5 minutes

It was a quite Friday morning. After a long streak of cloudy mornings, it was the time for to Sun finally grace us with its presence. As I was walking out of my hostel doors, I sneaked a glimpse of my watch. 9:00AM! I am late! I rushed towards my cycle. Unlocked it, jumped on it and pedaled with all my strength and stamina to make it to the tutorial class on time. It was the race against time itself. And lets face it- I ain’t that fast!

As I cycled to the main road going to Faculty Divisions, I noticed a rickshaw-wala in half sweater going in the opposite direction. May be an acquaintance was riding the rickshaw, it was too late for social etiquette to be observed. As I made my way through fast moving crowd, I noticed less markings of bird shit on road as compared to other days, may be “Winter is Going”.

I nodded to a couple of friends who were returning from their early morning class. May be they nodded back too, I was cycling way too fast to notice anyway. Had a look at my watch again, 9:03AM and I had just crossed Gandhi Bhawan Stairs (almost half way to the class). Observing the crowd movement pattern, current speed and temperature of wind, I decided to increase the pace with hope to make it to class by 9:06 AM with an error of 1 minute at max.

The saplings near Krishna Stairs looked greener and younger and there was a group of students making their way to NAB from Krishna Bhawan. There were two choices in front of me: either increase my speed cut them in their path or slowdown and let them pass first. I decided to pedal with all the strength left in my calf muscles and toes almost as if my life depended on it…… Phew! Just crossed them. Finally found a parking space next to a purple lady bird, locked my ride in hurry and rushed to the stairs. Skipped one step at a time on the next two flights, finally walking briskly (almost running) and entering 2203.

I quickly went to the teacher’s desk, picked up the practice problem and drawing sheet with my name scribbled on it and comfortably sat at the back bench, trying to avoid the constant stare of my instructor. I am quite sure that he is disgusted from the fact that his students cannot reach the 9 AM class on time. I looked at my watch again, 9:05 AM. As I was pulling out my stationary from my bag, I gave my surroundings a final glimpse and then indulged in the velocity diagram I was going to chart.

That was the 5 minutes from my morning and an assignment which was never evaluated by my creative writing instructor.

સારી બાય (Good bye in Gujarati)