The Afternoon.. Then and Now!!

As I lay flat on my bed, numb, I could hear my roomies getting ready for class (in the same robotic way that every SIMC-ian follow day in and day out).. Both of them scampered from one corner of the room to the other finding matching earrings and dupatta, wearing kajal and hanging the so-called-precious-college ID Cards around their neck, all at the same time! I tried to creak open my right eye..Ah ah ouch it hurts! I tried again.. to move my head.. it felt like lead.. I felt pukish.. Shit! I still haven't recovered *sigh* 

As I lay still.. I could feel my roomies palm on my forehead. "Tch! Tch! Dare you go to college today. You still have fever. Everyday you are going to college zabardasti and making it worse! Rest rest, Ok? Byeee!"

And then with one thud of the door they were gone!

Afternoons have always been  the most favourite part of the day for me.. There is something so magical about soft sunshine and cozy little naps.. It reminds me of my childhood.. when mamma used to pack us to bed after lunch and pat us to sleep. After a while when I used to hear her soft breath on my neck and her hand gently falling off from my hair, I used to silently get up tip toed and run! But SIMC afternoons are so different than my sunwrapped-cozy little-calcutta-afternoons. Most of the afternoons here are spent rushing for lunch (ya whatever!) from 1.30 to 2.30PM at the mess, gulp down the inedible and rush back to the acad block within 2.30(sharp!) Most of the days we feel too tired and lazy to walk all the way to the mess  and settle for the canteen instead(which is ranked one notch higher than the mess because it seves chicken!!) Rest of the afternoon rolls like a snail, snoozing in the class. The Post-Lunch Lecturers take it as a challenge to keep the class awake! Those few who can.. are either very good teachers... or terrors!!

Words of a college senior floated through my head as I still lay awake, looking at the ceiling.. "Have you ever spent an afternoon in your room ever?? Try it out one day!! It is awesome I tell you. Put on some light music, bunk the post lunch lectures and just go to SLEEP!!", he said happily as we walked back from the acad block. (It was the time when I was forcefully attending classes inspite of knowing that am having really high fever.)

As I listened to my senior in awe, he added, "Then get up in the evening and go to the chaat shop..have some panipuri, chaat and coffee.. you will feel so much better!! Bye Bye June!", and with that he hopped on to the 2PM city bus..

So FINALLY I spent the afternoon in my hostel room. Guess what?  I slept. Slept by bunking classes. Slept by bunking lunch. Slept without caring about attendance. So unlike me.

No, it is not that I am following my senior's advice. It is because I am still so down with the viral fever...

As I lay still on my bed.. I could feel mamma's pat on my forehead, just like those cozy-calcutta-afternoons..

Swear, I wouldn't have tip-toed and run away this time if it would have been real..!!