Indu

The sun is setting over Grand Canyon and here I am, on a bench with Indu. My life at its romantic best.

She wants me to help sort out some chemistry doubts. “See Kavya, I’m a little confused. See, the ions bond ok? Then… wait one sec, I’ll remove my notes and show.” She picks a notebook out of the pile beside her and flips it open. Among a few pretty diagrams of water molecules are various doodles and scribbles in about ten different people’s handwriting. She slows down to read the little notes. She smiles with fond remembrance at the page and I know I’m losing her.

“Ok, if an atom loses an electron, does it have a positive charge or a negative charge?” I ask quickly.

“Um…ion…hey Kavya, see this, ok. There’s one guy called Yuvraj in my class, ok? He keeps on asking for my notebook, and when I give it, he writes messages and passes it back. I keep thinking he wants notes or something, but he just wants to ask me out. He writes the same thing every day. Doesn’t know to be creative. He’s so boring,” she points to a scrawly ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ on the corner of every page.

“The net charge will be positive right? Because there’s one less negative charge. You know each electron has a charge of minus one. So…”

“And my friend Devanshi sits on this side of me, and her boyfriend Deepak sits here, this side. So in class if they want to talk, they pass my book to each other and write messages. I’m like their messenger!” She giggles and turns the page.

“And now suppose you had an atom that could achieve a stable electronic configuration by losing…”

“See this girl Antara and this boy Mustafa, their relationship is not stable at all. I keep telling that they should break up, they keep fighting and all. So unstable.”

Clever, but I keep my footing. “Indu, we were talking about your chemistry…”

“Chemistry is so boring. I only like chemistry with boys. Let’s talk about biology no? Especially the reproductive system!” and she bursts into rapturous peals. I’m clearly fighting a losing battle. “Or we can do physics—you know, like, getting physical with boys?”

And with that, she is beyond the point of no return. I leave her on the bench mooning over her notebook and mobile phone. I take back with me profound new ways to interpret science.