Cinderella Story or Is it? Ch 9 Pg 38 5/5 - Page 11

Chap 3

Geet came out of the gift store after offering profuse apologies to the cashier. She saw Maan standing outside seriously talking to a skinny boy much darker in skin hue but richer by a smile.

She approached them "Hello Maan. Nice to meet you. I don't believe in holding loans or grudges. So if you can tell me where I can find you tomo…"

"Hello! What maga, no intro?" the voice of the other guy emerged. It was not as deep as Maan's.

Geet looked at him carefully. As mentioned earlier he was dark, skinny and was of the same height as her. His face had a warm effusive smile. "Hi. I am Geet." she said.

"Namskara. Namskara. Namskara. I am Ganesh."

Geet smiled. Ganesh seemed nice and talkative.

Ganesh "First year?"

Geet nodded.

Ganesh's stance assumed a new found confidence for he was now the 'senior'. Not that Geet felt in anyway threatened. She assumed that if she wanted to get ragged in this college, this was it. She so wanted to get ragged. Not for being fat though. Obviously.

Ganesh "What is your mother tongue?"

Geet "H.."

Ganesh "Wait! Let me guess. It is Urdu or Punjabi? Correct no?"

Maan still with his super serious face "Dude, Geet is not a muslim name."

Ganesh shrugged "Maan maga, I met a lady named Gayathri who was a Christian once. So I stopped assuming."

Geet "Maan's last name is 'maga'?"

Ganesh laughed "Eh no pa! Maga in kannada literally means 'son'. We use it for pals too."

Geet rounded her mouth and eyes with an 'o'.

Geet "I am Punjabi."

Ganesh "Sakkat haawt maga. Welcome to Janata's."

Geet giggled "I assume that is a compliment. Thanks."

This was just so cool. She had never been called 'haawt' before. Pretty face, fair skin, nice smile were some of the compliments she had received. For obvious reasons most of them were restricted to her face area.

Ganesh "And I assume this is your first experience with ragging in our college. It is not complete without taking you out for a dabba coffee in our awesome cafeteria."

Maan "Dude I am.."

Ganesh "Guroo, just come for ten minutes. The gym weights are not running away anywhere."

Geet "This college has a gym too? I never knew!"

Ganesh "Ya you wish. Maan nan maga is rich no. He goes to that fancy gym at the end of this road. Yearly membership is 35k. Maan anyway you eat non-veg no, muscles will automatically come. Why go to gym for that? Give me that money; I will buy a nice bike."

Maan had an angry irritated face "Muscles don't come automatically. Fats do. Curd rice person like you wouldn't understand either way. So leave it. And stop calling me maga. It makes me feel like a flower."

Geet looked at Ganesh with a grimace as if to ask 'Is he always like this?'. Ganesh nodded sadly with a 'yes'.

Ganesh "Can you grace us with ten minutes of your precious time? I am trying to make friends with a girl here."

Geet laughed. The cute nerd finally obliged to come to the cafeteria.

Ganesh "You want readymade or filter?"

Geet "Readymade?"

Ganesh "Nescafe."

Geet "Oh you mean instant. No I think I will stick to filter."

Ganesh "Wah! You have already adjusted to this place. Amazing."

The coffee arrived in all its glory in a steel cup and saucer. Ganesh poured some of his coffee to the saucer and began drinking from there. Cutting coffee huh. They then began talking invariably about 'hometowns'. Turned out Maan and her both belonged to NCR and Ganesh was from a neighboring district. They were both a year ahead of her but in the same engineering discipline; Computer Science. Maan was not much of a talker. He sat just listening to Geet and Ganesh with an almost blank face.

Geet "By the way why is everything here so messed up? Like when I came here, there was this nice basketball court. Today it is a deep pit. Yesterday there was this public bathroom by our road corner and today it is demolished. The admin building they are adding a new wing although the one presently there seems new to me. I thought this was an old and established college. They are also building a new hostel. And I heard it had attached bathrooms! Is that true?"

Ganesh leaned forward "You have been here four days and you still don't know?"

Geet "Know what?"

Ganesh "It is a very long story. Apparently some sick astrologer had mentioned in passing probably as a cruel joke to the founder of the college that if he stopped building he would start dying. Now this makes no sense whatsoever to me. First of all what about before the founder came to know of this prophecy? How did he live to hear of it. Second did pulling down something to build it again for the heck of it count as building?

Same doubts were evidently expressed by a few wise press souls. So the founder knew there were no shortcuts. But he was also clever. He kept the college building always 'work in progress' while bringing in a reputed construction honcho as one of the trustees of the college board. By making glowering promises of huge donations and aids from NRI and management students who throng the campus every year."

Geet "What! That cannot be true. How can…"

Maan spoke up "Before you talk nonsense may be you need to pause and think a little. May be those students do not have facilities to study in their own country where education is very expensive. May be those students were sick on the day of their exam. May be those students took a year off just so they could study properly for their IIT and other competitive entrance exams. May be those students prepared for these exams for hours everyday since high school only to find that they have been barking up the wrong tree. May be they neglected the entrance exam for Karnataka that has the maximum number of engineering colleges because they were sure they would make it elsewhere. They just made a wrong choice. For that they should not be discriminated against."

Both Geet and Ganesh were gaping by the time Maan had finished his tirade that seemed to have come out of nowhere.

Maan "May be I need to change my project partner, Ganesh. Someone who calls me by my name and shows respect for everybody. Someone who does not assume things just because a person looks a certain way."

Ganesh "Guroo I am sorry. I did not.."

Maan "You know what, I am getting late for my gym. I am leaving. Enjoy your coffee."

Maan left as if he could not wait to get out sooner. Apparently some people still had emotional quotients equivalent to half their age in college.

Geet "That was something."

Ganesh "Ya I thought he was an ok fellow. I don't know how I ended up being his project partner though. Apparently he has had this resentment towards me for the past few weeks. You wouldn't know to look at him no."

Geet nodded "What is his story? It is obvious he is a management student and does not like it to be rubbed in."

Ganesh "I only know that he stays in a flat nearby that belongs to him. His parents are rich buggers who have a house somewhere in whitefield. You know one of those fancy row house type things where foreigners and all walk casually?"

Geet "What?"

Ganesh "Where each one costs a fortune da. But it is too far from here so his dad got him a flat nearby. He goes home on weekends. He came in today for some work in office. "

Geet nodded.

Ganesh "You know his father is so rich he has a house every few meters. If he urgently needs to take a nap or go to the loo he must not be caught stranded no."

And with that one more person was added to the list of drama queens that Geet ended up with. She attracted them like flies it seemed like.

Geet "You know I have this friend Proof back home. You and her would be just great together. I will give you an intro when she visits me here."

Ganesh gave a broad smile "Anything to meet a girl. Please don't tell me she is prettier than you and give me a heart attack."

She was smiling too. Ganesh was one nice flatterer. He was going to get far in life. Her thoughts returned back to Maan however. She was intrigued by him. Was it all a put on just to impress girls? Or was he genuinely someone who was troubled?

In parallel her mind went to the SoapStar guy. Who would he most likely be like? Would he be someone who was reserved like Maan? Or someone gregarious like Ganesh?

All in all, that was a lot of 'someone's.

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