On reaching home, he flung his bag across the dining room and stormed into his room. He shut the door behind him and punched the wall hard. Why me? He asked in frustration.
In the meanwhile, his mom knocked on the door, “Lunch beta?” she asked.
“Not now!” he replied.
“What happened?” she knocked again.
He didn’t reply.
“Reply beta, anything in school? You didn’t complete your assignments? Teachers scolded you kya?” she asked unknowing of how complex life in schools had become. It was no longer about just not completing your assignments on time.
“Leave me alone!” he said in a croaky tone.
She got a little paranoid, “Open the door!”
“I said not now! Why don’t you understand?”
“Have your lunch, it will get cold, I will help you complete your assignment today,” his mom said, still quite presumptuous.
“For the last time…” said Siddhant as he removed the latch of his door. He faced his mom, “…it is not about stupid assignments!” he shouted out.
“Why are you shouting?” she asked. “Lunch?” she held the plate right under his nose.
He lost all control of himself and in a momentary fit of rage; he took hold of the plate and flung it across the room. The food spilled all over the place and the plate landed quite near the TV. His mother retracted and looked in horror at what had just become of her son.
“Siddhant!” she shouted out. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing…can’t you understand? Just leave me alone!” tears started rolling down his cheeks. He controlled them with a lot of difficulty.
“I WANT TO BE ALONE!” he screamed at her. “Get lost mom!”
“But Siddhant?” she was about to reply. But, he turned around and shut the door on her face. He dug his head inside his pillow and started crying about what had become of him.
All these years, he had spent trying to gain acceptance – but what he managed was the tag of a pushover. The aam-chutiya as people called him. For once, he stood up for a friend. Took on a character, he had detested for a long period of time and he is chucked cans at in front of his juniors. He is abused publically. He is humiliated, day in and day out.
It was because he couldn’t speak the cool lingo, he couldn’t play a guitar or have nice pick up lines for chicks. He was a loser because despite all the certificates he had, he wasn’t even considered for a single competition, a single respectable post in the Council. His dreams meant nothing to the world and so was the same for him.
He walked up to his drawer and opened it. He took out the pile of certificates that his parents had meticulously collected over the years. He scanned through them. They dated back to as old as his Montessori Merit Cards. He tore them all, he chucked the medals into the dustbin and tore every certificate that he could find. He broke the plastic trophies that he had got, things that were of no value to the world. Once he was done, he repeatedly hit his head on the wall and kept on cursing himself.
His mother who was by now in a state of shock was silently sobbing away in the adjacent room. Siddhant’s quest for acceptance had ended even before it had begun.
*
“Muskaan will be taking over as the Vice Principal, soon,” Rishav said as Sahana and he, waited for the next train to arrive.
“What?”
“I said that Muskaan will be taking over as the Vice Principal, soon!” Rishav reiterated.
“Of course I heard that! Why did you repeat?” Sahana snapped.
“You just said what? That’s why I repeated!”
“Don’t you understand? My ‘what’ was like what the fuck? More of an exclamatory statement than a question,” she replied.
“Okay okay, I get it! Can we not discuss the different connotations of the word what?”
“Yeah, whatever!” she answered back.
“So, as I was saying, erm…yeah, Muskaan! Such a bitch she is yaar! She finally became the VP!” Rishav said. There was a loud horn, the next Metro had arrived. The waiting passengers suddenly came back to life upon hearing the loud noise. They started approaching the edge of the platform in anticipation of the train to come to a halt. Impatience and lack of knowledge of the sentence – after you, the Delhi public could be really annoying when it came to travelling with.
Bulky men pushed and shoved whoever came by their way. The frail looking Rishav Sen thought it to be his moral responsibility to be ensuring that no harm came Sahana’s way. He tried using his ‘utterly masculine’ arms to prevent anyone from randomly hitting Sahana. And his kind gesture was rewarded with a curt comment, “What on earth are you trying to do? Keep your hands to yourself – they are kind of girly; and I can take care of myself!”
