Escape Plan 101

I felt suffocated, the air was thick with misery, and i stood there having my eyesight alternate between the gloomy sunken eyes of my parents, and the rage-rich beady eyes of the Pricipal…

I was in a dilemma, whether to faint or cry my heart out. Sweat seeped erratically through my pores, 

so did tears from the eyes of the other girls, running through their faces, white as snow….(Due to fear, of course ! ).

Let's rewind to the night before, to get a hold of the situation here.😅

Hey there !

 I am Ananya.

Sorry for the sudden start of narration, couldn't stop myself as i relive those bone-chilling series of events.

But , Hey, haven't we all have our fair share of tales !

I am going to just walk you through my experience of getting kicked out of my own hostel !

Badass for a girl of my upbringing, Am i right !!!

I am usually the silent type, but that night at the studyroom I felt adventurous as Mehrin (name changed for obvious reasons !) started planning randomly about sneaking out for a matinee.

The hype was ectastic,and we all got drawn in by her raw charishma. I was sceptical at first, but i ended up chiming in, entranced by her energetic storytelling.

The plan was to sneak out of campus, go for a movie in the city, and reach back before sunset.

I thought this wouldn't go far as another bed-side chatter, because it was a very conservative Indian Girl's Hostel, and it is strict as it gets, on par with a Central Jail !

But me being me, gave my own contribution to the broth of rising expectations, by suggesting we should go the very next day, because it was Valentine's 

(None of us had Boyfriends….Yet!).

And as i expected, everyone got riled up, even to the point many had done packing up by the time the discussion ended ! ( or suspended because Mehrin dozed off !..).

We really wanted to get out of Jail-esque routines and were desperate for that breath of fresh air and freedom, so we sought to take a leap of faith, we didn't care about the risks involved, we were fed up of it !

( A life-time of overthinking can have that effect on you !)

And off we went, sneaking way like little hobbits, lurching through shadows, away from prying eyes.

We finally caught our bus (Whew!!) and we were off to our Neverland!

We reached our place and refreshed ourselves with some chips and light snacks.

 (Lunch was due for an hour, so we had to call it quits by stuffing ourselves with chips and goodies !)

We roamed around in the mall, and gloated over at the boutiques, enjoyed the freedom of not having to be watched over by some warden or our parents.

We eventually got another bus to catch the noon show at the theatre.

Imagine our suprise when we spotted our seniors,

Who "happend" to just be there when their boyfriends "happend" to pick them from our hostel !

We had a mutual understanding of not speaking of this encounter to another soul.

The movie was good ,to say the least,( i enjoyed the popcorn mostly !)

 But that was a mere interval of happiness for the doom to come…

We hurried to our hostel, not even bothering to have a proper lunch  (sigh ! ) and hurried before the gates get closed. We ran into 2 of our senior boys, who acted like seers, and warned us of our predicament which was about to happen.

(They were more concerned about us than we were!)

They even coached us on how to coax the Principal to letting us off easy.( Which was utterly useless by the way !)

This ended up increasing our fear of the impending shit-storm looming before us.

The faculties were "kind" enough to call up parents and add more fuel to the bonfire ( our misery !)

I stood there petrified against the stone-cold glare of my headmistress mother. The other girls had there own scuffle with their parents, some even dramatic !

Dad was easy-going as always, but even he had a hint of gloom buried deep in his wrinkled face, but he hid it behind lest it hurt me.

( Dad even tried to smile to make me better.)

The Principle walked in as the sun vanished from the azure sky, as did our hopes of escaping his torment.

He rambled off about our atrocities, even cooking up new ones as he went on, to the point where bystanders might mistaken us for harlots or witches of some kind !.

The whirlwind of insults hurled at us was harder to swallow for our parents than us.

 (We were used to it anyways !)

The guilt and gloom which was weighing us down was only lifted when he mentioned that he was going to kick us out, we all had our internal sigh of relief when we heard that !

Had it been the same with the boys, this whole debacle would have ended with a slap or two,at most, and nobody would have blinked an eye, and would have went on with their lives.

But girls in India have always been taught to be docile and subservient to the patriarchy, and we went against the system, and we will be haunted by it for the rest of our lives..

We knew we would have to face the consquences, but we were secretly proud of ourselves !

 As we packed our bags and went down the stagnant stairs, looked on by hordes of haughty eyes, wardens and hostelmates alike.

We glanced back at the Jail we once called our hostel, with a wide grin like those freed inmates in the movies, 

and we moved on to our next venue for our adventures, The P.G hostels.

But that's another story for another time !….

                                     

  By Fulan Qadsi