CHAPTER-6
Lady CEO Stroll
Chapter Highlights…
“Are you working on a project?”, Srithika enquired us. Meanwhile, Rohini packed her milky white tablet inside her black bag.
“No!”, we replied, in chorus, as I finished our set-up. I still didn’t lift my head up and look at her face. I chuckled with my usual meek and hesitant voice, denying, “We are playing a game.”
“Oh, ok”, said Rohini, chuckling along. And that was the second time we spoke...!
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Dhilip’s POV
“How do we manage those mini projects? We have around five of them this semester. I’m really scared”, Rohini uttered, in a single breath. Srithika, sitting right beside her, nodded.
“It's fine, dude. I think we can manage”, she consoled her, turning to sit sideways and face her bench mate.
“Did you get a chance to do a project last year?”, enquired Srithika, bulging her eyes and pressing her own lips hard.
Rohini’s tiny and fat jimkis painted gold in color, oscillated along, as she shook her head. Sexy! She wore traditional earrings paired with a top copper-sulfate blue color, upon black jeans.
Roads were hardly populated with office cabs or school vans that Saturday morning. My eyes went to the laptop clock striking five minutes past eleven on the little display at the extreme left-hand corner at the bottom, as I was busy with Sameer, connecting my system to the phone via an adapter. We sat in the middle of the passage between the wall and the first row of an air-conditioned gallery hall in the administration block.
Sexy! It had been around two weeks since the semester began. Finding a permanent classroom for our section took longer than the time taken by permanent teeth to appear in a kid’s mouth! Aye, don’t mistake me for overhearing girls’ conversations; I happened to, as I sat in the coverage area.
“Dude, shall we start teaming up with some guys or girls already working on a few personal projects…We would at least get some experience. What’s your opinion?”, asked Rohini, with a wide smile, at Srithika.
“Sure”, chuckled Sithika, teasing,” Why are you so tense? We can manage. Anyways, we can seek help and ideas from the subject faculty as we begin working on the mini projects. Come on, dude, relax. Our sem has just started! You are such a nerd…in fact, more than me.” Srithika bulged her eyes, as she rested her right leg down from her left leg.
Fuck! What’s happening? I looked down to massage my touchpad as Rohini’s eyes captured me and Sameer who was busy pointing at his screen and replacing the adapters. I helped him plug-in connectors to his laptop. As we whispered to each other, verifying our setup on his smartphone, Rohini and Srithika came walking toward us.
Ooo! Did I happen to overreact, beyond my consciousness, at any point? I tried to divert myself by placing another set of connectors hither and thither but swallowed a mouth of anxiety as her footsteps near me, step by step.
What a beautiful feeling it was, to love Rohini! Urgh! I don’t know if I can ever love her but when the trial round itself could shoot little red hearts instead of RBCs through my bloodstream, what will be the power of such a sweet love story? Why didn’t I ever think about it?
“Hi guys!”, Srithika greeted us.
“Hello!”, said Sameer. Neither did I utter a word nor did Rohini. Hmm! Looks like we share a trace of introversion until a ring of familiarity wraps around us. In fact, I didn’t even look at her although her eyeballs rolled from me to Sameer and back to me, accompanied by a formal smile.
“Are you working on a project?”, Srithika enquired us. Meanwhile, Rohini packed her milky white tablet inside her black bag.
“No!”, we replied, in chorus, as I finished our set-up. I still didn’t lift my head up and look at her face. I chuckled with my usual meek and hesitant voice, denying, “We are playing a game.”
“Oh, ok”, said she, chuckling along. The two girls glanced at our setup and left. Sameer bulged his eyes and opened the software with a wide grin as wide as a short and rectangular teapoy. He cheered, to himself, as he successfully opened the screen and ensured our readiness to play. Wohoo!
On the other hand, I couldn’t take my eyes off Rohini as she nodded at Srithika, crossing the doorstep. Ooo, did she mistake me to be a guy filled with attitude as I didn’t meet her eyes during our conversation?
And that was the second time we spoke. Aye, don’t worry, my aim isn’t to bug you with numerology. However, the initial interactions, I believe, are always memorable in one’s story, regardless of whether romance could bloom or not.
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One afternoon, around two, we exchanged puzzled faces at each other, while Imilie ma’am grabbed the blue marker to write a set of three equations on the whiteboard. Engineering Mathematics was more than a loyal lover. It didn’t want to leave us until we threw our convocation hats up in the air.
