Musings of a mad mind - 3

I'm listening to one of the songs that really tilt my mind even when i'm in the dumps.. :)

Its a song from a tamizh album, folk number. This will make you think thats its a slow song, set in a village background. But it isn't :) Its a total koothu number and I cant stop dancing my 'famous' dance everytime i hear it.

This certainly sets the tone for my writing today because it takes me straight back to my college days when i was a free soul.

The first day of Ethiraj college in a department that was meant primarily for nerds is not what i imagined for myself, but it made others look at Mathematics in a different way i guess and i would not hesitate to take credit for it.

I actually went to class about two weeks after the course had commenced and it didnt make any difference to me. Why would it?

Anyway, even before i got to know my classmates, I befriended my seniors. I was sitting on the table and generally looking at the general composition of the class, when this senior, whose name was also Aarthi (she spelt it this way) came upto to me and told me not to sit on the table.

This i have to mention, the first time i saw Aarthi, i realised that she had never seen anything beyond her books, math problems and scoring the same score that was there in the denominaors of exams almost every single time.

So when Aarthi came and tried to be a little authoritative, she should have realised that she had tried it with the wrong person ;). The only question i gave her time and space to ask was my name, which i didnt answer to but instead i questioned her so thouroughly that an interoggation session with the police would have come a close second!!!!!!

But that broke the ice almost immediately and all of Aarthi's classmates got to know me very well and they all collectively felt very comfortable with me and more importantly, me with them.

After this came the process of getting to know my peers and that hardly proved to be a difficult task. I happened to be the only one who questioned lecturers and made an immediate impression of being a rebel, which i wasn't. Questioning in the mathematics department of ethiraj college is not associated with inquisitiveness and want to learn, instead its misunderstood as being a brat. This impression remained with me throughout college but thats what made me different.

However, i soon realised that my class had a handful of like minded people and its with only them that i am in contact with till date. That number ait too much, just two. Probably sometime later when i write, why Jayashree and Paddu played such a huge role through my degree.

We were hardly into the second week of my course, I realised that i just could not sit through the lectures for 2 weeks, let alone 3 YEARS!!!!!!!!! Impossible would have been easier.

(Am just stepping out for a bit but i will return to write more.....

Am back. I had to go and collect our engagement ring. )

The realisation struck me so hard that I made i desperate attempt to find Urmi. (I had lost touch with her for a brief period. The day we met at Stella i took her number but wrote it on my palm, and the rest as they say is history.) But the present was important, I needed to get in touch with her to find out if i could join the cricket team (she was born to a cricketing family, and now i can proudly call my second home).

Apparently lady luck was by my side those days and the very next afternoon guess who walks right in front of me, dressed in blue tracks and gray t-shirt (uru, i still remember that day like it was onlt this morning) and looking like a really cool sportsperson.

That day began my journey, my quest to rediscovering who i was and what i was meant to do with my life.

I say this today because the game has engulfed me completely, pervaded my deepest soul and touched my heart in a way that not even God can remove it from within.

Cricket, Urmi, college, classmates, lecturers, canteen and everything else made life a carnival everyday.

There is lots to write and i will write it all, but not today. Tomorrow will be yet another piece in my jigsaw puzzle. :)