The Beauty, Love and Umachander

“So that is what you are upto,” I asked Uma. Uma in this case was not the name of a beautiful lady but an ably built lad of around 15.His full name was Umachander. I had just peered into the mirror which he was holding in his hand, pretending to comb his hair and caught the reflection of the school heartthrob.
I was at that time studying at a school in Chennai and staying in the hostel there as my parents were abroad. Uma was one among my 10 odd room mates. The hostel, school and the residence of the school heartthrob were all a stone’s throw away from each other.

“Hey,” said Uma with unmistakable menace in his voice, “don’t you dare tell this to anyone else.” Not that I intended to owing to what PG Wodehouse described as The Code of the Woosters. Add to this the fact that Uma was about twice my size and I really had no desire to make public Uma’s reflections on the mirror.

This school heartthrob who must go unnamed to what I would call The Code of the Ravindrans’ had caught the fancy of another hostel mate too. He had gone to the chemistry laboratory and on quickly espying an opportunity had appended his initial to her name. Such was the stuff of school romance at the Hindu Senior Secondary School in Chennai. Many like Barkis in David Copperfield were willing but certainly lacked the courage of Barkis to proclaim their willingness.

This is however a hark back to another era and time about 30 years back. It was a world where love was conveyed through the eyes and silence was a much understood language. Unlike today where silence is mistaken for weakness.

There is yet another twist to this tale. This college heartthrob had her fair share of critics too. Her academic accomplishments which primarily consisted of being the class topper consistently were put down to factors other than her ability and application. This was because one of her relatives was on the school board. She however answered her critics in the best possible way—by topping the school in the tenth standard board exams. Not even her worst critics could accuse here of manipulation.
She had mastered a crucial lesson very early in life—the best answer to criticism is performance. She thus showed that she was more than a beauty with brains—one with strength of character too.