“Are you done?”, I heard our lecturer’s voice, as I meddled with the equations in my notebook housing long unruled white papers.
“Machan, she finished off so fast huh? How to solve it?”, Jacob whispered.
“Who, da?”, asked I, as the black gel pen twirled with my fingers to strike out and retry adopting alternative approaches.
“The new girl”, whispered Sameer. I lifted my head up to look at ma’am handing over a black marker to Rohini while she displayed her notes and discussed the solution with Imilie who skimmed through the pages of our standard textbook.
While Sameer, Jacob, and Kareena wondered about their incomplete different methods, I circled the answer I had got. I leaned back to sit straight. The green full-handed surfaces of both hands of my hoodie touched each other as I folded my hands and smiled at Rohini drawing algebraic variables in the midst of integrals and differentials. Her tiny font ran from left to right.
“Ma’am, doubt!”, Kareena raised her hand and called our lecturer. She nodded and rushed towards the last bench. She rested her textbook on the desk and opened it through the bookmark which was none other than her own finger placed on the middle page.
I agree that love is unanticipated. I also agree that the identity of our lover is a true mystery until we feel love!
Following the same lines, one thus ends up falling for a bad partner-the wrong love. It's fine!
Making a wrong decision is common among ordinary homosapiens like you and me. However, correcting our blunder and returning to our right love is a worthy question whose answer may either be a ‘YES’ or a ‘NO’ or sometimes a combination of both! There is only one superpower that can answer this query: ‘TIME’
“Yes until here it's fine. But from here, look at the board”, said she, shrinking her eyes and pointing at the footnotes embracing the corner near the whiteboard’s frame. “Over there, you must substitute it with theta…”
I placed my right index finger on my lips to hide my smile as I noticed Rohini’s eyelashes embrace each other as she switched her vision from her notes to the board. Oooo! She almost filled the entire board with her solution. I turned three pages of my notes to find a more complex solution I had applied.
Not only was the numerical complex but also our chemistry. I chuckled to myself and turned away as I happened to notice Rohini pulling her jeans pants a little up as she brought her left hand behind. Sexy! Why are you troubling yourself, Rohini medam? She doesn’t seem to be accustomed to the new attire.
“Ma’am!”, she called, looking around to spot Imilie sitting beside Kareena and explaining my other friends’ doubts.
“Rohini, leave the marker on my table on the stage and return to your seat”, instructed ma’am. Rohini nodded and chuckled at Srithika who sighed with big eyes. She walked with her closed notebook towards the first bench. How I wish those moments of her stroll slowed down so that I could notice her walking with her back straight and focussing all on the front, like a lady CEO.
“What is this, da? It sounds like a big problem. Do you have a simpler approach? Any ideas?”, asked Sameer, suddenly turning to my notes.
“Machan!”, he exclaimed as I rolled my eyeballs. I tend to munch my finger a bit as I place it on my lips. “Why didn’t you volunteer when you too solved?”
“No, she finished solving it quicker than me. Anyways, I’m glad I could work the answer out”, said I.
“Machan, but, you should have gone to the board…”
I shook my head, clarifying, “I was almost done but she was done when ma’am happened to ask her, right?”
Sameer shook his head. “It's when you were about to complete this page”, said he, pointing at the third page, “that ma’am randomly pointed at her and she nodded. She then got up after a minute and read her answer aloud…”
Sexy! What sort of chemistry Rohini and I shared; we solved the long answer-type question at almost the same strike as Big Ben. Aye, so does it mean that we are compatible? I blushed to myself while Sameer spread the word about my solution to Jacob and Kareena who too threw their mouths open at my notes.
“Machan, I didn’t know about it. Will volunteer next time if ma’am doesn’t call out a particular student…”, said I, as my friend nodded, scanning my solution and scratching his head.
“Ma’am, we can’t see anything. Her handwriting is small”, Dheeraj complained. Rohini turned back and threw a blank face at Imilie ma’am who too agreed with Dheeraj and a few other diploma guys. The individual dots constituting Rohini’s black kajal were evident as she pouted at Srithika who nodded. Ooo, she looked like a schoolchild as she chuckled in her violet hoodie.
Hmmm, that's how Rohini was. She bet Leibniz in EM. Every Math class involved ma’am asking Srithika or her if they got the right answer and calling one of them upon the stage to solve it on the board. I happened to go once or twice but didn’t volunteer much.
At times, Srithika competed with Rohini as to who would land at the right answer.
