Toor ma'am never brings her phone to class. But even when the viva was on, she jumped on the phone as soon as it vibrated. She rushed out of her room, the phone still clinging to her ear. She entered a few minutes later, with a poker face, and said, continue. Shubham kept speaking. I love it when Shubham and I chance to give vivas (is there such a word? No red curly line. Bingo!) together. The thing is, Shubham is this kid who keeps blabbering about everything except the answer to the question that is asked. We all know a person like that, right? So even if I remain silent the entire time, I still get a relatively good score.
I was roll number 64. Toor ma'am finished our entire class' viva (till roll number 81) by the next hour and then went with us to the workshop on 'Industrial and Academia Interaction' downstairs. The speakers were really fabulous, one of them was Bengali. It's so hard to find a Bengali in Chandigarh that my heart skips a beat when I see a Mukherjee or Chakraborty somewhere. Even Mohapatra (they're Oriya) now. But somehow, and I have no freakin' idea how, a lot of 'important' Chemical Engineers, were Bengali. I cannot remember a semester where we did not study a subject with a Bengali guy's book in the Reference Section. In fact, it's funny how Toor ma'am was the first to notice I was Dutta and not Dutt, and thus a Bengali (the only Bengali student in the entire college, Dhrubajyoti Dutta is Assamese, he had told me when I had asked, I admit I had ran to meet him when I saw his name up on the Freshers' List). The others plainly saw my big first name and my face and immediately classified me in the South Indian-Punjabi category.
Toor ma'am proposed the Vote of Thanks. She was in such a hurry to come downstairs just after her viva with us that she forgot her spectacles in her room. She tried reading from the page she had written so meticulously a few days back, but to no avail. And then she admitted, in her slow affected voice, that she had forgotten her spectacles and she'll just do it impromptu, because 'Engineers are known for innovation'. Four years of 'innovation' are enough for you to know, that this is where you must laugh, so we all laughed. Toor ma'am, surprisingly though, didn't. She looked like a smile was slowly making its way through her heart but somewhere on the way, it died. Of course, we were too busy fake-laughing to notice it then.
When the program ended, I was called as usual to Toor ma'am's office to give her the Press Release I had written for this occasion. She picked up her spectacles, slowly mumbled how she's so forgetful, and again turned to give me a weak smile. This time I noticed something was amiss. But I was getting late, and it wasn't anyway my premise. Toor ma'am quickly read through what I had written, said her characteristic "Okay, beta" with an elongated 'e' at the end and I took my leave. It was 5. By then, Toor ma'am already had her back to me and she had whipped out her phone.
20/12/2013 10:36 am. Jaspal Singh Toor, 24, was declared brought dead by PGIMER, Chandigarh. Apparently, the jeep that ran him over was being driven by a rookie, who in order to get the car off him, reversed it and thus ran him over twice.
PGIMER is a 15 minute walk from my college. Not even a 5 minute drive.
I was roll number 64. Toor ma'am finished our entire class' viva (till roll number 81) by the next hour and then went with us to the workshop on 'Industrial and Academia Interaction' downstairs. The speakers were really fabulous, one of them was Bengali. It's so hard to find a Bengali in Chandigarh that my heart skips a beat when I see a Mukherjee or Chakraborty somewhere. Even Mohapatra (they're Oriya) now. But somehow, and I have no freakin' idea how, a lot of 'important' Chemical Engineers, were Bengali. I cannot remember a semester where we did not study a subject with a Bengali guy's book in the Reference Section. In fact, it's funny how Toor ma'am was the first to notice I was Dutta and not Dutt, and thus a Bengali (the only Bengali student in the entire college, Dhrubajyoti Dutta is Assamese, he had told me when I had asked, I admit I had ran to meet him when I saw his name up on the Freshers' List). The others plainly saw my big first name and my face and immediately classified me in the South Indian-Punjabi category.
Toor ma'am proposed the Vote of Thanks. She was in such a hurry to come downstairs just after her viva with us that she forgot her spectacles in her room. She tried reading from the page she had written so meticulously a few days back, but to no avail. And then she admitted, in her slow affected voice, that she had forgotten her spectacles and she'll just do it impromptu, because 'Engineers are known for innovation'. Four years of 'innovation' are enough for you to know, that this is where you must laugh, so we all laughed. Toor ma'am, surprisingly though, didn't. She looked like a smile was slowly making its way through her heart but somewhere on the way, it died. Of course, we were too busy fake-laughing to notice it then.
When the program ended, I was called as usual to Toor ma'am's office to give her the Press Release I had written for this occasion. She picked up her spectacles, slowly mumbled how she's so forgetful, and again turned to give me a weak smile. This time I noticed something was amiss. But I was getting late, and it wasn't anyway my premise. Toor ma'am quickly read through what I had written, said her characteristic "Okay, beta" with an elongated 'e' at the end and I took my leave. It was 5. By then, Toor ma'am already had her back to me and she had whipped out her phone.
20/12/2013 10:36 am. Jaspal Singh Toor, 24, was declared brought dead by PGIMER, Chandigarh. Apparently, the jeep that ran him over was being driven by a rookie, who in order to get the car off him, reversed it and thus ran him over twice.
PGIMER is a 15 minute walk from my college. Not even a 5 minute drive.
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