in the class, would be more familiar with the principal. He wouldn’t be willing to punish her and thus wouldn’t beat me too for I might press charges against him for discriminating me, if he indeed beats me.
A few minutes later the principal grinned and asked the reason as to why we were late on that day?
I provided the valuable reason.
I said, “Sir, My grandfather got an unexpected heart attack in the morning,"
I was familiar with these kinds of situations, so whenever I was late to the school, I always said something like this. If I had been absent the day before then I would have said that my grandfather died the previous day.
She said she was late because her father’s scooter got punctured on their way to the school.
With those reasons, the principal gave us a last siren call and warned us, against repeating the same for another time.
Then we headed towards our class. I called her and said thanks to her,
She asked me “what for?”
I explained my great escape from the Principal because of her presence in the scene.
She nodded her head with a gentle smile and then asked,
“Is your grandpa all right now?”
I told her “I haven’t even seen him, as he was dead before I was born”
This time, all of a sudden she burst out laughing.
Then we entered in our class. I went and sat in my place.
I looked at my palms. I thought that had she come in late the previous Monday, my palms would have escaped the wrath of the principal’s stick. I was running late that day as well, because my mother prepared ‘Pepper Roast’ which was another favourite of me.
In the evening, I went to the home and angrily asserted to my mother.
“I was late because you delayed my breakfast."
“Liar, you woke at 7.30, and you delayed yourself. And now you tell me that I am the guilty although they were your faults” my mother chided.
A short quarrel arose between me and my mother,
And my mother at last told, “See, tomorrow I am going to wake you early at 5’o clock."
Hearing this was jaded to me. During the evening time, when I quarrel, she would say this to me. In the night when half of her anger had gone, she would make me sleep early, thinking to wake me up in good time in the morning. But in the morning when she would see me sleeping, her one heart wouldn’t be sufficient to disturb my peaceful sleep.
6.THE EPIDEMIC:
One month later everyone asked about that my grades I got in my previous school.
I said to them, “I always remained in the toppers list."
Which is indeed the truth, but only a few believed. And even those who believed asserted that,
“Even if it is true then he would be only on the average students list here, because his old school is of comparatively a lower standard to us.”
I decided that I should study well and get good marks to prove myself. In our first monthly test, my rank was on the average while she and my Syed were in the top five ranks.
Three months went, then that was the time for the brightest students to crown themselves by bypassing the brighter students. The rest would simply stock up on aspirins and fever injections as it was the time of the beginning of our quarterly examinations.
The exams began opposing our wish. According to our teachers, we were allotted places in such a way that it would be tough for us to copy others’ papers. One boy and one girl shared a bench, and they were asked to sit on the edge of a bench on either side.
The teachers had been teaching us for so many years, but still they were foolish enough to forget the universal truth that,
“Always opposite poles attract each other."
Even the U.N.O member election wouldn’t have contained these many strict rules which our school imposed. They warned us,
“Those who are caught copying would be immediately chucked out of their exam halls and severely punished. Moreover, their action would be narrated to everyone including their parents."
They thought that, for us getting caught for cribbing someone’s paper was a matter of disgrace. But for us, it was something like adding feathers to our school’s outstanding performances.
I really owe a bunch of thanks to those who framed that kind of layout as luckily she was sitting on my bench. But what to do there was no use in it. Whenever I looked at her, as if thinking an answer, I saw a spark of fire in the invigilator’s eyes, which could even make a volcano eruption to diminish.
It was my friend Ram, who asked me an answer for a question when I said that I don’t know, he compelled me to ask her the answer.
So I called out her name for three times. She didn’t respond to anything. I called out for another time. And when the teacher went out I fluttered my hands in the air in a gesture (like a forlorn ship wrecked soldier asking for “SOS” on seeing some helicopter flying around him). She then looked at me casually and continued writing by putting her head down, ignoring me.
At that time, I hated her and thought why she was so much arrogant? Because in my old school compared to boys, girls helped me the most in the exams.
Then for the remaining exams I never turned over to see her. During those times I had self-respect, which always governed me the most. Perhaps it was her gaze that shattered my self-respect as the years went by.
A few weeks later, after we had finished the exam, our teachers started to distribute the papers. After that, they assessed our marks and gave us the progress cards. I got 10th rank while she and Syed were in the top five ranks, but I was joyous that I proved myself. Other friends accepted that I might have been a topper in my old school
Few students, especially those, who got their ranks after mine, were angry with me because they would have got one rank ahead if I had not joined in their school.
I wished to surpass her rank at least once, just to teach her a lesson in arrogance. Therefore, I started studying hard and after that in the every exam, I got an increased progress in my report card.
7.JOKES AND TEARS:
That day, our class was just like a market place- everyone was shouting and playing inside the class. Suddenly, the principal came. He was angry. He called the class monitor. She stood up. He scolded her for maintaining the class like that.
He saw that we, the last bench students, were laughing silently by putting our heads down. Though a part of our brains advised us to stop laughing and give a serious blue face, the essence of the joke still remained and made us laugh uncontrollably. The secretion of the laughing hormones doubled on seeing his comical and serious face, when he called us. All my friends repressed their smiles but I could not. He considered it as an offense. Some things in the school were always different. They would beat us if we would laugh, and if he couldn’t (For he is always on logger heads with his wife, he gets scolded from her, which he dares to repay her; so later, he repays it to us. My friends told me to console my pain during the previous time we caught). The principal called each one of us and smashed our palms. We were sure that had we told the same joke to the Principal, he would also have enjoyed our joke a lot.
After he went, we again laughed because for us, those kinds of things were not the first time. We mocked each other and boasted ourselves, of how we over reacted and escaped from further beatings.
Then we poured all our vulgar words, which were always an important constituent of our education in different standards, towards the Principal. I was decent, as I did not drag his family, most importantly his wife, into this like my friends. We frolicked repeatedly.
We heard a loud sobbing sound, and so we wondered who was the black sheep among us and checked each other’s face. Th
en we realised that the sound had been coming from the girls’ side.
Yes!!! She sobbed after a few moments. We all were dumbfounded after seeing that. We received beatings, and we were enjoying, but she just got scolded and was crying for that. By crying for this silly reason, she not only made us to abash but also dumped the whole students' respect and will into the drainage.
8. CHOCOLATE WRAPPERS AND THE DETECTIVE:
Soon after some days being spent in my school many became accustomed to me. By the means of colloquial talks, I gathered information about her as much as possible. I came to know that she was a tailor’s daughter.
After some time, I asked some other friends of the place she hailed from. However, as my friends began to doubt about me, I changed my topic and showed myself as if I have very little interest towards those matters. It then became a hard task to know about the details of her.
As few days went, I befriended Vasanth. He was a nice and innocent guy, but that was not only the reason why I befriended him. In our class, it seemed that he was the one, who knew more details about her than anybody else did, and on top of that, he was a loose talker, both of which were some kind of an advantage.
Then I started to treat him with the chocolates in the canteen because while eating my chocolates, he would also spill out- some rare details about her and her family simultaneously.
I came to know that she actually lives in a street
In Love : Once & Forever Page 4
