By Aniruddha Mishu
They say the memories of your school life are the best – those ‘carefree’ days are the most memorable part of one’s life. I think about this too – 14 long years of my initial life with my fellow batch mates. And then those “memorable moments” come gushing down the memory lane giving me goosebumps.
I was in class 12th. Unlike others, I did not have a big friend circle in school. I just had a handful of people with whom I mixed up well. Only one of them was the closest to me – with whom I shared then and share now – a great bond.
This being a common practice in most schools then and till date – the class teachers often refrained from making two close friends sit together due to “disciplinary reasons” as per their theory. So my teacher one fine day shuffled the seating arrangement, and I was made to sit with someone who had been a constant acquaintance since kindergarten.
I was, of course, sad for I wasn’t sitting with my partner in crime but I was okay with the fact that I would be sharing the bench with at least someone I knew. Yeah! We were not the best of friends, we did not talk much either but there definitely was a customary exchange of words between us often.
I thought maybe this was one chance where we could become friends. But then there is the special procedure of creating “memorable moments” in school as per common belief.
We sat together for two or three days and most of the time I tried to start a conversation with this new bench partner about various things – tuitions and football (l hated football but he was the star player of our class) or any random thing. I used to receive some one-liner replies which either happened to be forced or were quite half-hearted.
I decided to not say anything much after that assuming it might annoy him.
As the week came to a close, I noticed that he would only sit beside me till the time a class went on. During the transition time, he would rush back to his group and then though not directly but his friends would make fun of him because I had been made to sit with him. Well, I was a keen and silent observer.
Theirs was a large group in the science section); almost every other boy or girl except a few loners like me and a handful of others were a part of that group. They hung out together; would create ruckus in the class whenever they found the opportunity, call names to each other and many more unruly things.
I generally didn’t find these things cool. Honestly, I belonged to that “good boy” category who would just come to the class, study, have his tiffin during lunch break and go back home. (Yes guys like that also existed!! but that definitely does not give anyone a reason to think that I was or am boring!!!)
In the coming week, as I came to the class, I observed that he would just sit beside me only in the class that our class teacher took. During other classes, he would carry his belongings and sit with his group.
I would be left all alone the whole day. I came to terms with this and would just mind my own business silently. Sometimes, I used to go and speak with my bestie, at other times I would just sit and study at my seat.
This continued for a week and one fine morning after our class teacher’s lecture got over, he didn’t follow his usual routine and kept sitting beside me. After a while, he began blurting a series of expletives, started bad-mouthing and cursing me badly!!!
I was stunned. One, because I was taken unawares as to why I was at the receiving end of this foulness and two, half of the things he said were unfathomable – I hadn’t heard such things in my life!!!
And then he boycotted me totally by carrying away his belongings and never came back.
I was much disturbed the whole day. I didn’t say anything to anyone. Even my friends (those handful ones) were not present that day.
I didn’t know why I was being treated like that. I felt as if I was being bullied. The nasty groupism that was going on in that class was definitely to be held responsible.
I went back home and wept silently in my bed. Things were not going well. I felt lonely. This was one out of the many such “beautiful moments to remember life-long of my school life” after all.
I shared this with my mother like everything else and I told her that I didn’t want to go to school as it was becoming difficult for me to bear the indifference. To this, my mother took me by her side and calmed me down and told me to have patience. She said this was a phase that was bound to pass. That after some months when I would pass my exams and step out into the new world, things would be much better where no one would let me feel lonely, where people will value my personality, I will have some great friends.
So she told me to go and face this tough phase because this will teach me great lessons in life.
So again the next day, I reluctantly got ready for my “charming school” with a bag full of “fond sweet memories of my so-called ongoing school life” of which I was in the last phase of but deep inside, l was fully convinced that there was still a lot of space in this “bag of memories” and I still had to bear…oh sorry …..I still had to collect umpteen such memories in the remaining excruciating days of school. I had a sarcastic smirk on my face thinking about the same.
And off I went to board the bus, the bus driver honking impatiently to take me to the world of “sweet fond memorable, nostalgia causing memories”.
The day was as bland and heavy as every other day but the two only good things that I remember happened to be: one, my bestie bringing my favourite achappam to savour in lunch, two, the class teacher making a rearrangement of seats unconsciously making me place right behind my bestie with one of my other close friends in the section. Now, there was no reason to think the former was to celebrate the occurrence of the latter – it was just a mere coincidence.
But, what a happy coincidence.
