Failed attempts

I wanted to be called a bitch, the cool one. Somehow, I thought, smoking and boozing will help me for that. My classmates already tagged me arrogant, so it wouldn't be difficult to get the status I wanted. I asked Mr . X, to teach me how to smoke. He thought, I was kidding and took no notice of it. When I said, I was very serious about smoking, he said OK and told me to try 'More', which is commonly used by the women smokers. We fixed a day for that. Mr. X bought the cigarette for me while coming from his hostel. We met at the sports room near the football ground. Smoking and drinking are not allowed in the campus. but everybody knows, it is the safest place if one is little better than an idiot. So we waited till a love couple had their moonlight crap stories and we had some dirty jokes on them till they left the place. He took out the cigarette and the match box from his pocket. More was brown in colour and too long for starters like me. I looked at it with wonder telling myself, 'this is how a cigarette looks like!". I made some trials to hold it in style without lightening. Mr. X heard some noise from the room. He asked me to hide the cigarette. We checked if there were any inside the room, but there was none, and that could have been just the rattling because of the wind. I lighted the cigarette. Mr. X told me all the basic lessons how I shall not make it wet with saliva. how to hold it between lips and how to inhale the smoke. how I shall make the smoke go up in the wind pipe. I tried well to do it sincerely. But in the 'fag' end, that seemed not at all exciting and I had a slight choke. That was how I dropped out of my smoking classes.

This was another time, when I wanted to try a drink. By that time, Mr. X wasn't surprised, for he understood that I wasn't the same I look. Nashi also joined me. Sowmy and Raj, who would straight away oppose a scandal like this, were not in the campus. So that day only, we planned for the drink party at our favourite place, the football ground. Mr. X and me left for Lingampally to get the drink and told Nashi to be at the ground by 8.30pm. He bought a quarter bottle of some local brand and some eatables to have with drink. We were back in the campus and were waiting at the football ground for Nashi. Mr. X was a bit nervous and started imagining what if that security guard asks me to show what is in it? What if we are caught and are sent to VC's room?. He scared me with all his apparitions. We both were in hurry to finish it off in no time. But Nashi didn't show up. I called Nashi and said something nasty for her unpunctuality. She was hurt. When she finally came there, we settled on the ground in a circle with the bottle at the center of the circle. Nashi was calm, and didn't speak much. I observed that and said "Now, what? You already half-spoiled this beautiful evening by coming late. So you don't need to look at me like that" Nashi broke down her composed state and queued in to my words saying that she wants an explanation for the nasty thing I said on phone. Oh! these women! we say hundred things, when irritated. we don't exactly know the meaning and logic for each word. We both flared up and fired words at each other. When it had been too un-manageable even for Mr. X, I took my bicycle and left for the hostel.

PS: Mr. X doesn't want me to reveal his name though half the people who read it will know who he is.