It was one of those Saturday morning classes... Technical Communication being my favorite subject, I did not have to take an effort to be attentive. Besides that, the female faculty by nature had the knack of keeping her students glued to her while she's addressing. No boring lectures whatsoever! She often cited examples from Bollywood and anything related to Bollywood strikes my fancy.
Conversations and conversationalists were the topics of discussion that day. She lectured on the qualities of a good conversation and how good and witty conversationalist ShahRukh Khan is.
Now...that she had brought Bollywood into the discussion again, I couldn't help it, just got too excited not to participate in the discussion. Like a lot others in the class, I also decided to give my opinions on who I think is good as a conversationalist. It was an interactive session, 2 hours simply flew.
Next was the boring computer networks session. The coffee and biscuits I had in the break after the first session didn't help much to be active. I dozed off for the first one hour and when I woke up I still had 55 mins to kill. I passed time by reading the forward messages in my friend's mobile and by playing the routine name-place-animal-thing game with my friend near me who was also uninterested in the lecture as me. Rachael was nowhere to be seen in the whole of the morning sessions.
Lunch time. I was standing in the unusually long queue to get my share of food. Having nothing good to do in the queue, I started observing people's dressing and fashion senses and bitched about a few to one of my confidants ;) That's when Rachael showed up. She was walking past me with her group of friends.
'I don't need anyone to take care of me. I can do that myself.' I overheard her conversation with one of the guys in her group.
No wonder! Of all these years of admiring her, I pretty well knew this nature of hers. But wait a minute! There is something different in her this time. An obvious difference. Easily noticeable.
Yeah, It's her hair!!! She had cut it too short this time. Short layers with bangs in the front. When I got a chance to ask her why too short, she didn't bother to answer much and waste time. 'Just like that', she smiled and continued to focus on the numbers in her scientific math calculator.
The long hair lover that I am, always feel bad even when others cut their hair too short. But I also know the feeling of freshness every time I get a new haircut and styling. 'She must be feeling the same', I answered myself convincingly.
End of the day in college. After 8 hours lectures and a severe head ache I got in to the shuttle on my way back to my hostel and all the way I was listening to Shreya Goshal's songs from my iPhone music collections. Another source of inspiration. Her songs, especially Kannada, remind me of Rachael and they both go hand in hand. Both of them doing very well and successful in their respective careers could probably be the reason.
I reached hostel and my roommates were already waiting for me, to go to the street side kachori shop together. They just gave me 10 mins to refresh and dragged me as soon as they could. We went. Everyone shared their own experiences of the day and the new boyfriend stories. We complained about office politics for a while and when the topic diverted to me and my day, the only thing I spoke about was Rachael having a new haircut. My roommates just laughed it off and teased me to consider their long time advice to start seeing guys instead of girls :P
Near bed time. I opened my laptop to check Facebook, my last task of the day. I scrolled up and down. Nothing new and interesting came up on the screen. I just commented on few pictures that caught my eyes and wished happy birthday to a few not so close friends. When I was about to log off, it was her, Rachael updating her status to....."Miss. Independent" and sharing an YouTube video of the same name.
I listened to the music and the lyrics several times that night and finished my day, feeling independent!
It's been 8 years since that day. She introduced the song....it's lyrics and music stayed with me. As I write this blog thinking about Rachael and the profound influence she made in my life, I change my WhatsApp status to
'She got her own thing
And that's why I love her'
Cheers mate!!!
