I Kissed A Girl In My Class (12 page)

It was a day
without any excitement. There was a long weekend coming up because
of Raksha Bandhan, and Manu was looking forward to cycling a lot if
the rains took a break. Ever since the quiz, Manu and Samar had
made a practice of spending a few minutes with Neha and her friends
who had been in the same section with them till the previous year,
during the tiffin break. They used to stand in the shade of the
trees near the tap stand and discuss all the interesting things
that had happened in the morning. That day, the girls had been
making a plan about which they seemed very pleased. And when the
two boys came up, they shared it with them excitedly.

The plan was this:
the girls wanted to tie rakhis to Manu and Samar, a very noble
thought and one that Manu had no problem with so long as Neha kept
out of it, but there seemed to be no indication of that. For all he
could tell, the idea had sprung from Neha’s mind. Why, he wondered,
were they doing this? Had Neha sensed his feelings for her? Was she
trying to throw him off? But maybe she didn’t have any inkling, and
was just doing it as a fine gesture of friendship. Maybe, maybe,
maybe. But then, again, perhaps it wasn’t her idea at all, and had
sprung from Deepti’s mind. Deepti was a bossy and overbearing girl.
She was bright, studious, sincere in class, well-mannered,
talkative, even friendly in a way, but fat for all that, and wasn’t
likely to break hearts ever in her life. Yet, this might be her way
of breaking hearts. And if that was so, his love was being martyred
for another’s cause. Manu was in a torment.

While he smiled
and nodded approvingly at them, his mind raced for answers to the
problem. He must get out of this situation, somehow. Perhaps, if he
dodged them on the day they brought rakhis? Well, that could be
done. He only had to reach school at the last moment, and be the
first to leave. As for the tiffin break, he could spend it with
some other classmates and later pretend that he had forgotten the
occasion.

It seemed like a
great scheme, but then another thought assailed him. Raksha Bandhan
was a holiday, and the girls wanted to ties rakhis a day early. If
brothers could be made a day in advance, they could perhaps also be
made at a later date. Any date. It was a horrible thought that
killed his appetite completely. What would he do, if they came
looking for him on the Monday after the break? He cursed the ritual
that makes a boy and a girl brother and sister by merely tying a
thread.

Through the
despondent haze a question arose in his mind. Is the relationship
formed by a thread reversible? Can I love Neha again after a few
years? After all, we are not blood relations. Till a few weeks ago,
I even hesitated to talk to her. But the thought seemed shameful,
dishonourable. Once a brother, always a brother, he decided. So,
there really was no way to avoid becoming Neha’s ‘brother’ unless
he fought with her over something and stopped being her friend.
Either way he stood to lose her. As a brother, he would still be a
friend, but if he fought, the rupture would be complete. No, he
liked Neha too much to cut her out of his life completely. It was
better to tie a rakhi. But no, he couldn’t allow that either. It
was crazy, stupid, foolish to love someone for six years and to
give up in a day. But what was he to do? If he refused churlishly
now, the girls might form some unflattering idea about him, and he
cared a lot for people’s good opinion.

Aloud he said,
“But we are good friends anyway, and all of us have siblings at
home. How did the idea of making us brothers get into your
mind?”

Deepti said it was
to make their friendship stronger. “Now that we are in different
sections.”

“Come on,” said
Manu, “you don’t mean that people cease to be friends just because
they are assigned to different sections? Deepti, I care more for
all of you today because we get only a few minutes together in the
tiffin break. I think our friendship has only grown stronger,” he
argued fervently. But the girls seemed to have made up their
minds.

Manu was angry
with Samar, because that studious boy, who had probably never
fallen in love so far, was willing to go along with them. If he,
Manu, refused or dodged the girls, he would look petty indeed. Manu
counted his prospective sisters. Besides Neha and Deepti, there
were Anisha and Ginny—one of them he hardly knew and the other was
always snarling at him. There was Sangeeta too, a quiet girl who
only spoke to girls, and Sana, who had lost him the Bournvita Quiz,
and Samira, short and spunky, to whose rakhi he had no objections
whatsoever. Seven rakhis! That would set him back by a few months’
pocket money, he thought, and immediately rapped himself for
bothering about petty things like money when the pressing problem
was to avoid becoming Neha’s brother.

