When I turned nineteen, I was shipped away to a small, quaint city township three hours via train from home. With my national college entrance exam scores', I got into a quite famous dental college and became a dental student. Aveni was visibly upset with the news, as it meant I no longer could drop by her apartment whenever I wished and have our bingeing sessions together.
After giving the 12th Board exams, I had a sudden urge to just get rid of college in my to-do list and explore myself. Aveni, on the other hand, decided to skip engineering and give her family's trusted economics field a try, which surprisingly she got into and started college. This was the first time when we did something else at the same time and often felt disconnected from each other all the time. We never got the chance to hang out more often, especially once the winter season hit, for it marks the time for all the students to prepare for the national entrance tests that are held in the months of April and May.
I took the entrance test once again and surprisingly got into my chosen top dental college. One day I boarded the train to leave for the new city. Aveni came to see me off and said, "Don't you dare forget me. I'll find you at the end of the world to remind you about me."
"I'll never forget who gets me better than my own parents, girl. Our friendship is in good hands," I said.
"Take this." Aveni made me a four-clover lucky charm matching bracelet using green and white beads and red thread. "For good luck and happiness."
"Aveni. I'll miss you." I cried and hugged her.
It felt like I was going to miss a huge part of my soul in the new city. The train rang its horn. I had to board the train now; otherwise, I would miss the train along with my luggage.
"Bye, Aveni. I'll text you as often as I can, and I'll always come back to see you. Don't forget me," I said, as I waved my hand from my train seat window.
"I won't. I'll never. "Aveni said.
Settling into the new city was hard. A whole new language and an entirely different culture awaited me. People from all over the state came to study in this college. I didn't have anyone to talk to properly and didn't have anyone who could help me through the sudden changes. The college dorms were a whole new level of new experience.
My roommate was a final-year student who was soon going to become an intern. She was preparing for her exam when I shifted into her room. She gave such an intense stare that scared me, and I tried my level best not to make a single noise. I felt so suffocated in the room in the initial days that I would just quietly leave the room and sit on the dark, poorly lit staircase with my headphones, even though it was a place full of blood-hungry mosquitoes ready to eat.
Three days into shifting into the dorms, we had the orientation programme and the white coat ceremony. That's when, for the first time, I met Sandy and Padma. While I took the college bus to go to college for the first time, my nervousness made me super queasy. That's when I first met Sandy. I still remember her first sentence.
"Uncle, does this bus go to Government Dental College?" She asked the bus conductor.
"Kid, this bus goes to the bus stop of the university. From there you have to take filler cars to go to the department. Hop into the bus," he said.
"Ah, first year like me." I sighed out of pure relief. Finally someone of my year who I could talk to.
"Excuse me, I have a seat. Would you like to sit?" I approached her.
"Sure, thank you so much." She said, as she sat next to me.
"Hi, my name is Sannidhi, but you can call me Sandy." Sandy introduced herself.
"Hi. I am Katerina," I said.
"Katrina?" she mispronounced.
"No, Kate-rina," I corrected her.
"Katerina?" she tried.
"Yeah," I congratulated her.
"Your name is difficult to pronounce for my thick tongue. It's fine if I call you Rina?" she asked.
"I mean, if there are no Rinas in our class, why not?" I accepted the proposal.
"I know I am asking a very obvious question, but I am asking anyway. Are you also a first-year dental student?" I asked cautiously.
"I wanted to ask the same question too. Yes, I am. Just joined this year." She squealed.
"Oh my god. Me too. Apparently the previous year's students have their exams going on, so even they are first years too. It's so difficult to thread between people here. There are so many rules and regulations that I have no idea how they make sense." I unleashed my bottled-up words.
"You heard about them too? I have been getting so many stank eyes for the past three days because I am not following all the rules, but I don't even know the rules properly. Nobody is telling us anything, and they expect us to know beforehand." Sandy started chatting right away.
"So, where are you from?" I asked.
"All the way from the coastal area, girlie. I was born and brought up in the sea. Where are you from?" She flashed her beautiful smile, which had the most perfect alignment I had ever seen in my life. She looked so gorgeous that I sat still for some time, just processing her beauty. It made sense that she was from the coast, for she had an air of freedom and playfulness beneath the kindness and sweetness she exuded.
"The capital," I said.
"All the way from the capital? Seriously? No wonder why you give the air of, you know, soft luxury," Sandy exclaimed.
"Soft luxury?" I asked. I was the thriftiest in my family.
"Yeah, you have a way of speaking and being put together that makes even cheap things feel expensive. I mean, it's a good thing." Sandy tried to do damage control.
I laughed and said, "Thanks for the compliment. You look gorgeous, by the way. You have a beauty that makes people notice you," I said, kindly.
"Thanks." Sandy blushed.
The ten-minute bus ride that I thought would be a nightmare between unknown people became much better than I expected.
We both walked together to the auditorium, where postgraduate students were waiting for us to sign in our names, phone numbers and email addresses in the register and handed us a pamphlet regarding the events taking place in the ceremony. We took our respective seats, for they were already allotted. Fortunately, we both were seated nearby. There was an empty seat between the two of us that didn't fill until the last minute.
"Sorry, so sorry. Excuse me. Coming through." A girl came and sat on that seat while stumbling on the way.
"I am sorry. Did I hurt you?" She asked me.
"No, not at all," I assured her.
"I am so sorry; I thought I was late, for I overslept and missed the bus. So I took a cab, which dropped me at the wrong gate, so I had to walk to the car station. But I am terrible with directions, so I lost my way. Thank goodness that I found a fellow year, and I came with her. Sorry, did I introduce myself? Hi, my name is Padma." Padma said so much in such a short time that it took me and Sandy a while to understand what she was talking about.
"Oh, hi. I am Katerina, and she is Sannidhi, but you can call her Sandy." I introduced us.