Someone Like You by Nikita Singh, Durjoy Datta

seat in the front rows, but I can’t see one. Being studious is a part of my identity and I can’t run away from it, though I was never too much into writing notes. As per my new plan, I wouldn’t be too much into studying either. The day I got the admission letter to ICE, Nagpur and I ripped it open, I had decided that I wouldn’t study as much any more. I was angry that I couldn’t get into IIT, but more than that, I realized that I have been missing out on a lot of things.
    As I look for a seat, someone waves his hand frantically from the last bench. It’s Tanmay. I flash him a smile and climb up the steps to take a seat with the other backbenchers.
    ‘Good morning, class. Welcome to Indian College of Engineering. I hope you find the love of your lives here, because that’s what matters more. Everything else, be it education, jobs or careers … they just come and go. Lovestays. I am Sudeep Wadhwa. I have been a teacher here for the last nineteen years. I’ll be teaching—’
    ‘Did he actually say that?’ Tanmay says. He looks a lot more relaxed today. No sweat, no panting and puffing. ‘He’s a professor here. And he said
that
in the introductory speech?’
    ‘Cool, right? I think things are pretty casual here.’
    ‘I hope so. Or he just might be one of the lenient teachers,’ he says and adjusts his funny spectacles. He carries them off really well. Anyone else would have looked downright crazy. He just looks immensely adorable!
    Prof. Wadhwa tells us that he would be teaching us Mechanics of Solids and jumps right into some basic problems and formulas, even though people have already stopped listening to him. But it does not look like he minds that much. Two minutes into the class and I can tell he is used to talking to the walls.
    ‘Tanmay Srivastava,’ my new friend says. ‘Just in case you forgot my name.’
    ‘Niharika Singh,’ I reply. ‘Just in case
you
forgot mine.’
    ‘I remember.’
    We stay silent for a while after that and try to listen to what Prof. Wadhwa has to say, but it’s just way too boring.
    ‘Are you taking notes?’ I whisper to Tanmay, who is staring intently into his notebook and scribbling something. He occasionally adjusts his spectacles and smiles stupidly at the notebook.
    ‘No,’ he whispers back and pushes his notebook towards me.
    ‘Oh my God!’ I almost exclaim as I peer into the notebook.
    On his notebook is an elaborate caricature of the entire class, the professor, a few students in the front row, him and me. It’s just like those comic strips from the newspapers and magazines! I am amazed.
    ‘That’s me?’ I point at the girl who’s wearing the same clothes as mine. The girl has frizzy, unmanageable hair that is all over the place. ‘Is my hair that bad?’
    ‘Umm … actually, when doing caricatures, you have to magnify the good or bad features to make them resemble the person more. And yes, that’s you.’
    ‘No way! Are those
my
eyes? Are they really as big as footballs?’
    ‘Yes,’ he says and smiles shyly.
    ‘This is amazing,’ I say and look at it more closely.
    He starts to tell me that he has been doing this for over ten years now. He tells me that a lot of people have asked him to pick it up as a career, but he has never wanted to do it for money. He shows me a few more sketches he has made, and each one is more impressive than the last.
    ‘So, where are you from?’ I ask as I look at the caricature again and wonder if my hair is really that bad.
    ‘Barwaha. It’s a small place in Madhya Pradesh. You could not have heard about it.’
    ‘Yes, I haven’t. Was it nice there?’ I ask.
    He looks at my face for a second, as if judging if I’m making fun of him. Satisfied that I’m not, he replies, ‘Yes, it was nice. It’s a small town, but it’s beautiful. We have the Narmada river like one mile away from my home. It was fun …’ I can clearly hear the nostalgia in his tone.
    ‘Nice. I’m sure it’s lovely there. I am