Like It Happened Yesterday

by Ravinder Singh

  Ma’am proceeded with the explanation of a few more forms of the noun. I looked at Sushil. He grabbed this opportunity to make fun of me.

  ‘Beta, sab pata hai mujhe tera dhyaan kahaan tha!’ [I know exactly where your attention was!] he said, smugly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Abey, ghoor ghoor ke dekh raha tha Ma’am ko.’ He had noticed me staring at the teacher.

  ‘Aisa kuch nahi hai,’ I rejected his insinuation and turned my eyes to the book.

  ‘Oh really!’ he mocked me.

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘So it means you don’t like her?’

  ‘Chup kar ja bhai, padh lene de,’ I asked him to not disturb me and let me study. I had to play it safe. I ignored any further conversation with him.

  In a little while, the teacher rubbed off the entire blackboard and went ahead to write down examples of each form of the noun. I heard a murmur behind me. Ideally, I would have wanted to be a part of it, but after whatever had happened, I didn’t want to indulge in anything that she wouldn’t like. So I didn’t pay heed to the talks in the back bench. I concentrated on taking notes of the examples. I wanted to redeem myself in Ma’am’s eyes. I decided not to let go of any opportunity to answer any of her questions; or, if not that, then to ask an intelligent one myself. Maybe that would undo the negative impression she had formed of me in her mind, I thought.

  I could feel the whispers behind my back move from one bench to the other. As yet they were limited to the boys’ side of the class. I looked back and saw a few anxious faces. I wondered what they were up to.

  I was busy taking notes, when Sushil interrupted me by asking if I was not having fun. ‘Abey, tu mazey nahi le raha?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at her now,’ he said, and pointed with his chin towards the teacher, who was still writing on the board.

  At first, I failed to understand what Sushil was pointing at, but it didn’t take me long to realize.

  It had been long since the fans had been turned off and the heat of the summer afternoon had further raised the room temperature. The sweat on Ma’am’s body had made her white blouse translucent, revealing the bra that she wore inside. And that was the subject of discussion among the boys of the class.

  I felt terrible. I looked around myself and found everyone staring at her back. Somehow this didn’t feel right. I felt uncomfortable. It made me let go of my attention on what she had been teaching. I wanted to stop them all from taking her in like that.

  I felt as if there was an undefined relationship between her and me; and that I should do something to protect her from all this. But I couldn’t think of doing anything. I only prayed for the power supply to return soon; and if not that, then for the bell to ring soon; and if not that, then for Ma’am to turn towards us and hold the same position for the rest of the class.

  ‘Look at that sexy pink thing inside her blouse!’ Sushil whispered, with obvious lust.

  ‘Shut up!’ I whispered angrily, as I couldn’t hold back my temper.

  The smile on his face evaporated as soon as he saw that I was serious about what I had said. I guess he hadn’t expected that reaction from me.

  ‘Don’t say anything like that about her,’ I warned him.

  He gave me a blank look and then turned around to update our common friends: ‘Sardaar paagal ho gaya hai!’ [This guy has gone mad] and narrated my reaction to them.

  The teacher caught our side-conversations, turned back and asked, ‘Any problem there?’

  No one said anything. She waited, and then resumed writing on the board. My friends behind my bench joined Sushil in laughing at me. They became wilder and started talking cheaply about her.

  For a while, I didn’t react, knowing that they were doing this only to tease me. But that didn’t stop them from having fun. I was getting terribly upset, listening to all that they were saying about her. I could not help myself from objecting to their filthy blabber.

  Then Sushil crossed all limits when he said, ‘I am going to imagine her tonight in my bed.’ This was beyond my limit of tolerance. I jumped up to clutch his neck in my hands.

  My anger stunned Sushil. He hadn’t expected that from me. The moment he realized what had just happened, he held my wrist in his hand and tried to escape my grip. Someone from the bench behind us immediately jumped in to separate the two of us and stop the fight.