He opened his mouth to argue but then realized how futile that would be and hence, decided to keep quiet.
They entered the train and failed to get a seat. Sahana made a face.
“So…” she said. “…what about your mom then? Did she tell you the news? Is she happy about all of this?”
“My mom? You mean my self-proclaimed mom? Veenu Ma’am?” Rishav confirmed.
Sahana nodded.
“…Oh, she toh is perfectly fine. These petty things hardly matters to her. I pity the others who’ve been eyeing Madhuri’s post with a lot of interest. You know, that Physics guy, the megalomaniac – what’s his name again?”
“Suraj Singh,” Sahana replied.
“Oh yes! Suraj Singh, he was quite interested in Madhuri’s post from Day One. Poor guy that he would have to be content with playing action-reaction with his Physics apparatus!”
“Speaking of Suraj Singh,” she began. “…you know he’s suck a jerk, he scratches his crotch in front of his students.”
Rishav raised an eyebrow, “I definitely, do not want to go on that track.” He chuckled.
Both of them fell silent for a while till she broke it, “So, Muskaan Kaur, Vice Principal – DHS! Sounds good to you, Mr. Head Boy?”
“Well, it kinda does. No harm really, although I might just end up becoming the second Head Boy, thanks to the fact that she is head-over-heels about Jai.”
“Huh! Who cares a fuck about him?” Sahana sounded bitchy. “Chutiya hai woh!” she added.
Rishav smiled.
Silence again.
“You know, the Council is full of show offs?” Rishav started talking.
“Huh? Like really, what’s with your obsession with the Council and the school and its stupid politics? Get a life… Sen! Can we really not talk about this? Please?” irritation for Sahana, often came out of nowhere.
Rishav shrugged, “Yeah sure. So what should we discuss?”
“Umm….what we are doing today!” came a quick reply.
“And that is?” he asked.
“Going to Connaught Place!”
“Oh yes, sure. Let’s talk about Connaught Place!” Rishav mocked.
“Not about Connaught Place, you dumbass! Let’s talk about what we are going to do there.”
“Why of course, we’ll do what Princess Sahana loves doing: eating and then shopping. And once that is done, we’ll eat a little more. Hai na?”
Sahana pinched him. He winced out in pain. Some people turned to look at them.
“First, travel in the General compartment and then have sweaty men around you – stinking like pigs. And add to that your crap – God, give me a break,” She cried out of frustration.
Rishav laughed seeing her that way. “You forgot your PDA,” he added.
“PDA? What the fuck? I am not showing you any affection by pinching you.”
“PDA stands for Public Display of Anger, you idiot!”
“Stop being lame, alright? Like please?” she disdainfully spoke. “And also, stand a little away from me. You creep me out, stop sticking to me in public.”
Oh God! Rishav sighed and took a few steps back. Unknowingly, he hit a man, who stood asleep – right behind him. He woke up with the push.
“Kya hai abbe?” he spoke in a heavy accent presumably from Haryana or Punjab.
Rishav, seeing his size, quickly mustered some readymade apologies as Sahana giggled from a distance.
Life I tell you, he said to himself and badly waited for the train to come halt at the Connaught Place Metro Station.
TWENTY-ONE
“Muskaan madam is the Vice Principal?” the Physics HOD, Suraj Singh spoke in a tone that displayed an amalgamated version of shock and despair. “Help me oh, Newton!” he exclaimed out loud.
He read his text message a number of times to confirm the news. He got up, all anxious. He paced the expanse of his Physics lab.
Midget sized with a disproportionately large skull and the weirdest accent ever – Suraj Singh or ‘Pocket Singh’ as he was called was happily sexting one of his three wives when this horror of an sms came by. His Romanian wife had delivered a baby boy recently and was named Isaac. Suraj Singh’s Indian wife had a son named Albert, all that remained was the French one to deliver a kid named Pasteur. Leaving the family matters aside, muttering stuff like: the equation of motion and pendulum, Suraj Singh raced towards Veenu Sharma’s office. He had to score brownie points and now was the time to do so.
