I LIKED HER BECAUSE, I DISLIKED HER!

Dear readers I am not going to create suspense by meandering and offering descriptions here. This is a story of a girl who happened to be my scribe named Ramya 24 years ago. The incident did not happen 24 years back, in fact she was named at that time.

I know many people might have started to calculate the year in which she was born. Not needed, I will tell in the middle. First of all who is a scribe? A scribe is a person who writes for visually challenged students during their exams. In my school every student has to take up the exam with the help of scribes when they reach ninth standard. But for us it was from tenth standard. The management newly changed the custom after us. Now you could have come to an idea about me. Yes I am a visually challenged person. Unfortunately, no longer a school student!

This incident took place nearly 7 years before. It was the time when I was doing my eleven^th standard. Unlike my ten^th and twelf^th standard I did not concentrate on my study much since it was eleven^th. In Tamilnadu, only ten^th and twelf^th standard students have to take up the government exam. I thought, I was literally free. But my fate conducted a great exam by sending her as a scribe. I thought passing is sufficient in eleven^th standard. It was the quarterly exam I still remember. More over it was English second paper. I just studied some supplementary text and grammar things here and there. There came the storm and sat in front of me.

“Hi”

She wished me. Everyone will wish her back. Won’t I?

“Good after noon sister” that is how we used to address our scribes, readers and others provided if they are young enough. Then I kept myself very cool and calm but did not know that I will be frozen soon.

Actually I don’t have the habit of talking too much to the strangers especially with girls. The question paper came she started asking me questions and converting my words into letters and sentences. Initially I was answering well since they were all studied portions. Later I started to contemplate much. Obviously I was not sure of few answers. I thought of managing through my acquaintances about the subject.

But she was not like others; her English, her slang, her pronunciation, and her accent were doing something inside me. I know everything is almost same but her tongue and lips split them into many. I have never heard that kind of slang anywhere. Simultaneously, my own mind joined the question paper and began to chuck more questions to me. “How am I going to handle her?” “How can she talk English like this?” “How can I finish this exam?”

Nonetheless I was not fascinated by her because I was finding difficulty in expressing answers.

While she was asking questions, she added another question.

“Didn’t you study?”

There I felt wild tremors in my heart, without giving information it soon scattered all over my body. I managed to keep myself in control. No scribe has asked this question to me in my life. Moreover, even our English teacher did not explain anything about this chapter.

I didn’t know how to reply. I said “this is out of portion”

No reaction from her side she was traveling to the next question. But one thing was sure at that time. Yes, I was scared of her, that too first time I was feeling ashamed in front of a scribe. Thank god she didn’t ask me any other questions from her side otherwise I would have been deceased. At last we finished the exam.

“Bye Vinoth” she said, which made me shock and gave me immense surprise. First time I unlocked my lips and asked her

“How do you know?” I was very confident that I didn’t tell her my name.

“I saw your identity card” she said and went.

Actually I kept my identity card in my pocket as soon as the exam began. So she should have noticed my name at the moment when she came and sat in front of me. Right from the beginning, she had been proving that she was smart and brilliant. Otherwise she could not have noticed it that too with in a fraction of second. Her supremeness had done the damage inside me. I didn’t have the answer at that time for disliking her. I didn’t know why, but I commanded myself

“I should not meet her again, and she should not be my scribe anymore.”

But this life is beautiful always. It would project persons whom we don’t want to see and it would hide them when we are eager to meet again.

 Will continue.