Edible Name

“Orey! Enti ra nuvvu(hey what did you do)…………!!”, Tejasvi began.

“I just commented back when she commented upon my name. All of us were teasing one another all the while. What was there to feel bad all of a sudden”

“You should not have used ‘edible’ .”

“Well ‘Puri’ is a dish you know that very well and even she does.”

“but that is not her actual name, we call her that.”

“Indeed! and she likes being called that way. Anyways even her actual name ‘Annapurna’ is no less edible. ‘annam’ means  cooked rice.”

Tejasvi searched for words, he could not find, grumped and stood still. The watchman came and asked us to depart as it was 11 in the night and the college stood right in the middle of nowhere.

With a glum kick the engine of the black, Pulser-150cc roared. A strong autumn night wind blew against our faces. The dark silhouettes on the both sides of the road no longer resembled the bright Cashew and Casurina orchards. Instead of the Koel song we now heard the owl’s hoot. It reminded me of Robert frost :

“The woods were lovely dark and deep,

But I had promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

Robert frost had certainly not described the Indian Jungles, for after sunset no one would ever want to be in the vicinity of it.

The Great Buddha once said “Sorrow is not permanent”..... and if you happen to be on mobike the emotion itself gets blown off with the racing wind. Tejaswi had forgotten all about the rough evening he had and was once again his chirruping self.

Barely had we driven a kilometer when the silhouette of a bus materialized. The loud banter  told that it had girls on board. As we grew nearer we could see the college logo upon it. Whoever said girls are always gentle had never seen a bus full of girls. The shrill, loud noise could instill fear in the meanest of the ghouls and terrorise the most ruthless terrorist. Perhaps the government should deploy buses jam-packed with girls instead of Jawans to tackle Maoists. As we passed the we heard a loud wolf whistle. Tejaswi slowed down a bit, it was the same bus that Puri had boarded, Vydehi had occupied the window seat and was catcalling boisterously. Puri was engaged with another girl on the opposite side. We catcalled in unison in response to Vydehi; our loud baritone got drowned in the shrill treble noise while the entire bus rocked in chorus. Unable to bear the ear splitting noise Tejaswi raced the accelerator and soon we were far ahead of the chattering troop.

* The words from Indian languages with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.