Free When a Lawyer Falls in Love by Amrita Suresh Page B

the noisy class fan with Vyas. Of course he was then forced to make arrangements for its repair or risk having a case slapped on him by a classroom full of sweating lawyers.
     
    It was a lazy afternoon and except for Ankur’s energetic chatter, a cloak of lethargy covered the lecture hall. Sonali sat alone in a corner, she had been unusually quiet these days. Ever since that day when Ankur broke his own record of foolishness by lending his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend his laboriously compiled notes, he wasn’t too eager to interact with the pretty Gujarati who had been a broker in the deal.
     
    Even Sonali was a bit guilty. Yet more than guilty, she was sad. During the first three years in college, she used to share everything with Ankur, yet now there was a chasm between them, even though they were in the same class. All thanks to Rohit who was a class apart. The guy wasn’t to be seen these days. Perhaps that was the reason behind Sonali’s round face turning long. Yet Ankur had the vague feeling, that perhaps Sonali was hiding something. The very thought made him uncomfortable.
     
    For the outspoken Sonali to be hiding something seemed ominous. There had to be something. Nothing else could explain her long disappearances from class, with Rohit missing as well. Whatever it was, it wasn’t making Sonali too happy. Sneaking off for dates was not exactly uncommon in class, yet the naughty glow it would give any happy couple was always a dead giveaway. But this didn’t seem to be the case with Sonali and Rohit.
     
    Ankur was confused. Yet the one thing he was sure of was that his once best friend and Rohit’s current girlfriend held a secret. The thought of which made him feel very unsettled.
     
    ‘Astrology is always three-dimensional. Fate, Free will,
    and Super Consciousness. The third is the most important factor, without which the first two are redundant,’ Sonali was lecturing to a dreamy Jaishree as they sat on the lawn within the girls’ hostel.
     
    Jaishree had just finished telling Sonali about her walk in the rain with Souvik. She still carried the dreamy expression she had the day those rain drops danced upon her head and heart. It was the first time ever. A date, that is. Jaishree refused to believe that her feelings for Souvik were anything more than a ‘crush in a rush’.
     
    Ever since Souvik had gifted her that poem, Jaishree had rather naturally begun rhyming her words. And everything in her life that moment on seemed to have been moving in slow motion—the mild swaying of campus trees in the far distance, the rustle of the carpet of brown leaves on her way to the library, the bluer than blue sky. But of course, Jaishree Subramaniam was not in love. Tamil Brahmins never fall in love.
     
    ‘All 6-8 vibrations almost always fall in love,’ Sonali was saying as the two sat on the little patch of green with a clothes line hung, some distance from their heads. The little lawn in the girls’ hostel was surrounded by a series of rooms on all four sides with a square clothes line acting as an inner perimeter. The girls’ hostel was built in such a way that no male lawyer on campus could ever dream of entering the premises lawfully. So the girls walked about uninhibited in their night gowns and bathroom slippers.
     
    With the absence of the opposite sex there is instantly an absence of any pretence towards looking good.
     
    ‘What is 6-8 vibration?’ asked Jaishree almost irritated to be shaken out of her dreamy stupor.
     
    ‘There are seven vibrations in astrology, more specifically in the Zodiac,’ Sonali began lecturing again. ‘Vibration is the name given to the “vibe” that two people at any given time share. For example, there are some people who might have just met, but they get along really well. That is because there is a certain vibration at work.’ Jaishree nodded. But it was more to herself. For the first time perhaps, astrology did not seem all that interesting.