The thought of being able to attend an exam in the prestigious St. Xaviers college had me going “WAAaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAOoooow!!!”. It was a chance of a lifetime for an ordinary student from WBUT, to spend around 3 hours there. It was like a dream come true, (although I had never dreamt of it :D)
We started off on our journey around 8 am. Took a bus to Park street. Getting off there, we asked a policeman about St. Xaviers college. He directed us towards another road and we went off walking. It is no mean distance to walk, when it is a summer day. After some time, we saw a crowd in a distance.The first thing I noticed was a huge red building with yellow bordered windows. It was the St. Xaviers. There were some banners hanging outside. They were about the reunion of the alumni and some tech fest. I asked my friend Avinandan if I was dreaming, and he pinched me 😉 . There were around a hundred people. All waiting. The studious and serious were revising. Some were chatting on phone, mostly girls. And as usual, guys were gawping at the perfect figurines. There was one with so much of eye makeup, one might have mistaken her for having 4 eyelids! 🙂
Around half an hour later, we were asked to make a queue. There was a brief rush and the footpath was clear. The queue started advancing. Being at the last, I was looking at all the heads ahead. It was funny to see all those heads in a line, swaying to and fro, bobbing up and down. Reminded me of centipedes. Once inside, we were directed to our designated class rooms. My place was room number 12, 1st row from the door, 3rd bench. Then there was the usual exam scene. The room was buzzing. At the stroke of 10, the room fell silent. The questions were twisting my brain out of shape and I was telling myself “Shoot, how am I gonna spend 2 hours???”
Anyhow, I managed to spend the time answering 30 questions out of 60. Afterwards, I was very thirsty. Searching for water, I went further inside. A corridor led me to the playground. Rooted to a spot I did a 360 degree turn, and once again, I was going “WAAaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAOoooooooww!!!”. It was magnificent and huge.
There were some foreigner students taking snaps. With so many blondes all around, I was a bit uneasy. Walking past them, I was humbled. I wondered, “তোরাই জীবনে কিছু করলি, আমরা শুধু বোকার মতন তাকিয়ে তাকিয়ে দেখেই যাব ” (You r great, you guys have actually done something in your life, we the fools will always be left watching)
We were walking back to Park street bus stop. On the way, we walked past “Music World” store and “Flurrys“. Flurrys reminded me of a scene from the film “Parineeta“, where Sanjay Dutt bets a game of cards with Riya Sen. By now, I was quite used to so many blondes roaming around. Thus the Flurrys didn’t bother me much. Then there was the historic “Asiatic society“!! I was thrilled. For a moment, it felt like things were coming right out of my old history books. Afterwards, we walked to Esplanade. There I witnessed for the first time in my life, a gay couple. Among the two, one looked like a normal guy, but the other looked like a girl to the bone 😉