CHAPTER 7

DISCLAIMER - This incident is based loosely on a true incident and may have been exaggerated a little and the author would like to say to the people involved - "Hey, no hard feelings, please?" because she treasures her rear and would like her face to stay in decent shape.

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The lecture came to an end abruptly as the bell rang out shrilly. Petunia's face seemed radiant and you could almost see a small smile forming. The same could not be said for the rest of the class. As luck would have it, I was not the only one who had been dissed. Nika who was valiantly trying to voice her opinions was told that she was wrong and that she had better sit down.

People stood up around me, getting ready to leave college for the day. I remained glued to my seat in shock. I had just lived through a feminist lecture - I never thought that I would make it through half the lecture! Of course I'd gotten jacked in the middle but I'd still survived to tell the tale. "Rhea?" came a blurry voice, interrupting my thoughts. "Huh?" I said groggily, as I slowly came to. Sanjana was standing next to me, a broad grin on her face. "If you rub it in, I will beat you up. Wipe that stupid smile off your face!"
- "I'm not saying anything.."
-"Well, your face says it all!"
- "Not my fault that I have an extremely expressive face and large eyes.."
-"I'm serious about beating you up."
"OK, OK," said Sanjana, "we have a GB to get to now. So hurry up." I groaned and covered my face.

A GB, for those who don't know, is a general body meeting. They were probably designed for a purpose at first but now we just got yelled at a lot in GBs for either not doing our work or behaving badly. Now and then, A GB would be called to tell us what activities are coming up and very rarely, GBs were called to congratulate us for our decent behaviour.

We shuffled out of class slowly, not very eager to get to the meeting area where a large number of girls had already assembled and were gossiping away to their heart's delight. Cara, Rashmi and Preethi, three of the Rotaract officials stood in front of them. A visibly frustrated Cara was talking to Rashmi every few minutes while Preethi was her perky old self, hopping around as she listened in on the conversation.

Sanjana and I walked up and pushed people around a little so that we could sit down in a place with atleast a little shade. Most of it had been taken up but this is why you run to a person whom you know and then sit down next to them. "Alright people, settle down. We're going to start now - please be quiet," said Cara, her usually calm voice tinged with a hint of impatience. Next to her poised, calm nature, I always felt like a clumsy oaf who couldn't pronounce words like "trepidation" or "serendipity" without messing it up.

There had been one incident when I was getting a drop home. Cara had offered to drive me back along with Rashmi. She and Rashmi were discussing their jobs in Rotaract and some other organisation. I sank into the backseat as far as I could go, peeking out of the window only once to drool at Kunal Kapoor's posters.

Cara opened her book and started dictationg a list of activities and events that would take place in the course of the month. Most of the crowd continued chattering while a few industrious people (including yours truly) took down the dates. I have been teased and ragged about it but at the month I'm the one considered the saviour so I really don't care! "And now," said Rashmi as she closed her book with an air of finality, " we've noticed that many of you register for the events but do not turn up for any of them. So we've decided to subtract hours from your total hours if you continue to do so."

A section of the crowd fell silent. "This means," continued Rashmi, "that if you sign up for an event and do not turn up for it, we will remove the hours that you would have gotten from it from your total hours." "Brilliant, just brilliant!" muttered Sanjana. Most of the crowd had fallen silent now. As Cara and Rashmi took turns reproaching the entire crowd for their lack of sense of duty and disobedience, I stared down at my book, watching the lines and letters form swirls of dust that vaguely resembled Captain Jack Sparrow doing the salsa with Tom (from Tom and Jerry, in case you didn't know) "Oh dear!" said Sanjana, as the meeting ended. "Hmmm?" I said watching as Tom morphed into the Kraken and devoured him.
-"What are we going to do?"
-"What are we going to do about what?"
-"Were you even listening to her?"
-"Not really, I was watching Captain Jack..."
-"You freak, we bunked the rally!!"
-"Oh, oh that! Crap! What do we do?"
-"We have to talk to them so..."
Sanjana gestured at me, trying to make me get up. I stood up and the two of us shot off towards the science block, with many pairs of amused eyes on us.