For a girl born and brought up in the hustle and bustle of a metropolitan city with high rise buildings and snail-paced traffic, rural villages were a wonder. Rithanya’s new school was located 380 kilometres away from her home city, Bangalore, with a tedious eight-hour journey by bus and no connectivity via rail or air. So her parents decided to take their car and drive to the village where the school was located. Loading the extra-large suitcase, bags and books, and all other miscellanies, Dadda and Satvik occupied the front seats with Dadda driving; she and her mother were seated at the back. Rithanya relaxed enjoying the scenery. Her parents never knew how village atmosphere could offer boundless happiness to a city-bred girl of 16 years. On both sides of the road, the vast countryside spread in green splendour cultivated with paddy, sugarcane and bananas bathed in bright sunshine. It was a feast to the eyes of one who loved nature without any bias. Rithanaya liked the place wholeheartedly and felt ready to enjoy her stay and studies in the new surroundings.
On reaching the school premises, her first emotion was excitement, a feeling of achievement more than what words could describe. The huge gates, scattered small two-storied buildings, a vast playground with a flagpole and flocks of uniformed students thrilled her. The campus was vast, spread over more than ten acres. The Boys School, the Boys Hostel, the Co-Ed Matric School, the Girls School, the Girls Hostel, the staff quarters, the primary sections, the admin block and finally the boundary wall beyond which lay the green sugarcane fields with crisscrossing irrigation canals: all filled her eyes with a grand treat. She made a note in mind to jot down her experiences in a diary. She had never seen so many girls assembled in one place. There was a long queue of girls rushing to their classes dressed in salwar, pinned dupattas, double braided hairdo with black ribbons; everything was new to Rithanya. The school area was parted into two. The eastern side of the front yard of the campus was full of boys, boys, and just boys. Beyond the flagpole up to the wall, there were girls everywhere. It was a new experience to be placed in a surrounding with no boys. Rithanya was eagerly waiting for her father to finish the admission process, and to step into the hostel.With all her baggage, she entered the hostel building. They were taken to the Hostel Warden, Ms Roopa- a hell of a strong lady who's metallic voice echoed in the hostel. "It is time. Get out of your rooms and rush to classes. Enough of makeups." She yelled, and her voice reverberated in the corridors. For the first time, Rithanya felt a spark of fear tingling in her stomach. ‘Shucks, will I have to hear this every day?’ she thought. Rithanya’s parents introduced themselves as teachers and the warden rose in respect.“Our daughter is a very nice girl, but sometimes she needs to be disciplined. I give you the full right to do that. I just have one request. If you are beating her, beat her anywhere below her neck. Leave her head alone. In our custom, only children without parents are beaten on their head.” Dadda was granting permission with a broad grin on his face.Rithanya looked at her mother as if to say: 'Dadda? Seriously? Amma, can you ask your husband to behave himself?’Amma signalled her to calm down and said turning to Ms Roopa, “She is talkative too, ma’am. However, she always respects teachers and elders. I feel she may have initial problems to adjust with the ‘all-girls’ culture. But she will definitely get used to it soon.”Amma’s assurance brought a smile on the warden’s face. “Rithanya, you are going to be here for the next two years. I expect you to be a good girl. If you feel home-sick, come to me. We can talk. But concentrate well on your studies and follow the hostel rules.”“Yes, ma’am. I shall be a good girl.” Rithanya replied boldly.The warden, turning to her parents said, “She can go from here. Parents are not allowed beyond this point. Maybe you can wait until she keeps her things in the room and comes back to bid you goodbye.”“Okay, ma’am. We will wait here. Let her go to her room, deposit her things and come back”, Amma replied to the warden. Turning to Rithanya she said, “Keep your place orderly and clean. Do not spill things. Do not throw about clothes. Keep them all folded and neat. Be an organised girl. Remember, A place for everything and everything in its place."“I am grown up, Amma! I can be on my own. I can manage. Now, give me my suitcase. I will carry my goods one by one.” Rithanya replied.Checking the log-book for her name and her allotted room, Rithanya walked with her luggage in hand. Room number 48, II block and II floor. She walked all the way through the quadrangle to the adjacent block and climbed the steps. Her room was the third from the staircase landing. Entering the room, she saw a bunch of girls sitting, talking and crying. She was shocked. Why are these people crying? What happened?Rithanya found a vacant shelf. Placing her suitcase there she asked around if anyone had been allotted that shelf. When there was no answer, she assumed it should be her allotted space. Walking up and down thrice she transported all her baggage, bucket and bedding stuff to her room. When it was done, she walked up to her Dadda and said, “Dadda, there are so many girls. All of them are crying. And, there is no boy to be seen anywhere around. How can I flirt with any?”The irritated mother shushed Rithanya. “This is a girls-only campus. That is why we have left even Satvik outside the campus in the car. Come, talk to Satvik and get back to your room. Again, behave properly.” Her tone as a responsible mother was edged with anger.Laughing at her parents’ anxiety, Rithanya felt like teasing them before they finally left.