Chapter 10 : Operation X May 20, 2008

“Welcome back..!!”, Palak came and forwarded to shake hands with me.

“Yeah…thanks.”

My mind was already dumb. My confidence used to shaken up when I was in front of her.

So for the whole week, I lingered around Palak. She liked my company. I used to crack jokes (copied from santabanta.com) and she loved them. Although there were other ‘hotter’ girls too, but I didn’t want to look
like a playboy amongst 6 girls.

*********************************************************************
THE ‘D’ DAY:

Finally after puffing our lungs for a week, the competition-day came. After analysing the rehearsals of other participating houses, we were damn sure that the trophy is ours this time.

And our turn came. I began to feel awkward as I reached the stage realising that I am the ‘odd man out’. And we sang the song.

Chanda Sooraj Lakho Taare
Hai jab tere hi ye saare
Kiss baat pe hoti hai fir takaraare.

It was a wonderful performance (with a little contribution from my side too). And as expected we won.

“Hurrayy…!!!” Seema exclaimed and leaped towards me. And that was the second time in my life a girl hugged me. I wished she were Palak. Nevertheless, Seema also felt nice.

Infact, if you’ve ever hugged a girl, you must have experienced 3 sorts of feelings:

1. The sweet smell of shampoo from her hairs which fall just above your nose.

2. The ecstatic perception developed by the caressing of her breasts.

3. The continuous staring and humming of the people around you and their comments on the event.

But who cares? All I knew that I was the luckiest boy of the whole school for a few seconds. Things were good for me now. Palak and I became very good friends. So the only thing of concern in my life was
my studies, because I had a board exam on my head.

**********************************************************************

3 MONTHS LATER ~ 5th MARCH 2005

“How much you did?” Karun said. He had come to my house. After I left tuitions, he was the only person with whom I was in continuous contact.

It was the starting of 5 days ‘gap’ for the Mathematics Board Examination. There is something special about the gaps in exams. Except studying, students do everything in these days including asking
each-other if they have studied anything.

“Nothing much. Let me take a break dude.” I said.

“Thats what I am here for….to give you a break. What about going to Hot Dot??” Karun shrieked. Hot Dot was the only internet cafe in my colony and a popular venue. Karun and I had spent hours in it watching
pornos.

“Crap…Not at this time.” I replied totally uninterested.

“Hey dude, you didn’t get me. I need to download CBSE Sample Papers. And you know, I am dumb at computers.”

This was true. Karun was absolutely dumb in computers. I guess, computers were the only thing in which I was better than him.

***********************************************************************

‘HOT DOT’ INCIDENT

{Sorry friends, I’ve deleted the rest b’coz I got it too personal. Sorry to all those who got hurt by this post. I apologise by deleting this portion.}

{rest continued in Chapter 11}

PS — Sorry for modifications. I’ll write the next post soon and will continue the story.

PS– Please keep reading.

Chapter 7 May 1, 2008

Karun opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, I heard my mom saying:

“COME HERE RIGHT NOW……!!!!”

“Mummy, ..umm.. it was an accident. Actually……”

“I said come here right now.” I realised mom was seriously angry. Arguing will certainly worsen the situation. So I decided to keep my mouth shut and follow the orders.

Mom took me to home. We spoke nothing on the way. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words. I was wondering what made my mom to come to my tuition at such a weird time. But does it matters?? The only thing that mattered was she saw me doing wrong thing to the wrong person.

****************************************************************************

NEXT DAY:

“You are not going to your tuition anymore from today itself.” mom said. It was the first time, she spoke to me after that incident.

“But I can explain it to you. Actually, its not what you think.” I defended.

“No, I don’t want to hear anything…My..”

“Ohk….say.” dad interrupted her. I thanked God for dad was in here. This is the best thing about ‘dads’. They know how to tackle ‘mummy’s’ and the situation simultaneously.

The next half-an-hour, I told them everything that happened to me and how the situation twisted into a real massacre. Although they appeared a bit convinced after my hard work, but still they were not agree to allow me for my tuition.

It was like a shock for me. Tuition was like a ‘third-home’ to me. Yes, I know this whole idea of ‘third-home’ sounds eerie, but still I didn’t want to lose my tuition. Finally, I surrendered.

*****************************************************************************

BHARATI VIDYA MANDIR ~ MY SCHOOL

“Nature speaks the language of mathematics.” Sinha sir articulated. He was our maths teacher but the way he used to teach us made him appear more like a philosopher.