  But I was out of control. Never, ever in my life earlier had I behaved this way!

  ‘I asked you to stop,’ I said, as I gripped his neck with one hand and punched him in the chest with the other.

  Sushil didn’t wait for too long to react. The last thing he said was, ‘Mujhe maarega is ke liye tu!’ [You will hit me for this!] before he hurled a blow which narrowly missed my head.

  The teacher turned around when she heard the commotion. She saw me and Sushil exchange blows.

  ‘Get up, you two!’ she shouted sternly. She then placed her book on the table and walked towards us.

  ‘Out! Out, the two of you!’

  ‘Ma’am, he hit me first. You can ask anyone!’ Sushil claimed with confidence.

  In her anger, Ma’am immediately shifted her eyes to me. ‘Did you hit him first?’ she asked me pointedly.

  I was silent, staring down at the desk.

  ‘Tell me! Did you hit him first?’ she repeated her question in anger.

  ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ I said and kept looking at my desk.

  ‘Now tell me why you did that,’ she crossed her arms against her chest and questioned me.

  ‘Because he was talking dirty,’ I answered softly.

  ‘No, Ma’am, I didn’t say anything!’ Sushil intervened.

  Ma’am signalled for Sushil to keep quiet and asked me, ‘What did he say?’

  I didn’t say anything. How could I?

  She asked me again, ‘What did he say?’

  I still didn’t utter a word.

  She probably found my silence insulting, and, reluctant to discuss the issue any further, she commanded, ‘Get out, Ravinder!’ showing me the door.

  I looked at her. Her hand was still pointing towards the door. I looked at Sushil and then the backbenchers.

  ‘Now!’ Ma’am reminded me.

  Whispers filled the room.

  I closed my notebook, put the cap on my pen and walked out of the class without any debate.

  That was the very first time I had been punished in my new school. Ironically, I had been punished by the teacher I liked the most!

  Leaning against the wall of the classroom and looking into the barren campus, I thought over how I had thought of impressing her when the class had begun, and what it all had turned into. I wondered why I felt so offended when Sushil talked badly about this Ma’am. He had been talking about someone whom I hardly knew. I had never been this violent and hit anyone for someone else. I was not sure if I would have hit my benchmate for any other teacher.

  The bell rang and the period ended. The entire school broke for recess. The teacher walked out and looked at me.

  ‘Go in,’ she said. ‘Don’t do that, ever!’

  She still seemed angry with me. I kept staring at her as she walked down the corridor and then took a left turn towards the staff room.

  I realized that I had ruined it all. But I still believed what I did had been right. I would do it again if someone talked badly about her. I would bang his head the next time, I decided.

  That period had changed a lot of things for me. A bunch of boys believed that I had fallen for that teacher. I denied it when they said so to my face, but inside I felt nice when people associated me with her.

  The only good thing was that English Ma’am now knew my name. Out of the whole class, she would remember me. The sad thing was that she would remember me for all the wrong reasons. I was no more at the starting line of the race to impress her. Instead, I was on the opposite side of the starting line.

  The biggest difference that the period brou
ght in for me was that Sushil and I had broken up our friendship. It had all happened in a very short time frame. Just one period back, we had been really good friends. A period later, the two of us were talking to everybody but each other.

  When I walked inside the class, I overheard Sushil telling our common friends how I had forgotten our friendship for a teacher. ‘… Ma’am ke chakkar mein apne dost pe haath uthaaya!’

  I heard more.

  ‘He is always so calm and jolly. I thought you hit him first,’ someone in the group reacted to Sushil’s comment.

  ‘Yes, he isn’t of that nature. It’s still impossible for me to believe what he did!’

  I packed my bag and walked out of the classroom with my tiffin box. That day I didn’t eat my lunch—I fed it to a cow outside our school campus.

  One morning, I am at school.