“I cannot be ‘girlish’, Amma. It won’t suit me.” She responded to her mother’s advice, snickering and giving her a parting hug.They walked to the car talking. Dadda was quiet and observing the campus around. “You should not cross this pole during school hours or other times, Rithanya. This is a strict, rule-adhering campus. So, wind up all your crazy ideas and behave yourself.” Finally, Dadda began his advising session. Rithanya smiled listening and quietly walked to the car. She saw Satvik waiting for them.“Oye! Did you go to your room? Saw your roomies? How big is your room? Any warden? How many people?” He was so busy shooting a lot of questions at her that Rithanya started wondering if he would give her time to answer or not.“Do you want me to answer?” She stopped his array of questions.“Yes, tell me, tell me.” He sounded all eager. She recounted the conversation with the warden and about the cry-girls in the room. “They are all crying, da. I just do not understand. They say it is ‘homesickness’. I saw what homesickness is. Crying and just crying. I cannot cry so I am not sick. I am home-healthy. But I will miss you, Da.” She told to him. While the siblings were chitchatting, Dadda and Amma were looking worried. Satvik assured them that she would manage and behave properly.They could hear a bell ringing. It meant that Rithanya should go back to her room and her parents must leave. She bid farewell and hugged her parents. Satvik also held her hands and advised her to take care. Dadda gave her some money and asked to spend thriftily. Amma gave some holy ash and advised to smear it on her forehead every day.Rithanya happily accepted everything. As she was talking loudly and bidding them goodbye, a passer-by stopped beside them to say, “Hey girl! How can you talk so loudly? Behave like a girl and talk in a low voice. And, stay a step away from the boy. What kind of habit is this, holding a boy’s hand in a public place?” Rithanya was stupefied. She thought, neither my hand nor Satvik’s intended anything ‘wrong’ in a public space. We have not rented our hands to anyone. They are our own hands. How and when did holding them become an offence?“We will take leave now, please take good care of yourself and study as hard as you can.” Her parents said interrupting her thoughts."Satvik, get into the car," said Dadda.He gave a final assuring nod to his sister and sat inside, looking gloomy. The car departed.Has anyone ever thought for a minute how one gets a gang of friends? Well, it all just happens in hostel life. Rithanya's new roommates were depressed missing their parents. She was the only person who remained happy in the room, laughing at others and making fun. She began talking to her roommates, going around the room, hugging them and consoling them. Raised as a city girl it was easy for Rithanya to shed inhibitions and begin the interaction to make friends. There were five more girls in her room; Janet, Rheya, Fowzia, Diva, and Moni.Fowzia and Diva were classmates from high school days. Fowzia could not speak the local language and knew only Urdu, Hindi and English. She was a devout Muslim. The warden and the school instructed her not to wear the burqa inside the school campuses. So, she had requested for full-sleeved uniforms and permission to wear hijab, the covering for the hair. Moni was a very shy girl who talked sparsely. She just cried and cried and cried. Maybe she had b
It was five in the morning. Alarms shrieked from every room in the hostel. The whole building reverberated with the sound. On top of it, the warden was walking through all the corridors, calling out to everyone to wake up and get ready.With shivers, Rithanya woke up from her sleep. It was a very different experience for her. She had never got such a wakeup call in her lifetime. Amma used to give her a lovely wake-up call which would eventually turn into a wake-up yell. Dadda would come to her room to give her a wake-up kiss and Rithanya would pull him next to her, hug him tight and get back to sleep. Finally, she would give in to the wake-up-call-turned-yell and sluggishly walk to find Amma in the holy, sacred room called the kitchen, doing something or the other, mumbling a prayer. She would inhale the blissful aroma of her mother's cuisine. Like a cat, she would slowly get behind her, hug her and get admonishments for diluting her piousness. Rithanya shrugged and got up from her b
The girls entered their classroom. There was a big metal door with a name board XI-BE1. She had never seen such a big section name. Stepping into her classroom, Rithanya was shocked to see that there were almost 60 students in the class. Twenty benches placed ten each in two columns. Some benches had five girls. Some had three girls and some four.She was fuddled. Seriously? So many people in one class? How will the last bencher hear what the teacher is teaching? How will the last benchers see what the teacher writes on the board?The six girls finally settled in one bench – third from the last row and on the right side of the class. Some gangs are formed only at that time. Most of the girls were sitting with girls from their hometowns or neighbourhoods. She found such rules for gang formation very funny. She thought, Probably, I should write a guide on ‘how to become friends easily’ targeting the hostel dwellers.All of a sudden, the whole class fell silent; it was pin-drop silence,