All that afternoon
he wracked his brain for a way out of the crisis. He was
distracted, the teachers came and went, and he missed much of what
they explained and wrote on the blackboard. He looked around at all
the girls in the class he would happily accept rakhis from if only
the sacrifice would get Neha to distance herself from Deepti’s
mission. There were all the fat ones, the loud ones, the dull ones
and the oily-haired ones (Neha had short cropped hair in which she
wore a chunky white hairband). All of them he would suffer as
sisters if Neha could be his to love.

The periods passed
and the last bell rang. Manu grew more troubled with every passing
hour; never had he failed to claw his way out of a crisis before
this day. There was no friend he could share his dilemma with. Even
the most trusted ones might squeal, and he could land in a crisis
bigger than the present one. At last he thought of Ma. She had
strong views on the subject of relationships, and could not stand
any trifling with them. Perhaps, she would raise an objection to
this adventure that the girls would not be able to counter. And
what cared he if they did! Yes, Ma would not allow brother-making
to be reduced to a whimsical sport on the street.

***

The question
was on his lips when he got home but he wisely refrained from
uttering it, lest Ma should suspect the true nature of his anguish.
After lunch, when Ma had finished doing the dishes and lay down to
rest, he went and sat beside her and remarked jovially:

“Guess what
happened in school today?”

“I don’t know,
Manu, did you win something?” Ma said, without opening her
eyes.

“No, Ma, something
really funny happened. You know Neha and Deepti and Anisha and that
Ginny…”

Ma had heard the
names many times, and knew which of the girls Manu liked and which
ones he didn’t get along with. She nodded sleepily expecting to be
told about some childish prank.

“Today, they
cornered Samar and me, and told us they will tie us rakhis the day
after tomorrow.”

Ma opened her
eyes, interested in the development. “Really! What have you two
been up to,” she teased him.

“Oh, nothing,” he
said blushing, “what will we be up to? It’s suddenly come upon them
to make brothers, God knows why.”

“And what did you
say?” Ma said.

Manu thought a
moment before answering. Should he say he had opposed their plan,
or that he had gone along with it? He wanted an answer that she
would not approve of. He wanted genuine objections to the girls’
plan, but so far, he had not managed to raise Ma’s hackles.

“Um, I told them
it was a strange fancy because we aren’t even in the same section
any more, and what’s the point of playing at brothers and sisters
when you have hardly any time for each other.”

He expected the
answer to meet with her full approval but the opposite
happened.

“Manu!” Ma
protested, “that was so rude. Is that how you talk to the girls in
your class? And they have been your friends for so long.”

“Ginny, my
friend?”

“Well, they are
all very nice girls, and besides, it is so sweet of them to suggest
this. You should feel honoured. It just shows that girls are more
sensible than boys.”

Oh no, this wasn’t
how Manu wanted the discussion to go.

“But think, Ma, we
are going to be together for maybe three more years, and then they
go their way and I mine. What do I care about them? You know me! Is
that your idea of a good brother?”

“No,” said Ma,
“but since when have you stopped caring for friends? That isn’t you
at all. You were so upset the day the sections were shuffled and
you were moved to a different section. And now you say you don’t
care for them! Go, do your homework and let me sleep”.

“But Ma,” Manu
whined, “what am I supposed to do?”

“Just do as they
say, and don’t forget to give each one of them eleven rupees, all
right? Remind me tomorrow morning to give you the money.”

Manu was on the
verge of telling her he didn’t want any sisters but tried another
tack.

“Suppose,” he
said, “they tie me a rakhi today. I am not just ANY friend after
that, right?”

“Don’t beat about
the bush,” Ma said. She was intent upon her siesta.

“Well, don’t you
see, we may fight, we may disagree, we may come to dislike each
other a month from now. Then, what am I morally supposed to do? Can
a brother stop being a brother just like that and become a foe? You
know we are in the same class, and the competition is fierce
sometimes.” It was supposed to be a powerful argument but sounded
like a desperate appeal.

