𝐇𝐮𝐦 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐇𝐚𝐢𝐧

H S S H #03

Nishant reached Diya’s house at 5 minutes to 7 p.m. in the evening. She sat at her study table. Her room had the typical girlie look- extra clean, extra cute and extra pink. Stuffed toys and posters with cheesy messages like "I am the boss" adorned the walls of the room.

Nishant sat on the chair. Diya's brown eyes looked at him with full attention. Nishant couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was.

"So which areas of Maths are you strong in?" Nishant asked.

"None really," she said.

"Algebra?"

"Nope."

"Trigonometry?"

"Whatever."

"Calculus?"

She raised her eyebrows as if Nishant had mentioned a horror film.

"Really?" Nishant said, disturbed at such indifference to his favorite subject.

"Actually, I don't like Maths much."

"Hmmmm," Nishant said and tried to look like a thoughtful professor. "You don't like it much or you don't understand a few things and so you don't like it yet? Maths can be fun, you know."

"Fun?" she said with a disgusted expression.

"Yes."

She sat up straight and shook her head.

"Let me make myself clear. I positively hate Maths. For me it occupies a place right up there with cockroaches and lizards. I get disgusted, nauseated and depressed by it. Between an electric shock or a Maths test, I will choose the former. I heard some people have to walk two miles to get water in Rajastan. I would trade my Maths problems for that walk everyday. Maths is the worst thing ever invented by man. What were they thinking? Language is too easy, so let's make up some creepy symbols and manipulate them and haunt every generation of kids. Who cares if sin theta is different from cos theta? Who wants to know the expansion of the sum of cubes?"

"Wow, that was some reaction," Nishant said, his mouth open.

"And fun? If Maths is fun, then getting a tooth extraction is fun. A viral infection is fun. Rabies shots are fun."

"I think you are approaching it the wrong way," Nishant said calmly.

"Oh ho ho, don't go there. I am not approaching it. I have lived, compromised, struggled with it. It is a troubled relationship we have shared for years. From class one to college, this subject does not go away. People have nightmares about monsters. I have nightmares about surprise Maths tests. I know you scored a hundred and you are in love with it. But remember, in most parts of the world, Maths means only one thing to students."

Diya stopped to breathe. Nishant had the urge to get up and run away.

How could he tame a wild beast?

"What?"

"Goosebumps. See I already have them," she said, pulling her T-shirt's sleeve up to her elbow. Nishant thought the little pink dots on her skin were more from her emotional outburst than Maths.

Nishant also noticed Diya's thin arm. It was so fair you could see three veins running across. Her hand had deep lines, with an exceptionally long lifeline. Her fingers seemed long as they were so thin. She had applied a glittery silver-white nailpolish only on the outer edge of the nails.

"What?" she said as Nishant checked her arm for a moment too long.

Nishant immediately opened a textbook.