Playing Her Lover

Part 6 - Somewhat Different

Sameera was staring out the window when the bus arrived at her stop. She wondered why Swara was so hurt by her stating the obvious. Indu was a predator and opportunist. And come on, a blind person could tell that Siddharth and Mirzab were... homosexuals. She was roused out of her reverie by the person beside her, who signalled to her that her stop was here. She picked her bag up and rushed down. Pushing her worries aside, she wondered what she would text Raghav about that day. She would probably talk to him about the practice...

At her own home, Indu was in deep thought. She had misjudged Swara. 'I thought that she was just someone who talked and did absolutely nothing to back her words up, but I'm pleasantly surprised.' She felt bad about judging Swara. It was not like she hadn't any reason to, however. Nobody had stood up for her in the past two years of her life. People either cussed at her at every given chance or completely ignored her existence. This was why finally graduating from 10th grade and going to a completely new school was such a boon for her. At least she could get through the day without people she barely knew giving her dirty looks.

'Don't get me wrong though - there's no way I'm becoming friends with her. Having friends is not a pleasant experience. Ever.'  She looked at their group chat, where Archana ma'am had written that their next rehearsal would be in a couple of days and that she would pop in that day since she was free. The messages were interlaced with a generous amount of puppy gifs, in classic Archana ma'am style. Indu smiled and flopped onto the bed for her nap. 

On the day of the next rehearsal, Siddhu and Mirzab decided to sit next to each other in class. It felt like a natural decision, since both of them, though very boisterous, had very few actual friends in the class. Both were smiling and laughing as they left for practice that day - though both were praying profusely, hoping that this rehearsal too, would not end in absolute disaster.

They were, for a change, the first ones in the class that day. They threw their bags down and animatedly started talking about the day when Sameera walked in. Siddhu gave her a huge smile and wave, while Mirzab gave her only a glance and went back to his conversation. Sameera chose not to respond to Siddhu. She sat down near a window and closed her eyes - trying to take a quick nap after the exhausting school day. Indu walked in a minute later and did the same. Archana ma'am and Swara entered at the same time and the others rose.

"Okay, kids! How was school today?" She asked, her exhaustion apparent. 
"It was very tiring ma'am... Our Maths teacher decided to take 2 extra periods today" Sameera groaned. 
"Oh, you poor things... Okay, take a small break and look over your scripts first. Have you memorized any scenes?" 
"Ma'am we practised the first scene yesterday, but we weren't able to get it memorized." Siddhu quipped.
"Hmm... Did you look into the jatre scene? It's a very important one, so do that today, and do one thing - from now on, whenever you schedule practice, also set one or two scenes for that day. Let everyone memorize at least some key lines in that and come. You'll be wasting less time here."

Sameera stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Yes - as if she was going to delegate time in her day for this. She opened her script and began memorizing a couple of lines, but let her mind wander wherever it wished to go. Before she knew it, Archana ma'am called both her and Indu to the centre of the room.

Sameera and Indu stood at two separate points and pretended to shop around in the jatre market. Indu glances at Sameera, and is, according to the script, 'hit by a bolt of lightning. The result of Indu trying to emulate this expression, however, only led to her looking as if she was spaced out, her brain was stuffed with hay. As the scene progressed, Sameera missed most of her lines. Indu got all her lines correct but was so stiff while acting with Sameera, that nothing was conveyed. She would be much better if she wasn't playing with Sameera.