Almost lost and almost recovered - Chapter 4

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A mere issue of

indifference

or Racism

with a difference ?

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It had been 9 years since Malar had seen her mother go dumbfounded upon an inquiry regarding their native. Agilan, a distant relative had answered all her questions in relation with their native when Shyama made Malar visit the refugee camp, her birthplace at Rameshwaram, a few years later. Malar had never once troubled Shyama with that issue ever since. 

Malar and Maanu had stepped into grade eleven and they had to decide between Computer science and Biology groups. Maanu desired to be an Astrobiologist and had no issues in taking up Biology. On the other hand Shyama forced Malar, a Fashion designing aspirant to take up biology in an attempt to fulfill Mathivanan's dreams. Grade eleven was split into two during the major subject classes when biology students left to the biology lab which served as a classroom as well since there were only a handful of students. The twelve of them were separated into six pairs. Maanu shared her lab desk with a local boy called Muthu while Malar was to be Pavithra's partner. Neither Muthu nor Pavithra had any particular liking for their partners and cold wars were a common phenomenon at both the desks.

Grade twelve was well under way and it was mandatory for the students to learn food testing along with their regular biological experiments. Unfortunately for Malar and Maanu, each table was given only one set of apparatus for the experiments and they were supposed to combine and complete it. Muthu couldn't resist Maanu hurrying up for the submission. He turned to Karthick who was sitting behind and stated,

"All these Goltis* are alike!", throwing a nasty look at Maanu who was busy adding iodine to the starch solution and observing the graceful change of colour from white to mild lavender and finally blue-black.

"I am not a Golti ! ", Maanu replied while thronging her pipette which accidentally escaped her hold and went crashing on the floor. 

Pavithra joined Muthu in the conversation by teasing Malar for her unusual Tamil accent. Maanu and Malar sympathized one another with looks while their partners were still not tired of finding out faults with the girls' ethnicity in whispers. Mr. George, their biology teacher made Maanu pick up the scattered pieces of glass and pay a fine of twenty rupees for the broken pipette. Maanu had always wanted to be a part of the Tamil students' society at school but they would not accept her for the indifferent Telugu cuisines she brought for lunch and her flair for Hindi which was considered a cardinal sin amongst them. Neither would they accept Malar for her abnormal Tamil accent. 

Maanu stood staring at the jar inside which a certain Mr. Rana hexadactyla* was floating in formalin. The label on the jar read
                                                                 
Phylum   : Chordata                                                       
Class     : Amphibia                                                                                 
Genus   : Rana                                                
Species : hexadactyla                                      

Maanu tried to write down her classification.

Nation : India                     
State   : ????                                        
Family : Reddy
Name  : Maanu

She realized that Malar's situation was still worse since the first row of her classification table would bear question marks as well.

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Golti : Informal term for Telugu speaking population in certain parts of Tamilnadu. 

P.S. This part is purely fictional. I love all my school buddies especially the biology students :).