Pens and Pages

It’s difficult to cope up with new words being added on to our dictionaries as we grow up – some we use, some we do not, some we understand, some we ignore. It was in 2009, when I started my B.E., that a new word was added to my vocabulary – “Maal”. To reach the bus-stop, that was only around 500m away from the College building, you need to walk past the boys’ hostels lined up on the way adjacent to the building. And if you’re alone (provided, you’re a girl) or with a bunch of other girls, your ears are sure to echo with the chants of the word “maal” coming from those hostels. It was scary on the first few days, so scary that you feel like running to the bus stop as fast as you can. After a few days it became more embarrassing than scary – you feel like you’re being noticed, you feel conscious about yourself, you wonder if your clothes are revealing your contours, you cover yourself well with your dupatta and walk on. Eventually, we started taking a “Tempo” (sort