The Girl Who Joined Infantry

CHAPTER - 11

-" Tanisha, get out of the bathroom, I also need to go." Rubina banged on the bathroom door for the 7th time in 1minute. Yeah, that's the level of tention inside our PG room, on the morning of our written test, or Common Entrance Exam.

Yeah, after a not so long wait, the day is finally here.

You can also thus understand, what was taking me so long there.

When I came out of the bathroom, Rubina almost pushed me to get in. And I saw why. Our other roommate Zunal was stirring, about to get up. And our fourth roommie Shabita was wide awake. Now the struggle for bathroom would start

The tention of our tests had made it's way even to the head of our PG owner, Sumita auntie. I could hear Sumita auntie cooking for us, quite noisily, I must say. But given how great a person she is, I can not complain.

I had a normal morning chitchat with my roomies, before Rubina came out. She asked for my current affairs book to have a last minute look, since her own is printed in her head.

Rubina Dube is a mysterious girl. There is something off about her.

For instance, she never calls her parents. Only once have I seen her to talk to her "Bhaiya". And she will always stare longingly whenever mine or our other roommate's parents called. I don't even know where her house is.

Then this month when I had my periods, the cramps were really bad. I was talking to Zunal about cramps being the worse thing in the universe when Shabita joined in. But Rubina just looked grossed out at the idea of the topic spoken out loud. Up until then I knew that whenever there's a conversation about periods and cramps, every girl has to join in. Rubina was the only exception.

Then there is the fact that she was completely chill about the CEE. The only time I had seen minimal panic in her eyes is since morning.

While she studied the current affairs, I revised some abbreviation, terminology and a bit of chemistry.

Rubina finished revision of what she thought was important and then took out her long note on computer science she had collected from several books from the library.

After one and half hour of so, we were called for breakfast. By that time Rubina's panic has subsided. Me? Not so much.

As I entered the dining hall, I felt shocked. " Auntie, what have you done?"

There were steaming hot parathas, paneer, egg curry, and raita. Though Sumita auntie is not the kind of PG owner back in Howrah who would feed you three days old roti and cold daal, this amount of lovely food was unexpected.

-" To write your exams properly, you need good food." Sumita auntie said happily.

-" But how do we eat so much?" Rubina said.

-" Simple, grab a paratha, dip it in the paneer, and pop it into your mouth. " Zunal said as she came into the dining hall and tried to grab a paratha.

But before she could, Sumita auntie snatched it out of her reach. " Paratha is for Tanisha and Rubina, you get simple roti."

Foodie Zunal looked horrified, " I don't get paneer?"

-"In the lunch." was Sumita auntie's nonchalant reply. As Zunal sulked away into the room, we sat down to eat. Rubina, being not a very big fan of non-veg, only ate with the paneer, while I only took the egg curry. After we were done, some parathas and most of the curries were untouched, much to Sumita auntie's disappointment, and Zunal's excitement.

As Zunal came running in to gobble up rest of the parathas, we slinged our bags on our shoulders and bid our goodbye to sumita auntie( not forgetting to touch her feet and take her blessings, of course). We then left for the CEE. On our way, I thought to call mom, and took out the phone, but before I could, she herself called me.