No Proxy for this Absence

How does it feel when you have been cribbing about your life in College all those 3 and quarter years..but stand up to reality in the last quadrant? Reality of the different kind of cribbing that would follow once you are out of those classrooms..?? When the kiddos walk as if they rule the world and talk as if the world is to be changed for them..And so it came naturally to her like anyone else...She could feel the loss she was going to be the victim of soon..Those 8 am lectures which never missed her..And the coffee rides that followed at the Inner Corp..The long strides along the tall trees and the rushing back to the hostel to be just in time for the 6 pm attendance..

She was hovered by these thoughts even that day at College when Batch photos were to be clicked. There was this usual hype about the ladies being gaudily dressed and the not very gentle men attired deceptively. She never understood how postures in the tick of a clock could capture zillions of memories every time someone looked at them. Nevertheless, she was one among the crowd looking forward to this twilight event, to flauntingly bid adieu to classmates, professors, and batchmates. It was the last lecture of the afternoon and she was already virtually in the batch photo..in her blue sari which was waiting in her room to shyly sway on her...

"I would call out the people who are short of attendance.." Well that craved for relatively higher attention..for her to be mindful of those who were carefree to darn the lectures they thought didn't make a difference to their degree...their learning...their families who spent a ransom for their presence there..or more so even their lives..so she heard the roll numbers being called out..2**, 3**, ... ... ..., 330, ... ... ...!!! 330? Had the bald-headed professor lost his cerebral bean along with the hair that parted from him? She blinked several times and hit her ears twice in the head to combat the flabbergastness. She kept praying for the nightmare to be a mistake until the lecture ended. She toterred behind the professor..Voice shaky enough to start the conversation..A conversation which felt like Faux Pas struck her life...Those cruel looks perfectly complemented his words..She was on the verge of being kicked off the mountain whose view was destined to be panaromic all this while. The same mountain she had climbed and bruised her life on the go due to lack of any kind of required festivity...the diligent worker had lost the game..her MS plans were pillaged just because of some blunder in attendance that the professor was not ready to bow to? It was the last semester, and if she had an F* on her Grade Card, this ambitious freak would have to walk another quadrant in the circle with no ladder to climb.

She decided on another attempt to remedy herself of the slip from the mountain. She went to the professor's room with a heart as heavy as an iron, not as tough though. Before she could utter a word, a fat drop of tear waved to the professor. She tried to speak..convincing the bald-headed that it was impossible to have her short of attendance. He could check her notes; they had all the dates she had attended the lectures on. He wouldn't budge off his ego. That was the first time she had cried in college in front of a professor...what a shame! more than that was the social blunder in her inner society of virtuous characters. She left his room afflictively, with the tears adamant to dry. She ran out to release them from the prison. Why couldn't she be as insouciant as the rest of the roll numbers?

Her friend accompanied every moment shocked himself, but pretentiously calming her that it wasn't a big deal. There was motion now of her batchmates moving into the ground in their garbs. What would she do? Rush to the hostel to be a part of the event or stay married to the uneventful moment that had just struck her? It was almost time for the clicks. She was forlorn; undergoing dearterialization by the minute. It was the beginning of THE END! Her friend dragged her to the Canteen as he knew she wasn't ready for a revelry when her heart was attending a funeral.

Phone calls from classmates queued as they sat on those wrecked chairs, with a Mouglai and Thumps Up (Really?). Every call made her friend covince that there was still time; for the stills, that would be the pith of memories in life. But no words reached her, no gentlemen agreements could alternate her doleful look. The only companion she wanted was the echoes of the attendance call, and the conversation she had unintentionally been a part of.

The photos had been clicked, and the fellowmates chirped nostalgically. And there she lay with the insipid Mouglai and loser thoughts, abandoned of the proof of her 4-year stay in the aerie of knowledge. She felt like a destitute...with food, clothes and shelter, but not enough attendance to attend the batch photo session. And her desituteness had hit her friend too who would regret his absence from the photo until his death-bed. Life is a drama...and the subtleties had unleashed climaxes this turn.