I don't remember when I first saw her; In fact, now that I look back, I can't imagine a time when I didn't know her. She seemed to transcend it; presenting answers I sought in the past and ones I would seek in the future.

Rahul crawled out from his class, dizzy from the hours of lecture he just had to sit through. It was tiring, pretending to listen; more so than actually listening. The passage of time was painfully obvious and each word weighed against his conscience, merely echoes of guilt, smothering out any hope of salvation from the first second of inattention. Aswin joined him outside, stretching and yawning, not hiding any of his true feelings towards the class. "Do you like this guy? I really don't like this guy. I've tried so hard to listen to his class. I even tried to take notes. But is he trying to teach? I don't think so. Now, I'll agree I don't do any better in anyone else's class either but this man" he trailed off, curling his entire body into a ball, shuddering, revolting at what he had forced himself to imagine. On a good day, they edged on what little sanity they had, like a ship in a storm threatening to spill over every second; on worse ones, they reconciled with trading screams for a few seconds of guilty pleasure. Each day went by, making a mental note of the few interesting words dropped regularly throughout the lectures, pasting them somewhere in the back of the brain, and getting overwhelmed as they piled on till the outside world became a distant memory. This cycle continues, peaking at the start of exams, traditionally a weekly ritual, at which point the entire syllabus hand waved over are taped into one large mental note and thrown away to some corner of the brain, with promises and hope to start afresh. The cycle, unfortunately, continues.

"I can't take this anymore. It's been a month and I can't take this anymore. Have you seen the guys in front? John's taking notes every day. The other two always answer the guy's questions. Hell, they're even asking things every two seconds, which, I swear to God, are totally made up." Aswin struggled to breathe with everything pouring out; it's a dangerous thing leaving a man alone with his thoughts. Rahul sought some form of relief from his words. Both of them shared the same distaste for classes in general; but Aswin could seek asylum in his own beliefs, while Rahul, unfortunately, had to seek asylum in others. The world, unlike everything he had learned so far, was too complicated to always be right; it was far easier, hanging by the coattails that marched ahead relentlessly, and wiping his hands clean of any minor inconvenience it would lead to. Hope was a pesky little thing; making promises with very little to show for them. It was better to have none than be dragged on by some at all.

Aswin grabbed his wallet and counted the few bills he could scrape; a futile ritual, always leading up to the same conversation.

"I need to get Outta here. Buy me something?"

"No"

"Please?"

"No"

"Fine. Just give me a bite then."

"I don't think I get this subject." Rahul felt the entire world crashing over him. He had never experienced this feeling before, and he certainly did not like it. "What are we supposed to do? It feels like I'm staring at the board every day trying to make sense of something. I still haven't figured out the thing we learned in the first class and it just keeps coming back every other sentence like it's a plain obvious idea." He sighed. "Everyone seems to get it; it feels like they know the stuff even before they teach it." he let the suggestion creep out, slowly settling in the air, intended to faintly stir the attention of anyone searching for it, without leaving any trails for accusation. It was in everyone's mind, but they dare not say it out loud and risk sounding insecure. "They're just built different." Aswin shrugged. He pretended not to hear the whistle. "Yeah," Rahul sounded discouraged. He ordered a cup of tea and eyed the plates below the counter. He wanted to eat, but the stingy person he was, decided the satisfaction of what little he saved was far greater. Aswin walked towards him, holding a piece of sandwich he had successfully nipped from a fellow student. He bent his elbows, holding the tiny piece like a baby, with the other arm under it to catch any tiny bits that dared to escape. He wiped his mouth with his wrists, and in the same swift motion, nudged Rahul's attention towards the right, "Near the fountain, red dress with the 5 guys around." Rahul peeked a glance. Anyone inclined to preconception would certainly have no hesitation in agreement. She was the centre stage anywhere she went; and the crowd knowing that, was fighting for every second in the limelight. Depending on who you ask, she was either the subject of envy or desire. Every other second she posed to no camera in particular, and every other move felt scripted and rehearsed a million times. No word was hesitant, and no smile unseen. The heavens and the sun adorned her with gold, ascending her to an other-worldly being.

