Love, How does it feel?

• 8

Shruti

The lectures got over. I saved all my running notes of the lectures scribbled on my apple iPad's notepad and arranged my bag to leave for the canteen.

A new bitterness was taking life in me. I had no idea how. It made me feel irritated, helpless and hurt all at once.

A certain feeling I could never put a name on till now, intensified as I saw our seniors settled on their usual table having their lunch and sharing jokes.

A certain Sidharth nabbed my soul, without my notice. His brusque behaviour bothered me. His aloofness towards me irritated me. His closeness and amiable nature with others constricted my heart.

Now that I've seen and worked in the same project as him for almost two months, I've come to realise that he had lied to us that night.

"That's how I am"

He had said, but, he wasn't like that with others. And, the fact that he was different to me, bothered me. Not in a good way, to be precise.

As I served myself a food platter and got to a vacant seat, my eyes unknowingly registered two beautiful girls seated on the both sides of him as he wiped his gold rimmed specs with his handkerchief.

The way they were laughing with each other and were so engulfed in their world stinged my senses. Seeing him from the last couple of weeks closely, I've known his friend circle now, which consisted a bunch of three boys and two girls.

But, every time I see him talking so amicably with those girls from the super sixty or even, Rishita or Swetha, it doesn't feel right. It just doesn't settle well with my palpitating heart.

I sighed, eating my lunch as my roommates had already completed it long before and I was struck in the extra lectures, they bunked.

The mighty project for the Royal Science Exhibition has been proceeding gracefully. We were halfway done with the soil sample testing for microbial growth and even, the fluid density of various gradients. As said before, the students of physics department under Sidharth Sir created a mini version personifying that of the gravitational field of Jupiter, said to be the planet with highest gravity pull by using iron bars compressed under high temperature and pressure and another contrast set-up, replicating that of the world's least gravity zone, Hiriwadunna, Sri Lanka.

It was a major milestone in our project, inching us a step closer to success.

In this final month, we would be toiling to calculate and predict the peculiar impact of microgravity of microbial growth, hence, evolution of life, in general that will be a stepping stone towards achieving easier ways to terraform (i.e, begin life in) planets like Venus and Mercury and perhaps, establish life there.

After lunch, I walked towards the lab as we had been starting early these days since, only a month is left for us.

"Kunal Sir has instructed us to run a PCR on the specimen bacterial gene and create various virulent strains of it." Rishita and Swetha informed me as I immersed myself in work.

In an hour, our job was done. So, we proceeded to the next step, that was to gauge the growth of bacteria at high temperatures and identify those strains for further procedures.

"Should I put this sample of virulent strain of bacteria to test, sir?" I asked Kunal sir, who nodded.

I wore my regular white gloves and straightened my glass shield as I walked towards the tube furnaces, which was maintained at a temperature of 750° Celsius.

Handling the sample in one hand as I opened the knob of the tube furnaces in my other hindlimb, I was thrown away by an earth-shattering push.

I could hear frantic calls all around as I felt someone picking me up, before I drastically blanked out.