Miss

She rattled off answers to every single question, most of which beyond the jurisdiction of my comprehension, fired at by the professors. Her short ponytail swayed in simple harmonic motion while she spoke and her hands moved feverishly to assert her argument. I observed her with sanguine deference, precariously perched on the corner seat of amphi theatre's last row and admired her as she courageously hunted down every possible permutation of the problem at hand. Being a glorified backbencher, I was so used to seeing the back of her head, that I often wondered what she actually looked like. For me her ponytail had become synonymous to her face.

Even after two months of coexistence in the same course, I hadn't exchange pleasantries with her. I was not very inventive in my approach either. I favored an easygoing life, sans intrusion from external sources - pedagogues or members of opposite sex. Notwithstanding my lackadaisical approach in the classroom, professors often shattered my reverie with some arbitrary question which I always failed to answer. They impressed upon me the need to 'pay attention' and 'study hard' and often sympathized with me that my lack of interest in studies will lead me 'nowhere'. Once through with this quotidian regimen of pesky henpecking, I wasted no time in returning to my earlier state of semi comatose ponytail-watching.

She was a particular favorite of Mr Mani, Professor of Mechanical Thermodynamics. He was a possessor of heartless demeanor and ruthless ferocity. He was known to have been born with a four-stroke engine instead of a heart. Prof Mani was the proprietor of weird corporal features, description of which is necessary in order to gauge at the terror he exuded. He had an oblong face with high cheek bones and penetrating eyes set on a jet-black background. His eyebrows were immoderately bushy and covered a large part of his enormous forehead, left bare by the receding hairline. His nose was remarkably rotund at the tip and nostrils were roughly porcine. Right beneath his nose opened up the oral cavity which displayed a set of ugly denture bleached brown by the overuse of tobacco. To top it all, Mr Mani smeared a paste of sandalwood on his forehead - a mark of Vishnu which was supposed to keep him sangfroid throughout the day. His immaculate white shirt and razor edged trousers did not go a long way in ameliorating his 'handsomeness'. Needless to say, I did not hit it off very well with him from the very first day for I was not his type, someone who he'd easily develop an affinity with. Oh yes, he was nicknamed 'Hitman' for the atrociousness he displayed towards every single life form.(more...)

That fateful day I had a close encounter with death in the form of Prof Mani - the Hitman. He stormed into the amphi theatre bathed in sweat, panting heavily. He held a sheet of paper in one hand and a dilapidated briefcase in another. His eyes searched hungrily for someone in the room - the victim, perhaps. He did not wait to catch his breath and spoke rather loudly, 'Who do you think you are trying to fool?'. He still hadn't zeroed in on the victim and shifted his gaze hurriedly from one engineer-to-be to another. His eyes met mine for a split second and moved away. Suddenly, his neck came to a halt with a jerk. He then rotated it anti-clockwise at an angle of approximately thirty degrees. I now directly fell in his line of sight. My heart started beating in my throat and I gulped hard to push it back in place.

'YOU!', he barked, 'This is what you have come here for? Bring your foolish self at the dais. I want the whole class to have a good look at an idiot like you.'

I meekly obeyed the devil and tardily ambled down the steps.

He mockingly introduced me to the class, 'Ladies and gentleman, Allow me to present "Pudden-head of the Millennium" - he who knows not what machines are, the principles of thermodynamics, the difference between a two stroke and a four stroke engine...'. The class remained dead silent. Thirty pair of eyes did not even blink. There was no sound except an occasional rustle of leaves outside or cawing of a wanton crow. He pointed the sheet of paper he was carrying right into my face and started again, 'This pea-brain thinks that he can actually get away by submitting such stupid answers to the assignment? Well, I don't think so'.

I knew I had messed up the assignment but I never anticipated that Prof Mani would take my inability to appreciate the principles of thermodynamics, to heart. Turning back towards me, he set off his penetrating eyes all over my face, and in the meantime, his oral cavity churned out some words which I don't particularly remember for I was standing just eight inches away from the devil. As he spat out insults, my gaze veered to his right and caught sight of the most beautiful face I had ever seen. My sorrows began to disappear and my mood lightened. She was looking empathetically at me. Her pony-tail had a well deserved break and rested silently behind her head. Her lips were parted slightly out of bewilderment or sympathy, I know not. But I sure knew that somewhere deep down she empathized with me.

'Look at me, you moron. Now you have the cool cheek to ignore me'. He yanked me out of my daydream. Regaining senses, I freed myself from the old man's grip and strode out of the hall. I heard him shouting gruffly at the top of his voice from behind, 'You are not allowed to sit in my class for the entire semester unless you apologize'. Apologize my foot, I thought.

As anticipated, this episode with Prof Mani received a lot of publicity and catapulted me to instant stardom for I had pulled an inimitable feat - I had defiantly walked out of Prof Mani's class in broad daylight. Sounds as if I had robbed a bank, but this was what the college grapevine was abuzz with.

My encounters with her grew more frequent by each passing day - thanks to Prof Hitman. She promised to help me in studies and share class notes, which I obligingly accepted. We began to patronize college canteen for lunch (and studies). The more I sat in her vicinity, fonder I grew of her. I hadn't actually dated her, never even had asked her out but it was she who was quite keen at pushing the laws of thermodynamics down my throat.

--

By the end of first semester, I had mastered all laws associated with every subject laid down for the semester and had done justice to the question papers as well. The day I ejected myself out of college for semester break, I came to know that she was leaving us forever for UCLA. I rushed to girl's hostel but was stopped by the watchman who handed me a piece of paper writ in her hand, which read:

'Dear,

Did not have enough courage to tell you nor enough heart to bid you goodbye. Wanted to leave with a sweet taste.

You do understand?!

Will miss you.'

Disclaimer: This is work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any person of any caste, creed, race or religion, living or dead. Resemblance, if any, may be purely coincidental.