“It is just 968,” said father rushing inside. Rithanya was looking at him in awe. Both Dadda and Amma seemed a bit disappointed. Satvik was too confused to show any sort of emotion. He was stumbling over his expressions.
“Yay! 88 per cent. Wow, I aimed for 85% but I have got more.” Rithanya exclaimed with joy. If any of you do not know how to add fuel to the burning fire, you should probably approach Rithanya. For, she was doing exactly that with her words.“Well, I am disappointed with you. I was expecting you to score above 1000 out of 1100. So, it remains my dream!” said Dadda.“No Dadda. I am content with 85% and now the additional 3% is a bonus and I can celebrate it, right? If I had aimed for 95% and had got only 88% I would not be able to celebrate.” Rithanya responded in a merry mood.“I should have seized the bike and stopped you from playing matches. You would have scored better.” Amma’s disappointed voice came from the corner of the room.“No Amma, I would have failed if you had not allowed me to play. Look, I am happy with my scores. Please fill up and send the application form for SWR boarding school. We shall attend the interview.” She smiled at her mother. “That settled, when am I going to get my bed coffee?" With that question, Rithanya brought an end to the morning session.Looking back at her life so far, given how difficult she was as a child, how goal-oriented her family had always been, and how serious they were about education and top ranks, the attitude Rithanya had developed was indeed surprising. How they allowed her to sport, camp and roam at her will, was really a question without an answer. Thanks to Satvik, who encouraged her to be self-dependent, free-thinking and doing things as she wanted without any mental barrier, Rithanya never felt the pressure of any social issue or stigma, especially those surrounding women. Her lifetime goals were two: either to become a doctor from Armed Forces Medical College and serve in the army, or crack the Administrative Services exam and become a Collector. Nevertheless, she had never been serious about studies and marks were mere numbers to her. More than academic, she was interested in acquiring wider knowledge in all subjects, by reading and observing the world around her. With strict parents but relatively less devotion to tutored studies, she had always been a shock to everyone.‘Well, what to do? It’s my choice. My life. My decision. My freedom. That’s all,’ Rithanya thought as she went to her room for her morning ablutions. A serious issue has been sorted out. When every other kid of her age screamed and shuddered at the very thought of a boarding school, she volunteered herself to join it, away from home for two years to finish her Higher Secondary course. Her idea of boarding schools was that they were strict, all-work-no-play camps where she could devote every minute of her time to study – memorise. They were educational factories churning out top scorers and rank holders every year. She could score 100% and easily get into the Armed Forces Medical College.SWR boarding school was the top-ranked and the most popular (medical training!) institution which produced an enormous number of rank holders and potential doctors and engineers year after year. It was her choice or rather her family’s choice to get admission there “I do not think she can get into SWR with this score.” her father said, sounding worried. “We will have to pay more. Tuition Fees, capitation fees, school fees, boarding fees and many more itsy-bitsy charges like that. I am afraid I can’t spend so much. I have to plan for Satvik’s education too.”“Chillax Dadda! See which other boarding schools will admit me without capitation fee, I shall join there.” Rithanya tried to calm him.“It is only because of this I had asked you to concentrate more on studies. I suggest you forget the boarding school idea and remain with us and study.” Amma voiced her anger in between.“Never mind Amma. Let her go to a boarding school. If not SWR School, she can apply to IA Group of Institutions. She can easily get admission there.” As usual, her brother came to her rescue.Dadda and Amma took care of the entire process, step by step, doing everything meticulously, attending to every minute detail needed for the admission. The application process, scrutiny, interview and selection, payment of fees; all were done. It was informed that the school would reopen for HSC students by June end.Rithanya was super excited to join a boarding school. She began the countdown. A series of shopping was done. A large suitcase, travel bag, backpack, plates and coffee mugs with names written on them, new dresses, pyjamas, bath soaps, buckets and mugs; anything and everything a young girl might need to set up a home away from home were bought.Dadda said, “I will take you to the school, drop you and complete the initial procedures. Once in three months, either of us will come to pick you up and bring you home.”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 wholeh
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