Rahul was inclined to agree. She gave no reason for disagreement. From a quick glance, it seemed like a futile task searching for any; except, his reasoning was, if it could be possible, entirely too logical. He was proud of it, his ability to stay rational even in the most tempting situations. He felt he had truly achieved a higher understanding of his self, and never faltered from emotions at any point of time. Even then, he could undeniably feel his heart quivering underneath. He did not understand why, and so, like all things, he didn't understand nor had a convincing answer for, tossed it away and let it fester till it seeped into his subconscious fears.

"Stare at her more. She might fall for you."

"I'm trying. She just won't look." Aswin sighed, not one to get discouraged by sarcasm.

"Once that happens though, and it will sometime", he stated, matter-of-factly, "she'll be all over me just like those suckers all over her."

"Hope God shows her the way."

"Amen."

Rahul crumpled the cup in his hand and dropped it into the bin. "We have to get back to class."

Aswin was not pleased with the change in subject. "This better clear me off my sins." He fixed his hair and made one final attempt to get noticed with a carefully orchestrated walk.

It's hard to say why Rahul's rational self betrayed him at that moment; it could've been that the 3-hour long lecture left very little of his mind unscathed; or it could be that the offhanded remark on the poor opinion the girls carried about him, unsolicitedly offered by his friend 2 years ago for his own peace of mind, had finally succeeded in its frequent nudging to pierce through his ego. Whatever it may be, one thing was clear: the exact split second it betrayed him. They had only managed to turn the corner to the classroom's wing when his eyes wandered to the vague silhouette the shadows had teased.

I'm not sure what I noticed first, or if I noticed anything at all. Occasionally the scene plays out vividly before my eyes; in those moments, I could feel the sunshine braided onto her hair, the tiny curve as her cheeks pressed in for a smile, and the little twitch of her nose. Unfortunately, my memory fails me like it has far too many times in the recent past. However I try (and I have tried a lot) I cannot forget this moment; it is etched into my very existence. When her eyes landed on mine, before my projection onto herself left me severely unimpressed (and consequently, extremely self-aware) at what I saw, my heart quivered with warmth and my body trembled with the wind. There was a deep longing for something I did not understand, and having ignored it for so long, its cries filled me with guilt. It wasn't strong enough to move my very existence to action, but it was enough to manifest itself in my head. In regular intervals that closed on each other, I picked it up from its cradle and let it draw from those moments in hopes of pacification. It would continue to puzzle me for a long time, until I lost myself and everything good and bad washed away with it.

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Rahul could barely focus in class before. Chemistry puzzled him from the beginning, and as it grew in rigour, it became indecipherable. He could no longer feint understanding with a bit of hand-waving and dubious assumptions. Now that his mind was toying with its newfound feelings, he could no longer feint interest. He spun a narrative around its rote-learning nature and convinced himself of the subject's inferiority. Soon his hatred for the subject attained a lurid, patronizing form, where he not only despised learning it, but also reserved the highest contempt for anyone depraved enough to breathe a word in it. Things he could not make sense of piled up and spilled out of the board, and Rahul felt justified in going back to more pressing matters. He wished to catch a glance of the girl sitting right across the row, or in one of the corners that had escaped his attention before. He regained hope when he saw the girl she was with sitting behind, but they flickered when he became sure she wasn't nearby. He didn't know why he had hoped to see her in his classroom. What would he do if she was? He was certainly not going to go up and talk to her. Would he simply stare at her from behind? He could picture himself doing it, although that wasn't something his anxious self normally did. Maybe her not being there was a good thing after all. He wasn't sure if she was in his class or not (he was certainly not going to ask Aswin, or anyone else in the class for that matter, and risk having his intentions predicted before he had done so himself. The fear was primal to him, and could be traced back to his childhood.) but he was certain now of his absolute indifference to her existence.