“Yayy! I got it this time, dude. I finished faster”, boasted Srithika, at which Rohini nodded with a wide smile and extended her right palm towards the board. Srithika chuckled grabbed the marker and beat the poor board as she wrote her solution.
“I remember our taping activity in the Mechanical lab”, whispered Jacob, as we chuckled among ourselves, at Srithika solving on the board.
“Silence! What’s funny, students?”, roared Imilie ma’am, banging the duster on her table. We zipped our lips and continued solving our notebooks. At times when Srithika and Rohini finished at the same time, Rohini was mature enough to let the other get on the stage. However, Imilie ma’am preferred that Rohini chose to come up to the board. Above all, I not only remained a meek nerd as my Rohini medam describes me but also, this time noticed Rohini’s soft and genuine attitude.
“Urgh! Why don’t I ever get this?”, shouted Leena, banging her closed right fist on her bench. Rohini turned behind and patted Leena’s shoulders. Leena sat with Manish on the second bench in Rohini’s row.
“Dude, see, calm down…”, Rohini reassured her like a compassionate counselor. She explained the numerical line-by-line. I smiled at her light peach lips shrinking and expanding as her brown face enlightened with knowledge. She seemed eloquent and crystal clear. She seemed approachable. Although Leena shed a couple of tears and sobbed at the complex topic, she thanked Rohini and felt better after trying a problem in the next class.
Ooo, how patient was Rohini! Why didn’t I ever observe her conduct back then?
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One evening, as grey clouds crowded the sky, Manish threw his bag out through the big window at the end of the gallery hall.
“Dey, what's wrong? Where are you going?”, enquired Sameer. Kareena and I shrugged at each other.
“Enough, machan. I can’t attend the second circuit class of the day. As soon as ma’am comes now, I will ask permission for the washroom and leave home. Bye!”, he explained, rushing to stand beside the first bench. I chuckled within my gang at his funny yet clever plan.
“Ma’am, washroom”, asked he, in his loud male voice, at which Ankitha ma’am, short and fair, with a black coat wrapping her yellow salwar, nodded. Manish winked at me as he giggled at the doorstep and ran away. We heard a thunderbolt or two. Thud! Jacob peeped outside the window a little above the ground floor only to wave at Manish rushing towards the gate.
I made running notes as Sameer slept and Kareena yawned, bowing her head under the bench, to scroll through Instagram. Ma’am drew a few circuits and explained them in simple terms. Rohini’s square glasses remained static as she listened to the class for two minutes or so before jotting down. I was relieved at my friends were half-asleep or completely asleep because I performed dual tasking.
I moved my head, sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right, to examine Rohini reading between the lines of her notes as Ankitha ma’am walked within the class to glance at our notes and clarify doubts, for those with blank faces; she read our minds like a professional mind-reader! She picked unclear faces in a crowd of sixty.
However, I smiled at Rohini adding a few points between her old notes while we spent a minute or two on break. I looked around to find yawning, half-asleep, fully asleep faces or faces peeping outside the windows to relish the cool breezes. Sexy! It was only the two of us who concentrated on the entire class. Hmmm! I didn’t know that she was like me. What chemistry we shared, Rohini medam!
Ma’am solved a numerical on the board. “So, that's how you should compute power given an electric circuit with half-wave rectifiers. Let's now discuss full-wave rectifiers.” Rohini and I nodded rapidly whereas the others reacted with a passive nod.
“Also, mention the unit in the last step”, taught Ankitha, adding a capital W in the last line. “Yeah, what’s the unit of power?”
“Waytt!”, said a gang of frontbenchers, in chorus while Rohini alone answered, “what!” It was ‘watt’ in two different ways. The other gang laughed at Rohini’s pronunciation.
“Dude, come on, its waytt”, corrected Srithika at which Rohini shrank her eyes and shook her head.
“What! Ten what! That's how I have been saying it…”, argued Rohini. Srithika chuckled to herself and gestured for her to drop the matter.
Ooo, I tilted my head a bit, to notice Rohini frowning and gnashing her teeth within her although she pretended to be jotting down notes. I let my eyes a little down to observe her shaking her legs restlessly as if she wanted the class to end ASAP.
“Thank you, ma’am!”, thanked Kareena, packing her bag, as Ankitha rushed outside with her book. Our mobiles beeped with a notification. I threw my mouth open at a new WhatsApp message from Rohini in our unofficial class group.
Oops! What did Rohini share?
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