CHAPTER-26
BLUE TICK NO REPLY!
Dhilip’s POV
“Yo Rohini!”, texted I.
“Hi Dhilip!”, she replied.
“Did you get the 2nd one? What’s the answer?”
“Nope! Any idea?”
“Oooo! I searched yesterday and Google landed me on a website asking me to pay some dollars and view the answer.”
“Hahaha! I too searched, searched, and ended up at the same website last night.”
We sent hifi and laughing emojis at each other. Aww, yet another sign again! Of the entire class, why did I just contact you to discuss this? I could have reached out to the CS guys or Srithika or others, as well. But, why you? Above all, why did just the both of us land on the same website? Oooo, there were several things going on between us but why didn’t I notice any of these back then?
“What shall we do now? I have been struggling with this Computer Architecture open-book assignment since yesterday. I gave up and went to bed. I have been skimming through our textbook and modules just to find nothing helpful. How will we finish and submit it by today? Phew!”, texted she.
“Ooooo, chill. Let's figure it out together”, texted I.
While she replied with three thumbs-ups in a line, I blushed as if she accepted my proposal with an open heart. Oooo! What? Dhilip, in the first place, you don’t even know if you can ever reciprocate her feelings. Isn’t it too early to think about proposing to her?! I’m sorry but I don’t know if I can ever love you, Rohini. Hmm…
She shared a few snaps of the answers she had written while I put my mobile’s flashlight on and captured a few other answers from my assignment. As soon as I selected them all and shared them across our chat, I glanced through the pics she shared. I smiled, playing with my gel pen and nodding along. I noted down the ones I had somehow missed to find answers for. I threw my mouth open and froze at one of the pics.
I blushed at the dark pink loose pants with white vertical lines having petals on either side, she had worn that day. Her knees were captured along with the answers she shared! Sexy! I zoomed in on the picture and smiled.
“Yo Rohini! The fourth one is wrong, I guess…”, texted I.
“Fourth one? Why?”, she replied with a panic text.
“The instruction to be used is STA, not LDA”
“Oh, correct! Thank goodness you texted me otherwise, I wouldn’t even have noticed it. What a silly mistake I have made! This textbook confused me even more.”
“Sexy! It happens. Leave! Let's discuss this and do it, failing which mistakes are common.”
“We must. Thanks again for spotting it, Dhilip!”
“Aye! Anytime!”
My mobile beeped. I rested my pen and blushed to check it out. I shrank my eyes and resumed my assignment, as it was just a news notification broadcasting the number of COVID-19 cases across the country. Numbers grew like that of the drops of rain turning into a massive flood.
I agree that love is unanticipated. I also agree that the identity of our lover is a true mystery
until we feel the 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’
Sexy! But every time I unlocked the screen to be notified by her message, my heartbeat rose to the peak only to fall back to its normal pace, after the next couple of moments. We texted each other with answers or shooted pictures of the same on our phones and shared, every now and then, as we set out to complete the assignment together.
It was around thirty minutes past two that afternoon.
“Yo Rohini!”, I texted. I received a blue tick, at once. Ooo, why are you ignoring me, Rohini? I shrugged.
“Yo, the eighth question.”
“First step is”
“To write it in three-address format…”
What?! Why isn’t she replying to me? Where has she gone? I sighed and raised my eyebrows. I threw my phone back on the bed. I rested both hands on my study desk and breathed hard. My eyeballs rolled hither and thither upon the wood. I swallowed my tears, looking back at my smartphone.
I sent her seventeen messages. How could she just view them and stay quiet without any reply at all? I dragged my study chair. I sat with my back straight, as usual, folded my hands with my right hand hitting my lips, and shook my legs restlessly. How could you avoid me? Why are you doing this to me? I looked up and swallowed my tears.
Wait, what? Have I made a wrong decision for the third time? Isn’t Rohini my right love? In that case, why had the heavens always been showing me signs, both during my reliving journey and back then during my real life? If she isn’t even a genuine soul, in the first place, why did you show her to me?...
