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 been a highly pampered kid.Janet and Rheya were twins. Identical twins, there was not a single difference you could spot between them, leaving everyone confused who was who.Moni and Diva were from nearby neighbouring towns. Diva was stylish, mature and spoke very sensibly. After a little effort by Rithanya, they all slowly stopped crying and exchanged smiles.“How does it feel to be twins?” Rithanya asked Janet and Rheya. Rithanya was always puzzled about twins. She kept reading facts and myths and was curious about anything and everything about twins. “Is it true that both of you get hungry together? If Janet cries, will you cry too, Rheya?” she probed. She was amazed. Both girls looked exactly alike. Like two peas in a pod.“I feel I have seen you somewhere. You look familiar.” Rheya told her.“Do you have a sister?” Janet asked.“If you are referring to an elderly lady who resembles me, well you should know she is my mother and twenty years older," Rithanya replied with a grin. She was used to this sort of question. Most of her friends and cohorts always referred to her mother as her elder sister. They both had strikingly physical similarities. “So what exactly is wrong? Do I look so old?” she asked.“No! Wait! Are you related to the Doctor? I have seen you once at his house.” Janet screamed with excitement.“Yeah, the doctor who operated our father. Yes, I now remember,” Rheya joined."Wait. Which doctor? Which place? What relation?" Rithanya was stammering to answer the girls in the process to get connections. "Where are you girls from? Which is your hometown?" she inquired.“Our town is Ooty,” Rheya replied. Before she could continue, Rithanya interrupted, “Ooty! Yes, my uncle and aunt live there. Uncle is a doctor. We visit him quite often.”“So, what are your chosen courses?” Diva pulled herself into the conversation.“Biological sciences.” Rithanya, Janet, Rheya, Moni and Fowzia said in chorus.Diva was happy that she also had chosen the same stream.In a multi-cultural environment like that of a hostel's, girls normally tend to find out some common backgrounds to develop a friendship. It always starts like, "Oh you too? I thought I was the only one." You either begin with reciprocity, propinquity or sharing similar interests, backgrounds or emotions. Sometimes the law, "unlike poles, attract" also applies to friendship. That is how the friendship began in their room. Their common traits, attributes, interests, neighbourhoods, and language brought the six girls together.The bell rang. It indicated that the girls must go for their dinner. They grabbed their plates and walked towards the dining hall, all the while chatting with each other. There was a huge crowd in the hall.“Wait, should I stand in a queue to get my food?” Fowzia enquired with contempt.“Is it only to me, or to everyone? The feeling of standing in a queue like in jail? Rithanya laughed.“You have been watching a lot of crime movies. You should not anymore.” Diva teased her back.“Oh! If this looks like a queue in a temple for getting the divine prasadam, then I guess you ought to join the monastery.” Rithanya replied.Everyone cracked into laughter. That is Rithanya. She could easily push away the mental blocks and induce laughter in any group she is put to. She undoubtedly becomes the dynamic personality of the group – fearless, bold, and up for anything, however reckless. The six girls came together like a patchwork of the quilt and weaved in easily with each other despite their striking differences in personalities and cultural backgrounds.Ms Roopa looked at the six girls coming together, laughing. She was happy to see that there will not be any complaints or room change requests from them. She guessed Rithanya to be the driving force behind this comradeship.“So, I hope you girls have become friends. You should be united. Do not fight. Be friends always and help and take care of each other.” Ms Roopa advised the girls.Rithanya smiled naughtily at her and nodded in agreement. Diva and Rithanya led the group to the dining hall and the other girls followed. The six girls sat in a circle on the floor and finished their supper talking to each other. After supper, Rithanya and Fowzia cleaned up the mess they spilt on the floor and joined the girls heading back to their room.On their way back, they saw some grade twelve students walking around with books in their hands. Some of them were eating and reading. Rithanya thought that some of them did not even realize where they were walking.Sleeping place allotments were made; the room was partitioned among the six girls. They spread their beds and got ready to crash. Rithanya chose a slot close to the wall and requested Diva to give her some space while sleeping.“So, who are the ones to roll over during their sleep? Moni questioned.“Well, any bed-wetter here?” Fowzia giggled.“Any somnambulist?” Rithanya tittered.“Enough, all of you! Let’s go to sleep before the warden comes and scolds us. We have a big day tomorrow.” Diva stopped the girls’ chatter.“Good night,” everyone said and crashed. It had been a tiring day for all.They slowly drifted into a deep sleep thinking of their classes the next day. All were excited about the upcoming days and experiences they would cherish lifelong.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
The following morning, the soft rays of dawn gently filtered through the curtains, awakening Rithanya from her slumber at the familiar hour of 5 am. She instinctively anticipated the piercing sound of the hostel alarms, often accompanied by the thunderous voice of the warden, that she had grown accustomed to. However, as her eyes fluttered open, she found herself surrounded by the comforting embrace of her auntie's house, enveloped by the warm presence of her loving family. A relieved sigh escaped her lips as the realization settled in—she was far from the confines of her school. Grinning at the thought, she shifted onto her side, succumbing to the allure of sleep once again.An hour drifted by, and the world of dreams reluctantly released its hold on Rithanya once more. This time, it was a tender kiss planted on her forehead that stirred her from her slumber. Blinking her eyes open, she was met with Dadda's affectionate smile as he leaned over her. "Come on, get up and get ready righ