Engineering Love : Chapter 1 : Part II

The next thing on the agenda was to enter the classroom and meet one's academic brethren for the next four years. I remember having thought about this moment while I was preparing. I used to call it - getting to Bond With The Best, a personal phraseology of sorts. 

This was where Sumit and I had to part. I happened not to chance upon any other conversation. To be honest, I couldn't manage one by myself. I was too under-confident to initiate one , and looked too boring(and may be aged) to make it absolutely compelling for anybody to take the first step. Watching each other's back, we looked like two soldiers from a disgruntled third party kingdom, caught in the war of the elite.

The only conversation that I'd had though was beginning to make me think. She meant no insult, I kept telling myself. I just couldn't lose the thought of her. The realization of having lost one's ability to appreciate feminine beauty is, in a way, peculiarly traumatic. Suddenly, as if my senses had taken an offence, I started recalling the aroma of her fragrance, the childlike innocence of her face, the sharpness of her jawline, the sensuality in her voice, the sanctity in the way she walked. Although I could have been imagining it, I also seemed recollect a glimpse of sweat trickling down her neck. I was amazed at ability of my brain to have observed so many things subconsciously. Simultaneously, I was beginning to find truth in something my conscience kept reiterating every time I indulged in watching porn: women, my friend, were born only to distract men.  

Mind me exposing our thought process, but the way it works is that every guy has a fetish for a particular feature in women, the kind that gave him the 'kick', if you know what I mean. For most of the guys, it's either a woman's breasts or her ass. For Sumit, it was to know how-bloody-rich-her-dad-was. For me, it was the neck. The sheer thought of fraying the back of my hand against her neck rendered my neural circuitry short. It's more than just lust speaking then. It's like two body parts cajoling each other in their own way. Lest I be laughed at, I never used to share this piece of fact about myself in guy conversations. It came to be one of those things that I confided into myself. Yes, in case you wondered, giraffe is my favourite animal.


But that was that. Somehow I dragged myself out of the hypothesis of she being the love of my life, and theories of everything happening to have a definite ultimate-purpose. 

It was time to enter the classroom. I could see people swarming in the corridors. 

The crowd did look younger. I masked a demeanor that shouted that I've cheated my way into this college. I had to keep reminding myself , that I was as good as these guys, if not better, but I still couldn't help my inferiority complex. I'd gotten too comfortable living with it.

For the past few years , the only mode of public transport I had frequented myself to, was the DTC. The seat grabbing instinct had become both symptotic and symbiotic. I entered the classroom, hoping that I was in the right room. With an honest intent to reserve a seat as fast as I could, I hurried inside, only to find an empty classroom. In college, it ain't popular culture to wait for a teacher, sitting inside the classroom. In fact, it ain't even popular culture to turn up before the teacher did. That was lesson number one of college coolness. Lethargic, as I was, I decided to keep this lesson for some other time, and perched precariously in a comfortable corner. It was irritating to see students peeping in and then preferring to stand outside until the populists embraced the idea of sitting inside as a cool one. I sat there doubting their individuality. Not that I was any different usually.

I was getting nervous about the kind of first impression I'd end up giving. And then somebody called out loud: abey mote! baaki class kahan hai? My sugar levels nosedived almost instantaneously and my heart sank with it. I knew exactly which territory my college life was trudging to. 

The next thing I knew was that I was being ragged. I wasn't finding it that odd. Being embarrassed was nothing new. Although it was fun to watch the I'm-too-conscious-to-do-anything-silly genre to succumb to it. The so called dudes pretended deaf at the command of shaking a leg at choli ke peechhe. For once, I was happy being just unattractive enough to not have found a senior's wrath.

While most of them stood glued to the ten odd girls in our class, the others made sure we never dared to embrace the idea of being interested in any of them. They made it look as blasphemous as incest. Those girls were their quota you see. It was called tradition. Our seniors took their share and they picked on ours. Since I never presumed that any of these women would be interested in me, I was more than glad to help. 

The seniors never saw a threat in me either. Instead they saw a pet. I'd seen this happen in school. I called it the authorities of scale. With more and more people playing pets, your otherwise unnoticed dadagiri gets a stamped recognition. I thought to myself, if this was something I really had to do. I could have been many things but not somebody's pet. Hoping this was my shortcut to a torture free college life, I decided to play along. I still wasn't playing their pet. I just masked subservience.