Kritvik Bhatt

We both walked inside the auditorium. On our left was the wall, on the front were the stairs leading downward, and the auditorium was filled with red seats spread all over the auditorium. The blinds on both the sides were off, which turned the place darker, with only some of the sunshine creeping in through the blinds. The students all were walking up and down and right and left, and the place was filled with their chatter. Some had seated themselves, some were calling others from behind, some were silently studying, and some were just looking here and there, alone.

“Let’s find Kavya first,” Sana said, her eyes rolling all around the place. Students from behind us were walking here and there in front of us, for some reason, as we were looking all around for her.

“Maybe she’s still not here yet.”

“Yeah.” We both then turned to each other. “Well, let’s save a seat for her, K.”

We turned to the front and started to walk in. The stairway besides the seating was narrow, only wide enough for two of us to stand together. We both had our heads to our right as we walked inside, along with some guys behind the two of us.

“Hey, here,” I said as I pulled her arm with my left hand and entered inside one of the rows. As we both were going through some of the guys already sitting at the edge, I turned my head to the front and looked at the stage. It had a white screen behind it. I then turned my head up, and looked at a projector hanging just on top of us pointing toward the stage. I then turned to the left edge of the auditorium, and noticed a number of female teachers standing in a group, all discussing something. “It’s serious, maybe,” I thought. We both then stopped and sat, our eyes fixed at the stage.

“Well, do you know what it’s gonna be about?”

“Not really, man. But it seems serious, no doubt.”

“Each seminar is like this, K,” She narrowed her eyes and turned to me.

I turned to her and smiled. “I-I didn’t know. My previous school didn’t have an auditorium, for some reason.”

She smiled. “Well, poverty gets the better of us.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yeah.”

“But you see,” she turned her head to the front, “I too feel that it’s something serious, because they don’t really hold such seminars in the middle of exams.”

“Yeah,” My eyes and tone turned serious as I turned to the stage. I could also see different haircuts—some with standing hair, some with curly hair, and some with long hair. Some students here and there in front of us were still standing and walking here and there, but most of them had settled. Behind us, for some reason, was still shifting and stuff going on as more and more students walked in.

The sounds of walking and talking filled the whole area as the two of us sat silently. Sana suddenly turned to her bag on her lap, opened its zip, took out a little book, kept it on top of her open horizontal bag, and started to flip pages from it. “Well, I should revise some things during this seminar.”

“After this is a break.” I turned to her.

“I should revise during the break too, you see,” She said, finishing her search and reading from a page.

“Okay, man.” I turned to the front again.

I passed my time by glaring into her book, and then turning to the stage, and then looking at the teachers on our left—all of whom were in dark colored sarees—and then turning to our right at the other half, with a stairway in between the two sections, and then turned backward, looking at a bunch of boys and some other guys behind them, and then looking at the back-most ones laughing and giggling, and then turning to the front again. I continued to randomly look at things here and there such as the windows and stuff, for some reason. I then turned my head downward, looked at my bag and legs.

“Good morning, kids,” A woman’s voice suddenly echoed through a speaker or some other stuff, for some reason, and I turned my head to the front. All of the heads now were on the left corner of the room. The chatter had suddenly stopped. The teacher in navy blue saree and glasses was on the podium, looking at us. “Today, you all might not know why we are here, right? So, any guesses?”

The white screen on the stage displayed Windows XP opening up, with the usual black screen and the logo on top of it.

The auditorium remained silent, staring at her. Some low whispers spread throughout the auditorium, and then a girl behind suddenly raised her hand and shouted, “Global warming?”

The teacher turned her head to her and smiled. “Good idea for the next one, but not today.”

Another boy from the far right corner raised his hand and shouted, “Road accidents?”

“What?” The teacher turned to her left at him and asked.

The boy’s voice was a little weak. He tried again. “Road accidents. Road accidents.”

The other ones around him then shouted louder in unison, “Road accidents!”

“Ah, no. Not road accidents,” The teacher announced on the podium. She then turned to the rest and said, “You might not be able to guess it, kids. So we’re gonna speak it out ourselves.”

On the projection of the screen, someone clicked on a presentation file on the top right corner of the blue wallpaper with Window’s logo on it. It opened up quickly, and with some graphics of a black silhouette stick figure of someone smoking, there was the title of… vaping.