Giving you wings to fly

1.

It was only the second day of college and I was already running late, the second day of the third session of college. My last year, I would have walked around with an air of seniority, but I was too busy getting screwed over with teachers who had already started teaching. The days when teachers spent the first week getting to know their students and the likes were gone. Now it was more straightforward, the first classes were devoted to knowing who all had passed the exams. Knowing what books to buy and how many lectures will be added to the time table. It was going to be a hard year and with the looks of it, I had absolutely nothing on the horizon that had even the faintest ring of being fun. It’s a funny feeling, being in the final year of college. You know there is absolutely nothing left for you to invest in, there’s little that you can do besides work up a good academic record. Friends become acquaintances and there is little hanging out. The immediate juniors are too bored of you or too boring for you and the fresh batches are well, way too young. And life moves on in a comfortable bracket with little activity.

It was a cloudy morning and I was almost praying for a slight drizzle, cool off the air, settle down the dust and give me something pretty to click. I had been fascinated with rain ever since the accidental shot of a rain drop turned out to be beautiful. I was busy looking up to the sky, trying to gauge the darkness of the clouds to see if it would rain or not when my chain of thoughts was cracked open by the honking of a sharp horn. Now this was odd, vehicles were never allowed inside the college, and I was half hoping to see my college principal in the car but when I turned around, I saw that it was a white sedan and it was chauffeur driven and there was a girl sitting in the back seat, quietly observing the college. She had an air around her, and even though she was well enveloped in the tinted windows and AC air of a car that apparently had the authority to drive right in, I could see she had an air around her. I stepped aside and the car drove on right up to the department block. I saw the chauffeur step out and walk around the car to open the door for her, I would have stayed on to see her, but I was getting late and so I walked off.

I was busy doodling while the teacher explained the intricacies of Real Numbers Analysis when the table vibrated and I saw my cell phone flash a text message. “Come out, NOW!” it was Nida. And She was famous for always pulling people out of their lectures so that she had good company to hang out with. I would have hated bunking lectures for attendance was precious to me, but she was good company and so I replied back, “Out in 5”. I looked up at my teacher who was passionately trying to elaborate on the intricacies of Mathematics. I raised my arm and she nodded, “I need to go to the Auditorium Ma’am, the ECA Trials are going on and they need me there”. For a minute I was scared she’ll catch my bluff, but she didn’t and she smiled and asked me to leave the class. I stepped out and saw that the clouds had darkened but it hadn’t rained yet. I pulled out my phone and called Nida, asked her where she was and I ran off.

She was slumped in her usual place near the canteen, a glass of orange juice in her hand, busy misusing BBM Services on her shiny black-berry phone. She looked up and smiled her trademark broad smile. Nida was instantly recognizable, she was fair, incredibly fair and she had slightly brownish hair, the kind that you see in Hollywood movies. Not particularly tall, or imposing, she was still the kind that you would listen to, because she spoke sense, mostly. Oh and she had slapped two guys in college who had tried to ask her out on a date. So yea, she was fun, all in all. She waved and I walked over and dropped my bag off my shoulders and on the floor.

“What’s up! No classes?” she spoke in her usual chirpy accent.

“A bit rich coming from the girl who pulled me out of a class? No?” I said as I sat down next to her,