17. Not mine Anymore

Our Data Structures ma’am had appeared to be one such psycho. In reality, she was really good, her teaching used to be innovative. However, people felt other way. They fretted that she was going out of syllabus. I couldn’t follow her well either. Anyway seniors' warning, “If you are fucked up with DS, your future as a good software engineer is also fucked up” kept me on my senses.

Not only me, most others, at least the ambitious few understood the importance of the paper and tried their best to keep in par with the professor. PDS (Prog in Data Structures) lab proved useless. We had to work more, at least 4times as much lab hours, on our own to get at least an inkling of the concepts.

Meanwhile the sms flirting with Kiran continued, as days passed by we even got messages from our class guys, nothing worth calling a chat, except for “Have you finished the problem discussed today?” or “Are you ready with the lab assignment?” etc etc. I wondered whether these guys really mean this or they just want to speak, but lost for words or topics on which to speak.

As time went on Kiran’s messaging frequency went down. Though, I wasn't worried about it, it felt weird. By the time many girls were getting flirty messages, class friends, 1st sem classmates, school friends and at times seniors like in my case.

That Friday we decided to go to the Ganesha temple as usual. Anu told us that she was going out to meet her uncle and left the hostel by four that evening. Maria despite being a Christian accompanied us, as always. This time 3 other girls, my classmates Sangamitra and Preethi, Divya’s classmate Sindhu also joined us.

Preethi suggested we would go to a Shiva temple that was a tad far away, for a change. We acquiesced, and we were there at the temple by 5.30. I, avoiding Divya’s teases about cute guys there looking like the sivanadiyaar’s (a die hard devotee of Lord Shiva) themselves, tried hard to get myself spiritual and considered ogling a sin at least inside the walls of the temple.

Sindhu gave a loud cry, loud enough to attract all our attention. We looked in the direction, and we, particularly I, froze. I saw Kiran but that’s not something appalling, but the girl with him...