He scratched his underarms as he passed the corridors. A bunch of students brushed past him, one of them screamed out – Pocket Singh. As though a Suraj Singh in distraught was not enough, the word Pocket insulted him like crazy. “Come here!” he ordered.
The boy walked up to him obediently. In a single movement of his hand, Suraj ripped apart the boy’s externally stitched pocket. The boy looked at him in awe and disbelief, he had finally been violated by the Pocket Singh and it was a day of celebration for him. “Go now,” Suraj instructed.
All smiles, the boy turned around to leave when a voice beckoned Suraj.
“Tearing pockets?” Veenu Sharma stood there, a phone on one hand and her purse on the other.
“Ma’am, ma’am…” Suraj started mumbling.
“What ma’am, ma’am? Go ahead…” she went ‘bow-wow’ at him.
“I was zust trying to…” Suraj was at a loss of words. He was caught red handed.
“Okay, leave that,” Veenu said. “Come here…” she ordered.
Suraj quickly walked up to Veenu and positioned himself like an efficient lieutenant.
“Zi ma’am?” he asked.
“There is no teacher covering the 11th Commerce Section. Go cover the class instead of tearing pockets.”
“Ma’am, but I had to ask you something.”
“Your questions aren’t important anyway, so just go and do as you are told.”
Poor Pocket Singh, one expected a grander recognition of his exploits. And all he got in return was an order to cover a class, “logarithmic A upon B,” he muttered under his breath as he walked towards Siddhant Dalvi’s Commerce section.
*
“Wanna miss the Library period?” Rishav asked a deeply irritated Sahana, who was restless because the Economics teacher kept on avoiding her perpetually raised hand.
‘What is deficit financing?’ the Eco teacher had asked. And as expected almost three-fourths of the class had no clue about it. But unlike the rest, Sahana Vajpai did. And hell she was angry when she was constantly being denied a chance to rant out the answer to deficit financing.
The teacher looked at her once, twice, thrice but never recognized her to stand up and answer. Sahana remained persistent with her efforts.
Only after the fourth or the fifth look did the teacher, who by the way too, was irritated – recognized Sahana. “Yes Sahana. Please tell us why are you so hyperactive?”
“Ma’am?” Sahana raised an eyebrow and moved her neck a bit.
As she shifted her weight from foot to foot, the teacher commented, “Why are you so restless? Stand in one place first.”
Sahana looked on. “Do you want an invitation to speak?” the teacher followed up.
Sahana got weirded out by the lady’s constant comments, “Ma’am, I was going to speak but you raised a point about me being hyperactive and erm…restless.”
“Yeah, so? Can’t I say that?” came the rebuttal.
“Absolutely ma’am. But I don’t see how deficit financing is involved…”
“Okay okay, tell me the answer quick,” she instructed.
“Ma’am, erm…deficit financing is you know when the RBI, you know…ah, prints excess currency notes to meet the deficit, you know and it leads to a sharp fall in the price of the currency.” Sahana said.
“Why do you stutter so much?” The teacher asked. “What is deficit? And who asked you to say what happens when deficit financing is done? You could have just left it to what it is and not what happens.”
Oh c’mon bitch, Sahana said to herself. Get a life woman, personal comments and then follow it up with your feedback!
“Sit down, anyone else wants to add anything?” the teacher floated another question.
Rishav quickly turned around to face Sahana. She was red with anger, she rolled her eyes. Rishav knew how she must have been abusing the teacher in her head now.
“Calm down,” he whispered. He repeated his question, “Want to hang around in the library period?”
Sahana pushed her hair behind her ears, “Yeah sure. But won’t our names come up in the log book?”
Rishav thought for two seconds, “We’ll tell the logbook incharge not to note it down. What say?”
