Girl in Red

The Beautiful Girl In Red was staring at me with her beautiful wide eyes, which had in them a dreamy look, as if filled by mist. And then suddenly, it was this pair of ugly small eyes that I found glaring at me, which certainly did not belong to the Beautiful Girl In Red. It was at this point that a few interesting revelations that dawned upon me:

1. It was Monday afternoon and I was sitting in my lecture hall, which was definitely not the disco hall I had been dreaming about.

2. It, being the 3^rd hour, our classroom was inhabited by an extremely hostile being called the Solid State Devices lecturer.

3. And the ugly pair of eyes belonged to him.

4. He had caught me sleeping for the 4^th time that hour.

By reflex, I adopted the standard measures followed in such situations of emergency. My face twisted into an intelligent, concentrating frown, and my head started nodding in the most understanding manner, as though I was aware of, and empathised with the lecturer’s innermost thoughts and feelings.

And the inevitable happened.

Fifteen seconds later I found myself walking along the corridor towards the toilet to wash my face, as ordered. It was during that brief interval from the boredom and dreariness of class that I started musing on how things had been turning out all day.

It all began that morning when I woke up with horror at having overslept. I opened my record file to find that I still had 3 graphs to complete before the lab session in the morning. Bathing in mornings had become a long forgotten habit. Still having one more graph to go, I rushed to class early enough so that I could reserve myself a seat in the coveted back rows. Having settled myself into one, I resumed work on the graph when my phone started buzzing and to my horror I realised it wasn’t in silent mode. I thanked God class hadn’t still started and took it out. It was my roommate no.1 (roommate nos.2,3,4,5 and 6 being the lizard, 3 spiders and the upper floor chappie who perpetually hangs out in our room) calling from the neighbouring room guy’s phone. He had left his key above the door while leaving to take a bath (dirty habit, as I call it). Five minutes later, he’s finished with the bathing thing and he returns only to find that the Door With The Room Key Above It isn’t quite the Door With The Room Key Above It as much as it is the Door Without The Room Key Above It. So now what we have is a Door Without A Room Key Above It, But With A Completely Baffled Guy Wrapped In A Towel in front of it.

Cursing myself and the stupid room key that was conspicuous by its absence, I started on my way back to the hostel with my own room key, with the intention of relieving the Roommate In Distress. On the way, I ran into this Chappie, whom we shall refer to as Chappie 43513 (no particular reason for the number...just a whimJ). Now Chappie 43513 is highly interested in knowing why I am heading in the direction of the hostel with only 5 minutes left for class. I explain the situation to him in as few words as possible.

Blink.

Blink.

The blinking this time was not mine, for a change. It was Chappie 45313’s. Before I could enquire as to the reason, he put his hand inside his pocket with the mystery of a magician about to pull a rabbit out of his hat. And out came not a rabbit, but something far more baffling. The Room Key That Was Supposed To Be Above The Door. He told me that he’d found it above our room door and had attributed it to my absent-mindedness.

I sent Chappie 45313 back with the assignment of reliving The Roommate In Distress and came back to attend to my graphs and tables.

Lab that day wasn’t very eventful, except for the fact that I had to walk between the staff table and my experiment table 23 times, each time with a different correction to be made on my record before it was finally accepted as satisfactory.

And after lunch, here we return, back to class, dreaming about Beautiful Girls In red turtle necks, only to be interrupted by Solid State Lecs with Ugly Eyes. Sigh...have taken long enough to wash my face...better be returning to class...