Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Time and Tide, wait for some

The year is 2011, a few months past board exams. The rush of Joint Entrance exams on its peak, keeping every student on their toes. Few hours of exams deciding deciding careers and futures of numerous students. It was the date of Mathematics and Biology in PCB category. The 2nd half of Biology was going to start in 5 mins. Students were busy taking their seats and getting ready. Now or never she said to herself. Turned back and asked him "Are you good in Biology?".
He was busy arranging pen and paper. He stopped and looked towards her "Not much, why?", he replied, a bit surprised and curious.
"Please help me a little, I am not good in this subject", she said, with a smile.
"OK, sure", he assured and smiled back.

The exam was of 3 hours, 4th and last one since the two day long 12 hours exam marathon.
Halfway through the exam, carefully avoiding the invigilator's sight she whispered. "Hey!
Surprisingly he was very quick to notice - "Yes?"
A few questions and answers were exchanged, strictly limited to mitochondria (unfortunately), and that was all.

At the end of the exam she wanted to say thanks, but the room was too crowded to find him. She made sure to wait an extra few mins for the crowd to disperse.
He was slowly walking out through the corridor with the crowd, trying to be slower than the rushing crowd, hoping it'd extend the chances of walking into her somewhere. But destiny hadn't planned on the "Thank You" exchange so soon. They saw each other, but only at the last moment when both of them were leaving with their parents, and a smile was the only thing that was exchanged.


Fast forward 5 years later, he asks her, "I still don't understand why you said you are not good in Biology".

She laughed,
 "Obviously I was. I don't know how I became a doctor, I wanted to be an engineer. You seem to remember that day pretty well?", she asks with a smirk.

He goes a bit defensive, trying to prove that his memory is in fact sharp by default. "Of course I do, you asked me three MCQs, none of which I was sure about. I issued a disclaimer : Please take my answer at your own risk, I'm not confident."


She said, "Thank god I took the initiative of starting the conversation, you were sitting there for 9hrs without saying anything and the last 3 hours were going to pass too", in a slight scolding voice.

He tries to confess with a sarcastic excuse, "I'm not used to having good looking girls sitting in front of me in exams. So not familiar with the concept of initiating conversations. But I did specifically check out your name on the attendance sheet after that.".

She started laughing. "Oh poor fellow. Is that why you remembered my name for long?". 


"No, actually I wanted to check your result and see if you cleared medical entrance or not. In case you sued me for those three wrong answers. But after seeing your rank, I was wondering why you had lied", he said imitating a fake suspicious look.


Not used to compliments about herself, she felt shy. Looking away she said "Believe me I was never really good in Biology".


He continued "And I did try to get in find you, checked in Facebook, found that you didn't have an account, which reinforced the fact that you were actually a studious girl."

She smiled "That's some serious investigation you carried out. How did you find me after one year?"


He shrugged his shoulders "Just intuition... Anyone who is studying in medical is bound to come in touch with Facebook at some point. Should take one year at most....", he paused for a bit thinking deeply "But you know, if you actually did have an account already, I probably would have never sent a friend request... ever!"

"Why so??" she looked surprised.

"Because that would look too desperately stupid and would be stalking!!" he laughed. "Instead, sending the request after one year, is a very decent thing to do, right?"

"Only problem is, by that time the girl will probably have a boyfriend", she added.

"Well, that's not a bad thing entirely" he smiled.