He erased the blackboard and wrote the letter ‘D’ at the middle in large.

“Now who will tell me what is it??” He yelled. I raised my hand. It was my habit to react or better to say ‘over-react’ in school. I used to consider myself ‘out of this world’ student.

“Yes Himanshu, please tell us the answer.” sir said completely surprised by my reaction-time.

“Sir its ‘D’. ‘D’ stands for ‘Dog’.” I answered and instantaneously realised how foolish I was. Whole class started to giggle.

“You idiot, everyone knows its ‘D’. Why you have to act oversmart in the class??”, Sinha sir shouted angrily at me. He then took a deep breath to control his anger and then said, “D stands for ‘discriminant’. Its the base of our next chapter ‘Quadratic Equations’.”

Everyone laughed at me. But I was used to it. I knew its only for a few minutes. I’ll again be a ‘hero’ in the next period. Although I was not certain about it.

“Better luck next time Himanshu.” Akshat said. He was my class-mate and one of the ‘three best friends’ in school. The rest being Apurv and Sandeep.

“Lets play ‘fighter’”, I said. ‘FIGHTER’ was our favourite time-pass game. Its a game played with pen. Each player puts his pen on the battleground (i.e desk) and targets to throw the other ones out of the desk. The last one to survive wins. I know it sounds a bit childish, but who cares…!!!

“Himanshu….!!!!!!” I heard someone shouting at me. And the voice was from none other than Isha. Isha was our class-monitor. “Will you stop your rubbish thing on your own or I’ll have to come to your place.” she shouted again. I hated her for her strictness. If she were not a monitor, we would have been very good friends. But now we were just classmates.

Isha used to sit on a bench just parallel to mine and this enabled her to keep an eye on ‘all of us’ comfortably. Isha was good looking and had a tall and commanding personality and may be this was the reason that she was the first choice of our class-teacher for the class representative.

But she was very short-tempered and also responsible for creating ‘discipline troubles’ for us. Besides Isha, used to sit a ‘very-very’ cute girl named Palak. I am mentioning Palak because I’d always wanted to talk to her but every time I’d tried to do so, I just couldn’t. I won’t say that I had a crush on her, but nevertheless I liked her.

See this is the problem with boys. They get infatuated with more than one girl simultaneously. And guess what, I was no exception to this.

***********************************************************************

TWO HOURS LATER: THE ‘GROUP-SONG’ AUDITIONS

I am feeling very proud in telling you that for the first time in my life, I participated in the group-song competition. I didn’t know what drove me to it, but still I was very delighted. The singer inside me was ready to show himself to the world.

When I reached for the auditions, I saw there was only one more boy out there. I realised I have taken a wrong decision. I began to feel inconvenient among so many girls. Finally, the group leader started taking auditions. Since there were only two boys, so she selected us without auditions.

The next 30 minutes, I listened to other girls who were trying their best to sing melodiously. I was already getting mad, when I realised Palak had also come. Suddenly, my lost delightfulness started to reappear. I prayed to God that she gets selected……!

And guess what, she did..!

{Rest continued in Chapter 8}

Chapter 6: THE ‘TOP’ TROUBLE April 21, 2008

RING RING RING RING

I checked the watch and it was 5 minutes past 12. I hurried up to pick up the phone. Somewhere inside my mind I prayed to God that its Naina’s call.

“Hello” I said.

“Hello…” a voice of a male answered. All of a sudden I got disappointed and a nano-second later, I got excited that at least someone called me.

“Happy Birthday hero….” he said again.

“Ohh…..Apurv…..Thankyou yaar.” I replied. I never expected a call from his side. Now let me tell something about Apurv. Basically, Apurv was my school class-mate. Also, he was my bench-mate from 3rd standard. And what more, he was my best friend. But still, I don’t know why I didn’t use to share my personal affairs with him. Although, I’d figure out a satisfactory reason for it:

My school life had different dimensions. School was a place where I was a ‘hero’, mainly because I was good in studies. So I never wanted to tell my school-friends, my problems and to appear like an under-confident boy.

We talked for over 15 minutes. He asked me if I am celebrating my birthday for which I refused. After the call ended, I went to sleep. I was thoroughly satisfied, because at least someone called me up tonight.

