Little Red Riding Foot

12:15 p.m, outside the examination hall I find Suthopa waiting. She has finished her paper, an hour and a half early. Well, so have I but only by an hour. I was getting fidgety in my chair when I got the shortest of calls from her, I knew the worst had happened. She had finished well before even the wussiest student, and was now scared to leave the hall alone and by herself. Ah! What are friends for! Despite the fact that we were sitting in different rooms, our heads were connected by what Feluda called Telepathy. I remember the scene from "Sonar Kella", where the Rajasthani cops gets worked up at the real Dr.Hazra's mention of the word and says, "Telephone - yes! Telegraph - Yes! Television - Yes! No Telepathy!!!" Profound! But well, our telegraph, err...telepathy worked and I finished a bit after her, and therefore her phone call rescued me from my shame of having finished the paper early, and I was suddenly walking out of the class, with a pride akin to Achilles who's just conquered Troy (alone, without cheat papers!).

The first thing I notice about her is her Socks... bright red soccer socks. Now, where and how she acquired these is a mystery, for she has sworn never to divulge the truth after we spent the last two hours going at it. Nonetheless, I deliver my best smile upon Her Majesty, and she flicks it away with a grimace. Why? Her paper did not go well... To be honest, I knew this was coming, as she had spent the weekend, mostly under her undoubtedly warm and extremely inviting blanket, or watching movies on her laptop, or playing "Age of Empires", or coochie-cooing (serious discussion with a potential life partner)... But, what was worse, she had only two questions to choose from in the exam and both were from the same topic, with comparisons with the same other topic. One of which she was unaware of. Sulking, we made for the stairs outside our centre, to sit our bottoms down and sulk some more about it, and then crib about the terrible state of affairs with everybody who passes by.

It was good! Was my reply to the first, "How was your paper?". Suthopa's answer to the same was very unlike me. She didn't even answer, she made a face and told the person how much she hated Anthropology (the theory part of which was our paper for today). Then she just turned away and lit a cigarette with rage that burnt into the matchstick.

It was okay. Was my reply the second time around, when the questions were asked by somebody else. By now I was fidgety all over again. Suthopa was now complaining about how she had read things that were unnecessary, and how she could have just slept without having had taken the pains of going through those readings.

It was terrible! Was my answer when the third person came along. The question was annoyingly repeatative, and I could not stand it anymore. Suthopa was on the verge of tears, and she kept threatening to break into them if anybody uttered so much as a word of that paper again. And then Khushal came. I breathed in relief! I knew he could make fun of everything and get away with it. He always does. Ah! Khushal, we call him our (mostly mine and Suthopa's, but from time to time Siddhartha's) Biaatch! He is, and proudly so! And thankfully he cannot read this blog! Not because he 'cannot' read, but because he won't.

In some time, Siddhartha comes along, with his little bootyliscious...ahem! And the air became immediately lighter. Suthopa stopped cribbing, not altogether, but mellowed it down a few notches. But then our new obsession arose... her pretty red socks! We sang to her, "My heart is like a red red sock!", we rhymed for her, "Little miss muffet, sat on a tuffet, with a big bucket, wearing red sock-et!" (for the sake of rhyming!)... and her wails of disgust were dismissed by our persistent one liners on her really really red socks. Poor Suthopa, sleepy and weary with last minute re-visions could only muster up, "I'm so gonna get back at your asses! Wait till I'm well rested!"...which is somewhat very similar to what Khushal usually resorts to when his wit fails him, "I'm going to answer that when I'm feeling wittier!"

All said and done, we managed to get Suthopa out of her depression, with jokes on her... a bit mean, I agree. But its not everyday Miss Red Riding Foot comes to school with us! Her red soccer socks, or sockers :D will not see the light of day for a long time now, for she knows we will keep reminiscing this red socker afternoon for quite some time. So much for anthropological analyses, if we were to derive one out of this one would come to the conclusion that friends are made to make fun of you until you can no longer stand them, that's when they are not friends anymore. Ha ha! As for us, I believe it is a strange ritual of poking fun at everybody so that no snooty bitch survives the test of being our friend.

As for Miss Red Riding Foot, I'm sure she's inside her warm little castle of soft blanket, dreaming of mangshor jhol and mishti doi.