"This is a pretty difficult question", said the teacher wrapping the neatly written words in a little box of chalk, "Try solving it". Rahul peered around him. If a student felt any sort of kinship with his classmates, this was not the moment. No one was sure what drove them in that moment; Was it a genuine desire to find the answer, or was it a pathetic attempt to feed their ego? Maybe it was their growing insecurity that lead them here in the first place ? Whatever it was, no one was going to take this as a mere classroom exercise. They had subconsciously decided, by no explicit external counsel, that this was going to be an absolute test of their ability and entire self-worth, and nothing short of a complete answer was acceptable. It was ironic how in this exercise of ego, they were convinced of their peers' superiority. Anyone who felt overwhelmed, could find no empathetic soul in the crowd; and to run away from the growing guilt at each passing second, they feinted understanding and hid themselves in scrabbling words and re-reading questions. At every moment, the effort of finding the answer was overshadowed by the looming threat of the ticking clock; so anyone who couldn't balance both, either solved the question immediately or was doomed to drown in their own self-loathing. Seeing no one that seemed to shared his sense of anxiety, Rahul felt his sense of belongingness slipping. The room seemed to grow in size around him, the sea of heads bent down praying while the waves of scribbling thrashed across his ears stretched out to infinity. Yet, it was closing in on him, and as each moment passed, he grew aware of his futility, and as the inferiority he harbored became unbearable, he saw himself picking up his pen and scribbling down on his book, with no particular purpose; something he saw as out of his control and perfectly instinctive, like a rat squeezing itself into a hole out of the eyes of a predator.

Aswin was lost in the problem; or as Rahul thought, even he was. Although he was his best friend, and maybe his only true friend there, he had vowed never to sit next to him during class. It was blatantly clear Aswin didn't share his seriousness. Why he did not, Rahul could never understand. Truth be told he preferred it that way; even a tiny glimpse of seriousness churned his stomach as his whole worldview seemed to turn on its head for a second. Since he did not share his seriousness, it was imperative that Rahul looked after himself when things mattered. Of course, when all's said and done, Rahul believed, the world would move on, and you either move with it or spend the rest of your life chasing behind.

The teacher sensing the shuffle near the door, walked down the platform and checked. His head bobbed up and down with his body hunched over the frame, ensuring the interrupter was completely aware of the extent of their unwelcomeness. "Okay everyone I'll explain the solution. But before that, we'll be joined by a few students from the other class. They'll be with you from the next class onwards and both will share lectures in common subjects. So please if you could find your seats." Rahul's mind nudged his eyes into the group that scuffled in. Although he could tell you there was more than a handful of them, he couldn't really tell you any more; his eyes were darting from hair to hair, eyes to eyes, lips to lips instinctively, and with each moment he felt a pull urge him through the crowd. He didn't know what he was searching for; or he was desperately lying to himself. But he certainly couldn't stop plowing the crowd, and leave with no closure.

"Okay everyone, I think everyone's found a seat. If you're new just try and listen along. It's something you haven't learnt but you might be able to catch on." The chalk tapped and scrapped and the teacher flew along with it, both on a rhythm intertwining, that made itself known only on the next interruption. As the chalk drifted, so did half the class. There was too much excitement going around to pay attention. Rahul resigned to kicking the ashes left over from the fiery flames that captivated his heart as he felt disappointment rising each second.

"Do you have a pen?"

"Yeah, is this fine?"

As he handed the pen, his gaze slowly rose up the fingers that gently pressed at the tip, to the outstretched arms covered in blue, finally resting on her eyes.

"Yes! Thank you so much!"

She grabbed the pen and turned her attention back to her book. Rahul took a few seconds longer, but he managed to fixate his glance at the board after a few hesitant turns. But his whole existence did not heed. It clung to the eyes that he had seen before, and saw now for a brief second and hurriedly set itself to building a shrine where they lay. Although he manged to restrain himself physically from looking sideways, he contented himself by etching her from the bits and pieces out of the corner of his eye. While questions of science riddled the board, Rahul was grappling with a few of his own; questions that puzzled him like no other for a long time, and which would haunt him even longer.