Postcards from Manipal

 

My Daily Dose of Happiness

 

“I hate him!” I announced walking into my room that evening after a day of rigorous lecture and shooting. Studying cinema isn’t particularly easy. I’d like to take a few minutes and divert from my course of narration to point out what the society thinks of students studying Cinema as their major. I was an Economics graduate who decided to detour from Economics and chase my dream of being a filmmaker. People who supported me and were genuinely happy that I was doing something I enjoyed were my parents, a few of my relatives and my closest friends, Som, Ena, Bebo, Noddy, Mona, Anusri, Abheek, Shirsha, Trisha (from Amity) and a few of my professors who had taught me during my graduation days. My Guru, Rajat sir rejoiced my decision and wished me all the good luck in the world. Rajat sir had taught me Economics ever since I was fourteen years old and he was the first one to tell me to leave Economics and pursue a subject that would give me the happiness and satisfaction I deserved.

“You’re made for art. Go spread your wings there.”, he’d always tell me. That is what an ideal teacher sounds like. He is my Guru in the true sense of the word. He motivated me and inspired me and taught me so much more outside the boundaries of reason, logic, and Economics.

Most of my school teachers and the society mocked me behind my back. The general idea goes like this ‘children who can’t do anything else in life, study cinema and media’. What these kinds of people have never realized is that studying cinema is studying every art form and, history, politics, philosophy and psychology in order to understand what Cinema really is.

“Where every art form culminates, Cinema is born.”         

I was well aware of all the mocking and my character analysis going on behind my back, but everything about studying Cinema felt so right that I couldn’t bother about what these pseudo- career counselors had to say about my decision. It wasn’t only a right decision to study Cinema, it was my best decision.

Now back to the narration, Shirin looked on surprised at my rather filmy entry. She was cozily cuddled up in her blanket reading something. She kept looking at me not knowing how to react. I marched in, took off my shoes and sat on my chair angrily, clearly irritated on the unnamed person I’d referred to.

“Don’t look at me that way, I really, really hate him.”, I repeated.

“I hate him too.” She said.

“You don’t even know who I’m talking about.”

“I hate anyone my roomie hates. I think I can take a guess on whom you’re talking about here.”

“You do?”

“Your annoying and evil classmate, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yeah. It’s him.” I sighed, “he’s so irritating! He has to stop me every time I ask some question to the teacher or give my view on anything, he has to oppose me on everything I say and insult me if I brush off his remarks. I mean, what does he think of himself? He knows everything? Can’t I have an individual opinion? Bloody hell that piece of shit!”

“Uh! He’s increasing his tantrums day by day!” Shirin remarked looking equally pissed off at my tormentor. It had been sometime into starting college in Manipal and Shirin and I had become great friends in less than a month.

“He is getting on my nerves. Not only mine, I’m pretty sure, he’s getting on Binayak sir’s nerves as well. Binayak sir looked really cross during the lecture today.”

“Obviously! I’m not even dealing with him and I’m already irritated.”

The hate-conversation about my tormentor went on for a while longer and Shirin repeated how much she hated him and never wanted to see his face. I was starting to feel better and freshened up and made myself some warm milk and sat at my desk staring at the wall, thinking about Binayak sir’s lecture and the assignment he had given.

I had cleaned my room shortly after that fateful afternoon walk to MIC and I had made posters for my wall, decorated it with fairy lights and small hand-painted pictures and organized my desk. It  held all my essentials like my craft supplies, table lamp, books, laptop, water bottles, the memory books that Som, Noddy and Mona had given me and the most beautiful pen-stands. One had a picture of my sister, my mother, and myself, and the other was a gift from Mona on my twenty-first birthday. Mona and I were happily smiling at the camera. I wasn’t homesick anymore, but you always miss your family and the old friends you leave behind. I went through the memory books and looked at those pen-stands and missed my friends back home a lot. Every once in a while I’d look at the pen-stand and wonder how different Manipal would be if Mona, Som and Noddy had come with me.

It was almost eight that night when I was going through some notes and my phone rang, it was my tormentor. I stared at it, angry, irritated, frightened, all at once. I didn’t receive hoping he wouldn’t call a second time. He did. I kept avoiding. I knew too well why he was calling. He had never spoken in a civil tone with me over phone or in person ever since we’d begun our post-graduation in MIC. I didn’t trust him, I didn’t like him and I feared him. I was scared of hearing what he had to say, I was scared of being at the receiving end next day in college for not receiving his calls. Shirin had gone to her friend’s room and I sat there starting to curse my decisions again.

“Come for dinner Little Penguin!” I heard Sakshi’s voice. They all called me Little Penguin because apparently, I behaved like one.  

“What?”

“Dinner, lady, come for dinner.” She said standing at my door.

“Nah! You guys go ahead, I’m not in the mood.”

“I don’t care for your mood. You come.” She marched in and pulled me out of the chair. I went with her obediently. All of us were extremely obedient kids of our Sakshi Amma. We listened to whatever she said and never said ‘no’ twice. If Sakshi tells you to do it, you do it. And I’ll admit, she made life a lot easier with her strictness. All of us would’ve taken ill every second day had it not been for Sakshi and her constant scolding so that we eat properly and eat healthy. She took me by the hand and walked me to the dining hall as if I was her little baby who’d run away the moment she left my hand. I took more than one serving of the curries as per her instructions and sat down to eat. Ramya and Ramitha were already there and I can vaguely remember one of them getting one of Sakshi’s famous scoldings for taking less food. She obeyed Sakshi and took a second serving immediately.

“What is the name of the new girl again?” Ramitha asked.

“I don’t remember.” Sakshi said, thinking hard, “do you remember, Ramya?”

“No…”

“There’s a new girl in your class? How nice!” I said. We had only three students in the class and it was no fun. Trisha and I had fun outside the class whenever my tormentor wasn’t around. But with him near us, we just remained on high alert all the time.

“The new girl is so weird, you know.” Ramitha said taking a spoonful of rice.

“Really?”, Ramya was surprisingly surprised at the statement. “She grew a beard?”, she asked in astonishment.

Skashi and I broke into squeals of laughter and Ramitha hurriedly noted it down. It was almost as if Ramya’s duty to mishear something and Ramitha sincerely noted it down. It has become quite a list by now and everytime we remember one of Ramya’s version of any statement by any of us, we laugh the same. Ramya was the funniest and the most amusing among us. She was effortlessly funny and so sweet!

We laughed a lot that night at dinner. Ramitha read out the list and there were certain gems like ‘something amaze’ became ‘Agumbe’ (the name of a hill on the Western Ghats) and ‘cute meme’ became ‘puke cream’. After dinner we huddled in Ramya’s room and as the night rolled by, I forgot that I was scared of someone who was staying in the same campus and was going to the same class. Their voices and laughter filled the air in that room, and I became engrossed in all the positivity they spread, to worry about anything else. Every night when we met for dinner and talked about the day, laughed together and cracked jokes, I forgot all the worries in the world. I still remember those wonderful nights I had spent with them. The after-dinner conversations with them was my daily dose of happiness!

-Reva.