When Radha went back to college… (Part IV)

I penned this story, When Radha went back to college… (Part IV), as a Guru Dakshina to all my teachers and professors, some years ago.

When Radha went back to college… (Part IV)

According to their plan, Shalini got Radha admitted into the institute with false certificates made from the former’s own home computer. It was imperative that Radha would not be suspected of anything. Luckily, the CEO was on their side and had said that he would be watching as a spectator. This was only after Radha had assured him that she wouldn’t publish anything about the murder before the case was solved.

The first day in college went smoothly. On the second day, she saw a group of seniors sitting in the large garden surrounding the college building. Though she avoided looking in their direction, she understood that she being a new face was attracting their attention.

One short fellow came in front of her and stopped her. “Meet my friends and then go.”

Silently, she walked toward the group of seniors. The group, consisting of almost an equal number of boys and girls, surrounded her within minutes.

“You new here?” asked the most handsome guy in the group. He had attitude written all over his face. He seemed to be the leader of the group.

Radha immediately understood that she was going to be ragged. She was totally amused. She had never been ragged before even in her college life! Let’s get it started, she decided. But controlling her facial expressions, she looked at the leader eye-to-eye and replied in the positive.

“Look at this, a gutsy gal here,” one short girl came forward between the leader and her. Obviously, she was the guy’s girlfriend and a possessive one at that.

Since Radha had looked at the leader fearlessly, she had to be punished. She was told to do a 100 sit ups, holding her ears.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” was the calm reply.

“Sit ups are sitting down and standing up,” said another guy from the group.

Still Radha acted as if she did not know and the group tried to explain, each in their own way.

“Ok,” Radha replied and went to a nearby empty bench and sat down on the bench and got up a few seconds later.

The girlfriend got irritated and said, “I’ll show you how it’s done.” And she did the exercise herself twice, without realizing what was going on! “That is a sit up! Now, you do it.”

“Why should I do it? I thought you did not know it. You got it? Simple! If you know it why do you ask me?”

Radha left the garden, leaving many gaping mouths behind her.

To be continued…