The first two days were jolly good. There were no female teachers for their class. Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English and Language classes were all handled by male staff. For the language classes, there were only three girls who opted for Hindi as an alternative language to the native or rather a regional language "Tamil". Rithanya, Fowzia, and Hera went to another small room to learn Hindi. Along with them, three other girls from the adjacent classes also attended. "Whoa! Six in a class", Fowzia exclaimed. "Is Tamil so common or is it a sin to learn Hindi?" Rithanya voiced her doubt. Their Hindi teacher was a very young guy who spoke so softly that Rithanya could barely hear anything in the class. His tone sounded like a lullaby to her.The lunch break. The girls went to the dining hall for food again to find a long queue. It was total chaos. Rithanya could not understand why such chaos happens all the time. Why not follow an orderly line for taking food? Someone in the crowd shout
The girls in the room got settled. Already one month had passed since the classes began. The staff members had begun full-fledged teaching and Rithanya was trying to concentrate on her studies. All the girls, the seniors and juniors had started studying so much that Rithanya began to feel the pressure of studies through her peers. If she planned to become a doctor or rather get into a medical college, she had to study so extensively that she had to forego sleep, comforts and many more things. She had to prepare herself; she had to be competent enough to survive among a bunch of nerds. All these years, Rithanya had never realized the pressure of studies or felt the urge to score more and more. But she had always loved the learning process by acquiring wider knowledge of her subjects and formally approached her school education. To be a part of the community she lived in now, Rithanya had to get herself fully engrossed in her studies."Rithu, we haven't seen you in the dining hall
The girls got busy packing their dirty clothes. They locked their suitcases and trunk boxes with big locks. Excitement reached its peak as they quickly freshened up and were all set to escape the hostel after finishing their morning classes.Rithanya felt odd seeing the excitement all around. She would not say that she was not at all eager to meet her family but she could not feel so much excited. She felt the hostel was all of a sudden transformed into an asylum and the girls had undergone some multiple personality disorder. The girls at the hostel, the seniors and juniors alike, who behaved like score- generating robots all these days, always focussed too much on studies and scoring high marks, started behaving like normal humans with emotions. It was too much to digest for Rithanya. She didn‟t pack her dirty clothes. She didn‟t dress up to look pretty. She didn‟t scream and yell in the rooms. She never planned to bunk the classes. She had never failed to pay attention in the class.
"Rithu, have you eaten anything? I brought some roti and sabji for you. Would you like to have some?" Amma's voice carried a tone of concern as she addressed her daughter, Rithanya.Rithanya's reaction, however, was far from appreciative. Her voice carried a sharp edge as she screeched, "Where is the roti? Why are you telling me this so late?" Impatience and frustration laced her words, the toll of her experiences evident in her tone.Before Amma could offer an explanation, Rithanya cut her off abruptly, demanding, "Give me the food." The packet was handed over in silence, a stark contrast to the motherly warmth that Amma had intended to convey. A sense of disappointment clouded Amma's features, her efforts to provide care and nourishment met with a wall of discontent.As Rithanya dug into the food with newfound vigor, her actions seemed to mirror her voracious appetite for something beyond the meal itself. Every morsel was consumed with determination, leaving no trace of the sustenanc
Satvik was eagerly waiting for his sister's arrival. As soon as she stepped out of the car, Satvik came running to her, "Rithu...!" Both hugged each other as if they had not met for aeons.“Whoa, Whoa! What a drama!” Aunt came out teasing the siblings.“ Hello, Aunt. How are you?” Rithanya touched her aunt‟s feet in respect.“So how is your health? And, drama? As if I am doing more than what you and Dadda have been doing all these years!” She teased back. “By the way, Aunt, where is your loving, caring brother?” Rithanya looked around for her father."My brother and your uncle have gone to the playground," Aunty replied.Satvik whispered to the aunt, "We will ask Dadda and uncle if we can plan for an outing. Something like a picnic and it will also be a surprise for Rithanya."“That is fine, dear. I have no problem. I am sure your uncle also will agree,” aunty supported him. She then turned to Amma and said, “Come Geetha, let‟s prepare dinner.”“Yeah sister, let‟s go.” Amma followed