Ma Big Fat Memoir

A few years back, one day I got a call in the morning. It was only 8 30 and I was sleeping. That’s ma usual time even when the class starts at 9. But that was sports day and I thought not to go to college.

The phone rang and when I opened ma eyes half heartedly and saw its from Joe.

     “ ’ssup Joe”..

     “priya where are you, are you not coming college?”..

I thought what happened to her; she was not supposed to be there when the rest of us were still in bed.

     “who told you to go girl? No one will come today”..

     “oh god, I hope none of you can sleep when I’m trapped here. I forgot its sports day priya.. L”..

All of us knew once you entered the campus, you could never come out without a letter from the principal herself.

I told her to hung up and kill the time somehow. But I couldn’t sleep anymore. So I got ready fast enough to reach college by 9 30 (That’s a special ability given to those who get up late) that too taking two buses and finally an auto rickshaw ;)..  When I entered the campus she was there sitting on the parapet near the shrine of Jesus Christ with her palms holding her pondering head. She jumped up with wonder when she saw me. “I thought you wouldn’t come”.. she said.

And we sat there together looking at others running here and there in merry that we could never take into us.

Suddenly Joe held my arms tight,

“Priya, let’s get out of here”..

“what?  Are you gone mad, how you can Joe”..

In our campus students get out by jumping the ‘great wall’ near the play ground. But that’s where the sports going on. At that time a friend came and brought us to the front of the arts block from where we could see the back side of the main block. The back side of the main block was an uneven land with a lot of trees, slopes, holes, thorns, twigs and what not.

     “there.. don’t you see a road?”..  our friend said pointing to a distant point. Yes we could see a beautiful road and we even saw us waiting for bus there. But how you reach there?

You need to jump nearly an 8 feet to let your foot on that ground. We looked at each other, held each other’s hands and jumped. Good god! The excitement was overwhelming. We started to run through the difficult path avoiding the holes and thorns. Joe ran before me and told me not to look back. But I couldn’t help looking at the main block because that’s where our beloved principal would be. What if she was looking out of the window? :O and suddenly I became aware of the color of the churidar I chose to wear. It was red. Anyone would notice if they saw a red thing moving in the wood. Joe was in mud color churidar. My heart nearly jumped out. Fear even entered my eyes and I thought I would black out. But she was still holding my hand and we ran with our might thinking of the road we saw from the campus.

Suddenly she stopped. I rolled my eyes looking all around us. But didn’t see our principal, thank god. I took a deep breath and asked her why she stopped. She pointed to the road. When I looked, I too became white because that was not even a street, but the terrace of a house that we couldn’t see because of the trees.

Then we knew we were trapped. We couldn’t see any way out of that place. We had come a long way and the college looked like a kutub minar from this abyss of a land.

Then somebody came to our view, a lady collecting coconuts. We went to her and asked how she came there. She understood where we came from and threatened us. She said she would call the principal.

I was searching all around us. If she could enter this place there would be a way out. And at that time both of us saw steps of stone at a big wall. We ran together and climbed it and saw a house. Thanks to the whole universe, there was nobody in the courtyard. We didn’t stop running until it was sure that we were completely out of that maze.

It took a while to get our normal breath back and we laughed and laughed and laughed thinking of the road and our marathon through the hell of a land. Then we walked to the bus stop that we knew somewhere down the way.

That adventurous trip makes me unbelievably awesome when I think about it even now.