When Love Is In Air

chapter 3

NETRA and SAMEER

Netra and Sameer were childhood friends.They knew each other since they both had been in diapers!Netra is 4 months older to Sameer.They stay in the same building.While Netra stays on the first floor Sameer inhabits the second floor.

They had played together as kids,they still arrange the yearly pujas and the new year parties together and share a number of big as well as small secrets.They were inseperable from the start itself.

One afternoon I had come to Netra's place as we had planned to go for shopping.Netra was getting ready and I as well as Archana aunty,Netra's mom, knew she will take heaps of time to get ready.So aunty and I began to chat.Our pass time.

Aunty is a little shy when it comes to make talks with new people.But over the years, she perfectly got used to a bunch of crazy teenagers like us who broke into their friends homes and used it as it was their own.We still break into anyone's house anytime.This has definately lessened now but has not ceased completely.

So that day I don't know how our conversation turned from the scorching heat to Netra but it did turn somehow and I was enlightened by Netra's childhood.

'Netra was not always like what she is now.'Aunty began.'She has changed a lot.And by change I mean a good change.As you know Sameer and Netra have been best friends since childhood,Sameer always insisted his friends to take Netra in their boyish games.As a result of which Netra grew up as a tomboy.She used to wear T-shirts and shorts right from the time she started comprehending things.In order to match the boys in every way, she did not allow me to inculcate the girly manners in her.She thoroughly detested girls wearing frocks and skirts.Can you imagine that?' Aunty asked.Who could? For the present Netra did not display a single hint of a tomboy.Wasn't it her a few minutes back who asked me for my company to the mall as she intended to buy a classy one piece for her and Sameer's upcoming date?

Seeing my surprised face she must have got my answer so she continued ' Netra still doesn't like anyone challenging her.She will prove herself to be right till the end.At that time its as if her mind stops working.She really doesn't fear anything then.You know when she and Sameer were about 4-5 years of age,Sameer told her that she could not jump down this cupboard because she was a girl.' aunty pointed a 5 feet cupboard that was placed in a corner of their living room to show it to me.'I was busy in the kitchen but the next thing I heard was a loud thump.I ran to the living room immediately.Ria,I was so relieved to find Netra sitting in front of the cupboared and happily showing her 'muscles' to Sameer.My God! But later when Sameer went to his home, a limping Netra came to me and told me that she jumped from the cupboard to proove herself strong and in all this she had hurt her leg.She had actually sprained her leg.'aunty shook her head and I couldn't help but laugh.

'Oh yeah.I have seen her that way.' I nodded still laughing and then told her about the day when a guy in our economics class got in an arguement with her that the economics teacher was a woman with whom no one would dare to mess.Netra's nothing-is-impossible-for-me senses were activated and this girl told the guy to shut up and note that the next economics lecture would be a mass bunk!He was also warned to keep his butt away from what she was about to do.

I and Abha pulled her aside and told her she was landing herself in a pool of danger.But no,her mind was already making plans for the 'mass bunk ' and I knew, being her friend I would help her and thus land myself in the same pool.

In the time gap between the end of the ongoing and the start of the next lecture,I, Netra, Mahi and Abha found everyone who was in our economics class and 'informed' them that our economics teacher was reported to be very ill because of her pregnancy and that she went home in the middle of the day itself.So there was no economics lecture but everyone was to head straight home without wandering here and there.If they were found by any teacher of the college,they would be dealt by the eco teacher herself.