The exam was dreadful as usual. As I scribbled in “Chronicles of Narnia” on an electronics exam, filling up as many pages as I could. The silence was irksome and the heat was scorching and with three students on each bench, it was really steamy. The only little noise that echoed in the hall was a rattling old fan at the back side of the classroom. I felt a small bump against my arm. I looked to the right, finding her head against my arm. But she quickly got back to writing. I concentrated on more of Narnia when I noticed her head drop almost onto the paper. I looked at her writing and it was all twisted and off the lines. I concluded, she was damn sleepy…!
I gave her a nudge in the arm to make her wake up. She looked frantically at me, trying to find out what the hell I wanted. She probably hadn’t realized that she had fallen asleep. I whispered asking her not to sleep, she nodded and got back to writing. I rewinded from then to a couple of days ago, a similar exam when I had seen her the first time, but she was in the bench ahead of me. My junior Vipin sat beside me then. He talked to me about an article I had written earlier and we connected into friendship. This was our first exam together and to my delight, he was as blank as I was, in terms of answers. We looked at each other and I encouraged him to copy from some girl sitting next to me, offering to give him some answers. But he seemed a neat fellow, didn’t want to write that way. We talked, laughed, talking about supplementary exams and stuff. I persisted on asking who the girl in the first bench was, she was his classmate but I decided to put it for later.
Now watching her nod off was fun. I’d never seen a girl sleep off in the exam hall. All too soon, the 2 hours for our internal examination ran out. It was leaving time. I left her a word saying “Do sleep well at night”. She smiled as I walked outside the exam hall. I hung about with Vipin, getting to knew her name. Let’s call her Sarah (for safety reasons). I had only a memory of her face and a name to keep in my heart. No, I wasn’t in love! I knew nothing about her. But there was something, something I didn’t want to tell anyone. Life had been a rush. Last year in college had its toll to take. But I remembered always trying to get a glimpse of Sarah every time I walked along the melancholy corridors. Somehow, chronicles of Narnia seemed to vaporize and I started writing proper answers, when she was around in the hall. She seemed a good luck charm.
I would see her rushing along the corridors sometimes, probably coz she had loads of programs to host or something. I went into an essay writing competition to just get to look at her. I would sometimes hang out by her class to see her. Sometimes watch her from the window of her classroom, standing at the Milma canteen nearby. :) Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t stalking her. There was something about her. Her soft spoken voice, her pretty smile, the bold looking face, the neatly plaited hair, the pretty eyebrows and the never give up attitude that she portrayed; all added to her beauty. Looking past just her beautiful eyes, it reflected her struggle to become something in life, along the struggle and tension stricken path to excel. The calm composure and polished mannerisms that she carried with her was heavenly. Sometimes her eyes were tired, sometimes upset, tensed or weak of running herself rash in the race of life, she would walk around slightly looking down. I would watch from a distance, wishing I could tell her it was going to be alright... Her smile would brighten my day, would lighten my life. She was down to earth and respected good friendship. She would care for her close buddies and be there for them. No one ever told me, I simply knew. What I knew, her eyes told me…
Time pushed by, I saw less of her. Sometimes just batting of eye lids when we saw each other in corners of exam halls, or smiles exchanged across the corridors... Sometimes she was nowhere to be seen... I didn’t want to bother her or anyone related to her, with a conversation. I believed that somethings remained beautiful when left unsaid. But it was a face I couldn’t probably forget. I never had a reason to express my feelings, for I could never justify them. The gates were closing behind me and the rest of my batch as we were leaving college. Some were relieved, some of us were sad… Our shirts bore the signatures and best wishes of friends and well wishers. I looked around for her as I got on my bike and drove away from the campus. We all had our ways to go, there was no probable meeting again. A bus pulled in right in front of me which I almost collided into. I realized I wasn’t concentrating. I wanted to see her one last time. I looked around the bus stop and into the bus... At the ladies seat, I caught a glimpse of her talking to her friend. She was beautiful... A smile dawned on my face.
Past exam halls and classroom windows, past assignment submissions, canteen and library visits and rushing along crowded corridors where I no longer belonged, she had become so special to me. Invariably, a part of me…
Smiling to myself again, I rode off, memories shifting in a blur in my mind, revving my bike to my journey home...
(Images Courtesy: Raiden aka Vineeth A.C)