“Sounds cool,” Sahana replied. “What do you want to do?” she asked.
*
“Open the windows and let some oxyzen come in,” instructed Suraj Singh who pronounced the syllable ‘g’ with great difficulty.
The students controlled their laughter. It was funny the way Pocket Singh said things. The intonation, the pronunciation and his whole appearance, made matters worse.
“You know oxyzen rezuvinates your body…!” he declared. Siddhant scoffed on hearing this.
Unfortunately for him, Suraj spotted him with ease.
The last thing you’d want is to piss Suraj off when he’s giving one of his enlightening statements. He walked towards Siddhant and stood right under his nose.
“Stand up!” Suraj shouted.
Siddhant stood up without any protest.
“What’s your name?” he squeaked.
“Sir, Siddhant! Siddhant Dalvi,” came the reply.
“Siddhant Dalvi, what do you think of yourself?” Suraj asked.
There were names being called out in the background, in hush voices, the name Aam chutiya could be heard very clearly.
“SILENCE!” bellowed Suraj. “Yes, carry on…” he looked at Siddhant.
“Sir, I just scoffed. I didn’t laugh at you,” he replied with a straight face.
“You zust scoffed? What do you think I am a fool?” with a single movement, Siddhant’s pocket was now in Suraj’s hand.
“Sir, that shirt costs money. How dare you tear my pocket?” Siddhant sounded assertive.
“Aaah, arrogance! First mock a teacher and then reply back,” Suraj Singh rolled up his sleeves. He caught hold of the opening of Siddhant’s shirt and with a mighty heave, ripped open all his buttons.
Siddhant tried to protest but his strength was nothing when compared to Suraj Singh’s. Suraj dragged Siddhant out of his seat, holding him by his buttonless shirt.
The class was silent. None spoke. Even those who were making fun of Siddhant sat speechless, seeing the treatment being handed out to him.
There was a loud noise of Suraj Singh’s heavy hand falling on Siddhant’s face. “You shall never dare to scoff at me again!” he hissed.
Then came another loud thud on the other side of the face. “You left me no option but to use my hands you arrogant punk.”
Siddhant feebly tried to say something like sorry when Suraj’s left hand landed hard on his face again. It was burning red by now. Suraj Singh then caught him by his sidelocks and dragged him across the expanse of the classroom. He caught hold
of Siddhant’s hand and twisted it behind his back, Siddhant winced out in pain. “You bloody scum, tujhe mera aukaat dikhata hu.” Then he followed it up with a few more rights and left and then finally he pushed Siddhant out of his class.
There weren’t any cuts on Siddhant’s face but he was bruised badly. His face was blued in places, his hair disheveled, his shirt ripped apart and a swollen lip. He fell to the floor and started sobbing. His face hurt badly and his hands were all numb. Suraj closed the door on his face and went back into the class leaving Siddhant all by himself.
TWENTY-TWO
Rishav and Sahana sat near the entrance of their empty classroom. To sit in a class where the clitter clatter of the desks moving was missing, the students laughing out at random things weren’t present and the teachers were not trying hard to keep things in check, felt weird. They had become so used to all of it that a brief moment without it felt like something integral was missing.
They were talking about all that they would do when they entered college. It’d be a new place, new people, almost everything would be new. And you could be anything you wanted to. A geek could be a stud; a rich spoilt one could be the uncool one. The girl with the braces could be the hottie; the fat guy could easily be the hunk.
It was a place to start afresh. To undo all wrong that you did in school, to be something you always wished to be, to be a new you.
But then going to school had its own charm. The assemblies, the bunks, the periods and the wait for the moment the bell would ring so that one could rush out of class and gang around in the corridors would all be missed by each and everyone.
Class eleventh would end very soon and thus it’d initiate the beginning of the end of a journey that had lasted almost every one- fourteen years.
Rishav had pulled a chair next to Sahana and their knees were slightly brushing against each other’s.
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