  It is the fifth of the month, the last day for collecting the monthly school fee. But the school clerk, who does this job of collection, has been absent for a week because he’s been ill.

  Moments after the prayer assembly, the principal announces that all the class teachers, while taking the attendance, will collect the fees from the students in the first period. The receipts will be distributed to us later.

  Apart from that clerk and the principal, no one in my new school knows that I don’t pay for my education. It has been a well-kept secret so far. In the past, whenever my friends had asked me to go along with them to pay my fee, I had always made some excuse and slipped away. Usually, I would tell them that I had already paid my fee for that month. Now I am in a fix.

  A little later, I am inside the classroom. I am worried about getting exposed in front of everyone. I feel cold.

  What will they think of me? That I have been telling them lies for past so many months? That whatever they have to pay for, I enjoy it all for free?

  Scores of thoughts are passing through my mind. One moment, I want to run out of the classroom and let the class teacher mark me absent. But, right then, she makes eye contact with me. So I sit back.

  She starts calling the roll numbers, one by one.

  My classmates walk down to her to deposit their fees, one by one.

  Uncomfortably I sit, waiting for my turn, and wishing something could interrupt the process. All of a sudden, I think of something and slip my hand into my pocket. I bring out whatever money I’m carrying. I count it. It is seventeen rupees, in all. I nudge Sushil, who is busy talking to someone behind him. He asks me to wait for a while. I tell him it is urgent. He turns to me and asks what has happened.

  I ask him for some money that I can borrow.

  He checks his pockets and tells me that he has some twenty bucks. He hands me two ten-rupee notes. That brings my total up to thirty-seven rupees. I am still short by a lot of money.

  I reach out to Amit. I know he is the richest boy in our class. Unfortunately, he can’t help. He says he had cleared his canteen balance this morning, and has only kept enough for his fee. Looking at my disappointed face, he promises to lend me any amount I ask for, but only the next day.

  But tomorrow will be too late. In fact, tomorrow I won’t even need his money. I need it right at this moment, so that I can pay the fee and save myself from the embarrassment. I am thinking fast, but time is racing faster than me.

  And then, the moment arrives. The class teacher calls out my roll number.

  I have no idea what to say. I hand over those twenty rupees back to Sushil and pull out an old piece of paper from the first pocket of my bag. I fold it in my palm and start walking towards the class teacher.

  I take my time to reach her desk. I don’t know what to tell her. I am thinking hard, but the panic in my heart isn’t letting me think. When I reach the desk, I see a lot of money on the table. The class teacher waits for me to hand over my share.

  With a blank face, I lean towards her. I almost whisper my words. She doesn’t hear me clearly, so she asks me to say it again. Avoiding to look at the rest of the class, I quietly repeat what I had said earlier.

  ‘What do you mean you don’t pay your fees?’ she asks back, loud and clear. She is confused and wants me to explain what I just said.

  Shit!!!

  The people in the first few benches have heard the question. They are surprised and start discussing it among themselves. In no time, the news travels to the other end of the class. All ears and eyes are on me now.

  I am not able to make eye contact with anyone in the class.

  The class teacher calls my name again. My explanation is still due.

  I tell her that I don’t pay the fee to the school.

  ‘But why?’ she asks me, removing her spectacles from her eyes.

  ‘We are poor. My father can’t afford the fee,’ I say, unfolding the piece of paper in my hand and putting it on her desk for her to see.

  It is the application letter for the dismissal of my fee, approved by the principal and the school committee.

  I do not raise my head. I avoid meeting anyone’s eye. I don’t have the guts to do it. The entire class breaks into a series of whispers. They know it all by now. I have alienated myself from everyone.

  A little later, the class teacher asks me to go back to my seat. She hands the letter back to me.

  I go back to my seat. I fold the letter back into its original folds and put it in my shirt’s pocket. All this while, I am looking at the ground. I slip into my seat silently.

  When the first period ends, I prepare myself for the difficult questions that are bound to come my way from my classmates.

