It dates back to my college days. Not too many days had passed, when we were made to form a row in front of our seniors. We were asked to introduce ourselves while repeating all that previously have been said by all the mates before you...Sequentially. Failing this would have led one to a severe punishment, what they called a second degree ragging. Ragging was banned on campus, but a voice made in that direction should have cost a third degree ragging, the details of which were yet unknown...since nobody before us dared undergo it....showed the seriousness of the matter!
Luckily, I was just the third person in the queue to introduce and had to remember only the first two members in the row, one of which was my school mate.....though my nerves kept me losing control, I passed the test to the forth person, next to me in the queue....the forth, then tossed it to fifth...and so on.....I could have realised by that time, what kind of competition I was going to have in the academics....I was just the third lowest in smartness according to this data.....the seventh spoke his part...eighth one had a small slip of tongue, but he couldn't save ninth one.....with every repetition, I was uttering the names, schools, colleges, grade percentages...just to fill in my lost confidence...and then suddenly that happened....
He was the tenth in line to reach only till the fifth....he couldn't remember the grade score of the sixth person...while saving himself with a raw guess, he couldn't help, since the sixth one was our Harishchandra, the Jr. ....A punishment was impending .... for both ......for him, the tenth particle from our seniors and for the sixth entity from him. the tenth avatar...later, of course!
Seniors probably had something in mind from the beginning....or the poor Bihari guy, to undergo the second degree treatment....how could he know the meaning of what he was about to do?
The next day, he was asked to approach a girl from the same batch, but different class and to spill out "Naan Unnai Kadhalikkiren" holding her hand.....
Abhinav (a.k.a. navada) moving towards Janakee, who was residing away with her back towards us, jumped in front of her and held her hand....we could feel how nervous he was initially!
Navada: Naan Unnai Kadhalikkiren ....(this time his memory didn't create any hustle)
Janakee: (who was passing through a cycle of phases... scared... frawned.... nervous... upset, one after other, gathered her breath at last) do you know what it means?
Navada shook his head, with a deep innocence flushing out.
Janakee: In Tamil it means, I love you.
We all, including Navada must had a faint idea...was easy to guess, if it is a ragging practice...but Janakee had a lot more to surprise us (by the way, she was unaware of what had happened in the boys hostel) .........even now, it is tough to reason out this strange behavior of a tamil girl, from a orthodox, conservative tamil family. Janakee: (...continued with raising her voice a bit stronger) do you still want to say the same again?
Navada: (............pause.....2 sec., 3....4...and then a smile) yes.....
what was that poor girl to say after this? ..... surely, she had not guessed this......only thing she could do, after realising the presence of audience, (much more than she expected in such a busy college hour) was to turn back and leave the place.....leaving us in a long silence......
but it made Navada quite famous...even our seniors couldn't stop appreciating his courage.....he was our hero...and in those days our idol.....as a result of this within just two weeks later, almost every girl from the college became Navada's friend.....and, that forced every other boy keep waving hi's to Navada, our future prospective facilitator!.....and perhaps this was the time, I started taking my tamil seriously.
Three days back, I received a mail from Navada, who is now at a very good university abroad. He is getting married.....and can you guess, who the bride is? .....yes, she is Janakee....
The matches are made in heaven!
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