Solitude

I entered class on time, surprisingly. Of course, it was a second period and I had missed the whole of first period, but still, at least, I was on time for this one. The song in my music player blared in my ear. Subbalakshmi and Kandhasamy were musically fighting. I didn’t bother to tug my headphones off. No one wanted to talk to me anyway. I knew that.

I sat down alone in one of the last benches. I placed my bag on the seat next to me. I knew no one would want to sit there anyway. I took out my journal and started writing. After coming here, I barely wrote. I didn’t have that impetus to write. An important factor was missing. So, it was only on days like this, when I wanted to look busy and I had nothing to do, that I even recorded my thoughts.

I didn’t even realize that the teacher had walked in as the music prevented me from hearing anything. Luckily, I bothered to look up. I pulled off my headphones and the loud Hindi babble poured into my ears. Resignedly, I took out my file.

I tried taking notes for some time. But it was too irritating. My classmates came up with the silliest doubts.  There was no flow and I lost interest. I pulled out my phone and a picture of me that I had taken on some happy day smiled back at me. The girl in the picture seemed to mock me. I tapped the phone harder than necessary as I went on Facebook. No interesting status messages, no wall posts, and most importantly, no reply for my message.

The wait was killing me. The lack of information was driving me crazy. What was I doing sitiing here? I felt the money in my pocket. I had planned carefully for all likely events. But I hadn’t thought of nothing happening at all.

I checked my watch for the umpteenth time. Time barely moved. The class was still discussing the same thing. People were still not bothered about me. My phone still didn’t buzz. And I went back to doodling the same name over and over again.