Sunday, August 16, 2009

Some first

"Do you have radio at home?"
"No"
"Tape recorder"
"Yes"
" I have a fridge at home. Do you?"
"Yes"
" Godrej, yours?"
"Kelvinator"
"We have BPL TV, you?"
"Solitaire"
" that is no good"

Come back home, check with Dad who says it is the most reliable brand, BPL is just more looks. Why do my parents do this always? Go for boring looking brands in the name of longevity!

Next day again,
" Do you have generator?"
"No"

Oh my god, defeat. that was the end of the world. I spoke to my dad about it, when are you going to get generator? Why do we need one? Vijay has one. That mus be for their fields, is his Dad a farmer? Next day in school, confirmed with him his father was a farmer. Your dad, he questioned. He is a Bank officer. Suffice to say that sealed the argument. (in truth, his father was likely to be more rich).

During 4th or 5th, towards the end of the academic year, class teacher had come up with a novel idea. Put a good student in charge of two bad students(academically speaking). Seat them together. Somehow, this arrangement resulted in a girl seated with a boy on either side. Vijay and Karthik. Vijay was the one with whom I had the earlier conversation.

In general, I was quite meek. But give me power, it would raise to my head and to another ten floors above it. So there the two boys had hell. Not that they didnt return back. At least Vijay was sweet and was just victim of my harshness. Karthik and me just didnt see eye to eye.

Pinch, hit - quite a violent bunch. I would struggle between my nice tag going away, to my desire to absolutely control and the irritation with guys simply not listening to me. I doubt they improved even a wee bit in their academics.

In the midst of all this, I will feel a tap on my shoulder. Jay from behind. Jay was one of the unusally good boy student which resulted in him being seated between two boys. Jay with Pearly white teeth, shiny black skin(regardless of colour rarely do skins shine like that), silky hair. He had just moved that year. Consistently scored second rank or something like that.

He would tell me some nice jokes. That was his speciality. Unlike the boys I was made to handle, the boys he was handling always laughed. they seemed a happy bunch.

I dont remember his jokes. But remember laughing a lot and looking forward to them.

One day while coming to school in the school bus, I saw him walking towards School with his little sister. I was about to scream his name across because that is what you do as a child on spotting any classmate. Suddenly, something in me held back.

The realization people might tease me.

5 comments:

  1. and you were consistently first, was it?

    That aside, being not made fun of by others was the single biggest worry for kids!!!

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  2. Kaushik:
    Che che, an uncalled for accusation!
    I never got first rank. Second was the highest i touched.
    regarding the mocking thing, Sadly, it is true for adults as well atleast for me:)

    Adithya:
    I know. To be fair, I thought the incident also showed how kiddish I was.

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  3. i loved the way you narrated this, what are those three boys up to these days? often i find that the easy-goers from school turn out to be the least expected people...

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  4. UL:I would take a guss and say software engineers.

    Mostly I recalled this incident for Jay but only when I wrote it, I felt more for Vijay. should have been nicer to him.

    But agree on the zig zac fortune of the student to adult life of quite a few people.

    ReplyDelete