reasons that could only be explained by the building’s faulty and medieval
design. Hence we would be forced to huddle in the center, and consequently be
forced to talk. We are women. Call me sexist, but we love our daily
gossip. ‘Intelligent Blonde’ would kick
off the day with the highlights of her unsuccessful shopping adventures. The gory details of makeup would follow,
where I would be left blinking while my dear friends argued over if a special
brush for applying lipstick was available. Next, the conversation would turn to
our illustrious lab partners and their deep and enviable knowledge and
experience in each subject, which never failed to amaze (amuse) us. And then
one thing would lead to another; we would be entertained with her spicy stories
of a certain young man, and his colorful antics (tattooing himself with a
common syringe in a bid to hide an ex girlfriend’s name; driving a drunk buddy
through a toll road, hitting rocks, abandoning his bike there and returning an
hour later to find the parts missing (sorry I’m making this complicated); a
moderately strong hookah addiction, to say the least).
And then there were the sitcom plots. One math class, over probability,
we were engrossed in the heroic exploits of television heartthrobs Sam and Dean
from ‘Supernatural’, all this while hurriedly completing the assignment which
was due. Under the table browsing was never a problem, we were always learning
new things down there. From looking at pictures of a famous cricketer’s
supposed girlfriend who happened to be acquainted to Intelligent Blonde; to
researching ‘magic mushrooms’ of kodaikanal, which, if stories may be believed,
leave you, to use the common term, ‘high’; we did it all.
‘Hair Spree’ and I are another
story; the two of us are some kind of math error soul sisters. We have always
made the same mistakes in math, even long before we met. But our enthusiasm in
local gossip binds us like nothing else; we would sit there like a couple of
mean hawks, trying to figure if the model wannabe who just walked in wears lip
gloss, how many hours the sincere mean student might have studied yesterday, and of course, plenty of ahem inappropriate ahem stuff. Those are our favorites. The dirtier the better. Sometimes, 'Dainty Dandelion' from behind would join us in these hushed conversations and we would fall around giggling and hooting like a bunch of girls (which is what we truly are).
We are, all above, budding engineers, with a unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and this can be best proven with our experiments on our calculators, lovingly named 'Cal-C'. Carefully referring to the manual, and of course, with our own creativity, we have, i proudly proclaim, managed to uncover all its amazing functionality, and pass that on to the less adventurous fellow students. Sigh.
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