**********************************************************************************************************************************************************

AT TUITION:

I was not at all interested in celebrating my birthday. I guess all parties are more or less the same. People come, eat and go. Thats it. But on the urge of ‘Karun and company’, I decided to give a mini-treat to them. I called up Karun to escort me to market.

We bought some snacks, colddrinks, icecream etc. and beheaded for tuition. Karun appeared so excited as if he’d got a free subscription of penthouse for a year. Basically, after spending 4 months with him, I’d figure out that Karun was a different kind of boy.

First of all, I noticed he had absolutely no interest in girls which is an expceptional case for a boy. He had his own world and opinion of looking things. I’d never seen him frustrated or tensed. Although, he was a bit irritating sometimes, but nevertheless, he was an appealing boy.

It was nearly dark when we reached tuition. In winters days are short. As soon as I entered room, I experienced three different kinds of smells or better to say ‘perfumes’, one each from Giya, Rini and Rupal. They were dressed in a way that it was their birthday not mine. I took the farthest seat from the girls.

“Happy Birthday …!!!!”, all of them screamed.

“Thanks.” I replied and shook hands with each of them simultaneously flinched my nose. I am not sure, but I guess I had developed an allergy with perfumes.

“So lets start, where’s the cake??” Giya said looking at me.

“Ohh god, we forgot to get a cake.” Karun howled. I also got surprised how I forgot such an important thing.

“Anyways, doesn’t matters….lets open this large coke bottle and sing birthday cheers.” Rupal said. I blessed her intelligence. Its not everyday you get to hear such intelligent things from a girl.

So Karun stood up and shook the coke bottle vigorously with his hands in a fashion which reminded me of something I would not like to mention here. But if you’ve got it, my job is done. He did it in such a way that it got spilled up on all our clothes, walls, floor. I thanked god for Nitu Di was not in here. Otherwise, she would have fired us from here.

Everyone sang the birthday song. And then the so-called ‘mini-party’ started.

The next half an hour went gossiping about one another. The best thing was that none of us mentioned ‘Naina’. I looked at Giya, she was my first-crush. I saw her for the first time on my first day at Nitu Di’s tution. Giya was a year senior to me, and thats why I respected her a lot. She was not so-stylish as other girls, but she had a nice toned body radiating a healthy luminescence. Her best feature was her long-long hairs and her mesmerizing eyes.

“Hey Himanshu…..!!!” Rini who was now sitting beside me whispered in my ear as she noticed me staring Giya, “What are you looking at??”

“No na…..nothing.”

“Ohhoo….really?? I don’t think so.” Rini said again with such a tone which reminded me of my mom. She liked to tease me for Giya’s name.

I spoke nothing.

She stood up, “Hey friends, I have got one latest news for you people……”.

As soon I realised she’s gonna tell this to everyone, I reacted instantaneously. I don’t know why, but my hand reached her top to hold it and made her sit again. She got annoyed and started to pull my shirt. Others started to laugh.

“Now this is enough…!” I said and stood up. She acted quicker than me and ran outside the room towards the main gate.

“You.!!!! Wait I m coming.” I shouted and ran to chase her.

I was at least half-a-metre away from her when I stretched my hand to catch her. More unexpectedly, my hand caught her top again. I don’t know how it happened, but due to our momentom, we couldn’t control ourselves and hit the main gate and fell down. My hand was still holding her top which I noticed was torn away all round exposing her whole back including her pink-coloured bra.

For a while, I got shocked and stabilised myself to understand the situation. Why such nasty incidents occur to me always?? Rupal, Giya reached to Rini, who by now, appeared totally numb after this. Giya gave her ‘dupatta’ to cover Rini, while Karun was standing besides me trying to understand and figure out how it happened.

I cursed the ‘textile industry’ in my mind for manufacturing such a bad-quality fabric which couldn’t stand even a minor strain of my hand.

While I was planning a rubbish to file a ‘court case’ against textile-industry, suddenly, I saw someone approaching me. What worse, it was my mom. I was spellbound and frozen up. I felt like I have gone in ‘coma’. I tried to move, but my feets didn’t respond.

Before I could react, my mom got the idea of the situation. It had appeared like I have committed a ‘rape attempt’ against Rini. Giya, Rupal took Rini inside the room while Karun and me were still standing out there to wait for some reaction from my mom’s side.

Karun opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, I heard my mom saying:

“COME HERE RIGHT NOW……!!!!”

………………………..{Rest continued in Chapter 7}