Chapter 5: Canteen Confrontations and Shared Misery

Seeing the cultural committee toss out the word “cooperate” in the group, I couldn’t help but be both amused and infuriated.

It was always ‘cooperate’ when they wanted someone else to suffer. Typical committee talk—passive aggressive, yet pretending to be all about unity.

Back at the start of the semester, the class prefect and cultural committee skipped class together—not only that, they even forgot to assign the group assignment.

They had vanished for an entire day, leaving us to face the professor’s wrath. Their absence was as obvious as the missing vada in the mess sambar.

The professor was so mad, he gave the whole class a good shouting for not respecting him.

His tirade echoed through the lecture hall, shaking even the backbenchers out of their WhatsApp reverie.

After that, he never took attendance in any other class all year—but every time he taught us, he always called roll.

His faith in our batch never recovered. We were marked for life—at least in his register.

And, just our luck, his class was always at 8 a.m.

The collective resentment of the 8 a.m. crowd could’ve fuelled a dharna.

Even the most punctual among us had begun to grumble, plotting imaginary protests by the college gate.

After this incident, the class prefect played the victim and made a solemn promise:

"It was my first time forgetting homework. I’ll definitely turn over a new leaf."

His dramatic apology in the group chat had been the talk of the week. Some even made memes of it with the sad violin background music.

Turns out, that “new leaf” only lasted two months.

By the third month, he was back to his old tricks, his promises evaporating faster than morning mist in Chennai heat.

Luckily, the Google Form in the group hadn’t been deleted.

Bless whoever invented cloud storage. The digital trail was there for all to see, like a WhatsApp chat with your mother—never truly deleted.

I quickly checked the edit history and sent a screenshot of the 2 a.m. edit record to the group.

The timestamp glared back at us, proof that the so-called lottery was changed in the dead of night. I posted it, my heart pounding in anticipation.

"Rohan, yesterday the roll number was clearly 0088, which is cultural committee Ananya. How did it magically turn into my number overnight?"

"Did Excel learn to do jugaad and increment by one all on its own?"

A couple of classmates replied with laughing emojis, and I felt a surge of support. Maybe the tide was turning.

The class prefect didn’t even flinch, replying confidently:

"Ananya is a class committee member. She worked hard yesterday for the class, busy helping everyone. So the roll number was automatically moved back by one."

He made it sound like Ananya’s hard work had magical powers over numbers.

She worked so hard the number moved back by one? That’s comedy gold.

I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they’d get stuck. Even the hostel dog, peeking in through the open door, seemed unimpressed.

Yesterday, the cultural committee spent the whole day river rafting—posing, clicking selfies, flooding her Insta stories.

I could still see her stories—hashtags like #adventuretime and #sunkissed—filling my feed, while the rest of us slogged through assignments.

I immediately reposted a couple’s photo of the cultural committee and class prefect in the group.

"The cultural committee is so busy with class work, yet still finds time to go river rafting with the class prefect."

"Supposedly picked for the fitness test, but suddenly too busy serving classmates?"

I added a tongue-out emoji for effect, daring them to deny it now.

Maybe they didn’t expect me to post the photo so directly—the cultural committee was so furious she started ranting in the group:

"The list has already been reported. It can’t and won’t be changed. If you don’t show up on time, you’ll have to face the consequences yourself."

Her messages came in rapid-fire succession, as if she was typing with both thumbs, her anger vibrating through every word.

At 1 p.m., the faculty advisor chased me down to urge me to go to the fitness test.

I was sitting in the canteen, stirring my chai absent-mindedly, when her shadow fell across my table. The whole place fell silent, all eyes on us. The chai in my glass cooled as I listened, the clink of steel tumblers and the hiss of the dosa tawa filling the silence after her words.

She pushed up her glasses and looked at me with that “I’m so done with you” expression:

Her saree rustled as she folded her arms, her nose wrinkling the way it did when she smelled excuses.

"You fragile types always look for excuses to slack off. This fitness test is important. If you had special circumstances, you should’ve told the class prefect before the list was submitted. Now the list is in, and your absence will affect the scores of all 50 students in the class. Think about that."

Her words had the weight of final judgement—like that moment before Amma’s slipper flew across the room.

I told her the class prefect had sneakily switched the cultural committee’s number to mine at the last minute.

My voice shook, but I tried to keep my dignity, explaining the midnight swap, the missing messages, the photo evidence.

But she just rolled her eyes at me.

She dismissed me with a wave, as if this was a minor misunderstanding in a joint family—one she couldn’t be bothered to untangle.

"You should cooperate with the class committee and participate on time."

Her tone brooked no argument. The matter was closed, at least for her.

With that, she picked up her dainty little handbag and minced out of the office.

The click of her heels echoed down the corridor, her exit as dramatic as her entrance. The canteen staff watched her go, whispering among themselves.

Everyone knows—the 800-metre test is the most dreaded event, bar none.

We all dreaded it more than the mess’s Thursday karela curry. The very mention of it sent a shiver down every backbencher’s spine.

No one wants to be picked.

The threat of running under the blazing sun, teachers with stopwatches, and the risk of tripping in front of half the college kept everyone on edge.

If I ask for leave, someone else will get unlucky and be picked from the other 49 students.

I could already imagine the glares and whispered curses as the next unfortunate soul was chosen.

The class prefect switched the number to me so everyone would blame me, and his girlfriend could skip the test with a clean record.

The real genius of the plan was that now, instead of the class blaming Rohan, they’d all direct their frustration at me.

After leaving the office, I went straight back to the hostel, turned off the light, and pulled the blanket over my head.

I tried to block out the world, letting the dark silence wash over me. Outside, a scooter backfired, and the hostel warden’s voice echoed faintly, but I didn’t care.

This 800-metre test—whoever wants to run it can run it. At worst, we can all fail together.

If only collective failure were as easy to orchestrate as collective action. I pictured us all lined up, refusing to run, arms folded in solidarity—like a college version of Andolan.

If just one person fails, only they’re anxious. If the whole class fails, then it’s not just one person sweating bullets.

Misery loves company. Somehow, it felt less scary to fail together—at least then, the blame would be shared, and the story would be epic.