“Well, you
shouldn’t fight,” Ma said and turned determinedly on her side.

The strategy had
backfired. Manu considered telling Ma the truth, that he loved
Neha, secretly of course, but he absolutely worshipped her and had
done so since the time they were together in class 1. Perhaps she
would understand then and show him a way out of the crisis. He
shook her by the shoulder and pleaded, “Ma” but when she looked at
him irritably, his tongue froze. No, no, he could not tell anyone
his secret. Grown-ups would not understand. “I am going to the
other room to do my homework,” he said instead.

“So go then,” Ma
said and dozed off.

***

Next morning
arrived. The sun lit a fire between the dark clouds and slowly
pushed them aside. Birds chirped in the tree whose top reached
Manu’s window. A radio in the neighbourhood played an old but
cheerful Kishore Kumar song. Only Manu was morose. He cycled
slowly, unwillingly that day. He wanted to be somewhere else where
Neha could not tie him a rakhi. Not once did his hand shoot up to
answer a question in class that day. When the tiffin break came, he
did not go to meet the girls but hung around with some other
students. Samar even came to call him, but he said he would join
them later.

He saw Neha
talking animatedly and laughing from the corner of his eye, and the
image etched itself on his memory. He considered wistfully how this
was likely to be the last time he admired her in that way. Next
afternoon, she would be his sister, and he would be morally bound
to forget all his past feelings, unless…

Unless what? What
could possibly come between him and Neha’s rakhi? A plan formed in
his mind. If a couple of boys could request her to tie them rakhis
in the morning, she would run out of her stock of threads by tiffin
time, and spare him for the next year. And who knows, a year on she
might see him as more than brother material.

The plan cheered
Manu but only till he tried to find scapegoats for it. None of the
boys wanted a rakhi sister. In fact, none of the other boys wanted
any dealings with girls. Oh, those late bloomers.

Needless to say,
Manu had another very terrible day and he ate little at lunchtime
and slept fitfully. He summoned every memory of Neha and bade it a
tearful goodbye. He slept so late, in fact, that he pulled himself
out of bed next morning with great difficulty. But for Sharad, he
would have been late to school and locked out for the day, so
slowly did he cycle that morning.

All morning, Manu
was absent-minded. He had the air of a prisoner on death row. He
had received the message to be at the tap stand as soon as the
tiffin break started. The girls had brought sweets, and vermilion
and rice grains, and they wanted to make Samar and him brothers
ceremoniously. But when the tiffin bell rang, Manu fled to the
toilet and remained there till he was sure the building had
emptied. Then he tried sneaking back to the classroom but was
caught by one of the seniors on discipline duty. He was handed down
the stairs and turned out of the wide open doors facing the tap
stand. The fugitive had been led straight to his pursuers’ camp.
The hare had been caught in the headlights.

“Manu!” the girls
called aloud, “where have you been?”

He counted seven
rakhis on Samar’s wrist. His best friend was trying to work his
jaws around a mouthful of sweets happily. Good for you, Fatty, Manu
thought as he extended a wrist in front of Deepti without bothering
to tell a lie.

He did not think
but only experienced many sensations keenly as the girls tied their
rakhis one after the other. Deepti knotted hers tightly and it
chafed his wrist. It was just like her: purposeful, direct and a
bit rough. He was amused by the way Ginny, whom he thought an
implacable foe, knotted hers gingerly. Anisha had been called away,
so he was spared one rakhi and eleven rupees. Samira’s knot was as
careless as her: it came loose within a few minutes. Sangeeta was
plainly uncomfortable, so was her knot; but Sana tied hers with
surprising care and warmth, and Manu forgave her the mistake in the
quiz.

Then, time slowed
down. Neha had a red rakhi with a little fluffy Ganesha stuck on
it. She carefully made a bow knot at the back of his wrist, her
small hands working quickly, neatly. She stuck one more grain of
rice to the many on his forehead, and he felt it slip and tumble
down hitting his left eyelid. He accepted the sweet she offered him
with downcast eyes and ate it slowly. He was sounding his own
conscience. Had he managed to cleanse his heart of all the old
feelings? He had, there was no burden of guilt.