  I wait for the worst.

  But, to my surprise, everyone interacts with me as if nothing has happened!

  No one asks me anything about my fee. Never, ever!

  13

  One Dark Day

  If I remember it well, it was around mid-April that year when I had my first chance to see a movie at a theatre. The afternoon was pleasant, and my friends and I had gone to watch the matinee show. It was a totally unplanned event. In fact, our final exams were going on and we had one on that day as well—history exam, the most boring of all.

  As usual, by 12.30 p.m. most of the students had arrived at school. The exam was scheduled to start sharp at 1 p.m. The schoolbags on our shoulders that day were light, as we carried only the relevant study material for the exam. The question papers and clipboards in everyone’s hands transmitted the anxiety of exams in the air. A last-minute sharpening of pencils or checking the ink in our pens kept most of us busy.

  One could see the before-the-exam nervousness on practically everyone’s face. A handful of confident top-rankers also tried to fake the nervousness. Most of them, as usual, kept saying, ‘I don’t know what will happen in today’s exam. I don’t remember anything that I studied last night.’

  It was their modus operandi to make the others appear well prepared just before the exam, so that they didn’t revise any more, while they themselves kept revising, saying they were nervous. It was a trick that everyone knew about, and yet it was practised.

  On the other hand, the low-rank holders of the class were, as usual, also confident about their preparation. Most of them, as usual, kept saying, ‘History is a story. We will write one for every question—big deal!’

  Standing among that noisy herd, in front of the huge entrance area of the school, the rest of us were testing each other on the ‘Dates and Events’ section from the appendix of the book. That was the best last-minute brush-up one could do before a history exam.

  Amit asked me one question. ‘When was Mahatma Gandhi born?’

  ‘Second October,’ I replied, recalling the public holiday.

  ‘Abey, year bataa! Date nahi.’ He had asked for the year and not just the date.

  ‘Year? Hmm … 1940,’ I answered. Then, looking at the expression on his face, I quickly said, ‘… nahi, 1937.’

  He chuckled and said, ‘You mean Gandhiji was ten years old when we got our freedom!’

  Overhearing that, Gurp
reet, who was standing close to us, started laughing. However, she also didn’t know the answer.

  ‘1869,’ Amit updated us.

  That felt like an insult to me—humiliated in front of a third person, that too a girl.

  ‘Okay, okay, now let me ask you one.’ I opened my book and asked him to close his.

  ‘Chal bataa, first Battle of Panipat kab hui thi?’ I questioned him about the date of the historic battle.

  ‘1526!’ he answered instantaneously, with a victorious smile. I verified his answer. He was absolutely right. My ego was bruised—he knew more than me!

  ‘And the second Battle of Panipat?’ I quizzed him back, hoping he would be wrong this time.

  ‘Hmm … second … battle … 15—yes, 1556?’ he blurted out the date as soon as his brain fished it out of the calendar installed in his memory.

  Unfortunately, he was right again.

  His level of confidence shattered mine. In my mind, there were only two ways to feel comfortable in the moments before the exam. First, if you could correctly answer the questions that someone asked you. And second, if you couldn’t answer someone else’s question, that someone else should not be able to answer yours as well.

  For me, neither of the two had worked. So I raised the bar and looked for a difficult question. This was to restore my confidence, however small.

  ‘Will you be comfortable answering anything from the Mughal period?’

  Amit nodded.

  ‘When did Anaarkali die?’

  He broke into laughter immediately. ‘We don’t have Anaarkali in our books, must be Razia Sultana. Check it out!’

  I took another look through the ‘Dates and Events’ page and, exactly three seconds later, I plunged into oceans of jealousy as well as sadness—he was right! What a blunder!

  The bell rang and interrupted our Q&A session. We now had to go inside the examination room and take up our designated seats. I closed my book and looked at Amit. He asked me, ‘Should I tell you the date when Razia Sultana died?’