Cling! Cling! Cling! My clouds of thoughts were interrupted. I rushed to my bed at the notification sounds, as if I had a cheetah’s legs. I blushed, opening our WhatsApp chats.
“Sorry, Dhilip. I just returned after lunch. I left my tab in silent mode as it was and hurried”, she had replied.
“Aye, it's okay”, said I.
“Sexy!”, I exclaimed. I jumped on my bed. I closed my eyes and began moving my hands and legs with a slight pressure, as I made random and light party dance moves. Sexy! Rohini medam replied! Ooohooo! She wasn’t ignoring me at all. Aye, why were you overthinking, Dhilip? Hmm, as it's rightly said, when five fingers aren’t the same, why will three girls be the same? Your world has a place only for genuine souls, no doubt, like Rohini.
“Moneh!”, I heard my mom from the door. I froze with my sole a little up the bed and my fists closed.
“What are you doing? Dancing in your room and skipping lunch? Not acceptable!”, said she, walking inside, with a plate of ragi roti and some mixed rice. I caught my ears gesturing for an apology while she bulged her eyes and gestured for me to sit back.
She sat opposite me on the bed and smiled, feeding me lunch. I caught her hand every time she neared to push a mouth of food into me. We chuckled as I rubbed my palms together while she rebuked me softly, continuing to feed me a mouth of roti followed by rice and so on.
“Assignments, exams, career, studies…what about your health, then, Moneh? You can’t…”
“Sorry, Mom. Hereafter, I won’t be lethargic. I’ll come on time for meals”, said I, as she fed me with the last bite. Tears accumulated in my eyes as she massaged my head and left the room.
“I must decide as quickly as possible”, thought I, wiping my tears, as I could feel my mother drenching my right palm with bitter tears, on the hospital bed. How long will I remain in this coma and pester my poor mom? I shook my head. I must decide soon and begin showing my family some signs, over time. Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll start my gestures as soon as I analyze my feelings for Rohini. I closed my eyes and looked up, praying for the angels to look after my family till then.
A while later, around five, that evening, Rohini texted me.
“Done?”, she texted.
“Yes yes, I have finished it. I will be submitting it in some time. Doing the formatting now”, texted I.
“Wow! How did you complete it so soon?”
“Uhh…It took me four hours.”
“Just four hours? I have been stuck with this for the entire day till now! In fact, from last night…”
I replied to her with three laughing emojis in a line.
“How did you complete it so fast?”, she continued chatting.
“My mom fed me”, texted I.
“Oh, nice”, she texted and concluded. Oooo, how did I manage to silence her? I blushed wondering why I shared such an intimate personal matter with my random classmate once again. Sexy! Looks like the coma is slowly waking up my mind. Why did you share this with her back then during your real life as well if she meant nothing at all to you?
I banged my desk as the scene of myself dancing as soon as Rohini replied, flashed in my mind. If she never mattered to me, why couldn’t I digest her ignorance, although fake? I have never ever bothered even when a good old acquaintance of mine ignored my messages and calls. But, why do you affect me, Rohini medam? If at all I never had feelings for you, why did I even consider her during the situation when my family called for my purpose, back when I had just slipped into a coma?... Hmm…Do I love you, Rohini medam?
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As Smriti Ma’am used the whiteboard screen shared on our online Zoom class and drew the formulae for probability distributions with difficulty, for the sigma, meu, and other Greek symbols weren’t easy enough to be written during an online class. Most of our classmates had returned to their natives only to face the wrath of their local network.
“So, here you have to replace it with z…”, Smriti went on, as I took running notes as usual, as it was, in an offline lecture. Offline? Sexy! These terminologies grew common during the first wave. Offline referred to, on campus, in other words!
“What? Who is doing this? Stop!”, yelled Smriti, as the screen she presented began wearing red markings and drawings hither and thither. Green drawings of smiling, crying, and laughing faces appeared on the corners of the screen.
"STOP IT!", she yelled.
What's happening in the online class?
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