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WATCH Jas, her first day on the field is turning out to be magical. While she can barely keep her feet on earth, her opponents are down on their knees. Even her mother would have been proud of her. "Great victory, girls," says the coach to the merry huddle in the dressing room, "and well played, Jas." "Don't encouraging her," says Jasminder's mother, barging in. "Come Jasminder, come this instant; with football, football, football. I'm sick of it. You should use your head more often than you use your feet." "Why big mama, I've been givin' her this advice myself," says the coach. "Shut up!" thunders the dragon inside her mother. She drags her out as quickly as she had entered. "Power and speed, I always wondered how Jas got these; now I know it's genetic," says the coach and the team is rolling on the floor, laughing out loud. Outside: One tight slap! "What for, mother?" "So that I can turn your head... towards the university. Don't you know tomorrow is your first day in university. Conserve your energy for that." "Mama, I know." "No you don't. Sleep now and wear a nice salwar-kameez to class tomorrow," "Mama!" The next day: No one has ever seen a girl like her in the university. Though she always wanted to be noticed when she walked out to her class on her first day in the university, this wasn't her idea of popularity. A tall girl walks up to her. "Hi, I'm Susan." "I'm Jas," "What this you're wearing," "It's a Punjabi dress," "A what? Anyway, it looks nice on you, makes you stand out, though I'm sure they are not going to like it." "They who?" "They." If Susan hadn't pointed it out to her, Jas wouldn't have known how close she was to danger. The infamous boy gang of the campus was at five yards and sizing her up. Their leader walks up to Jas and thrusts a little wooden box into her face. "Beware, don't pick a number from the box," Susan whispers. "Pick a number," orders Mike, the gang-leader. She picks one, but before she can see it, Mike grabs it and kicks it to Scar. "Square it, Scar." "Done." "Throw it to Dan." "Dan, add ten times the original number. Now throw it to Bill." "Bill, add 25 and take the square root (rounding to the nearest whole number)" "Jab, now you subtract her original number from Bill's and pass it back to me." They play. "Missey, you have to tell me the number I'm holding, because that's your only passport to the university." "Five." "Five? Five it is! You are through!" "They are in mathematics class. They do it just for kicks, but how could you tell without looking what number you had picked?" "I used my head, Susan," says Jas. Even her mother would have been proud of her. (Write at The Tribune or adityarishi99@yahoo.co.in |
