Chapter 9: The ‘Water-Loo’ May 8, 2008

“Palak…!! Palak…!!”

She after realising someone had called her looked towards me: “Yes???”

“If I am not wrong, you are representing Narayana House in the Group Song??”, I asked trying to sound sober.

“Yes.” She smiled and spoke again, “And you also are going to sing with me. Isn’t it?? I saw you during the auditions.”

“Yeh, if you call it auditions.” I sighed. She laughed.

She looks soooooooooooooo cute while she speaks.

If you ask me, Palak was a cheerful girl (at least while talking). Still, I was finding difficulty in talking to her. We talked hardly for 2-3 minutes, but these were enough to make my day.

While I was day-dreaming about me and Palak, holding each other’s hands and singing a romantic song of some crap bollywood movie, I gradually noticed something wet at the backside of my pants. Before, I could apprehend anything, I heard Sandeep, laughing at me, with a water-bottle in his hands.

“You moron…!!!”, I shouted, “At least not in the winters yaar..”

Pouring water on each other’s pants used to be our most-popular nonsense activity, but only in summers. Why the fuck he’s doing it in winters???

“Ohk…”, I sighed, grasped my bottle in my hands and started to spill water over Sandeep.

Isha after hearing the noise, lifted her head out of her ’slam book’ with an expression as if Einstein was disturbed from his work. After realising that she’s the class-monitor, she stood up and started shouting. I think, shouting was her hobby. Anyways, who cares..!!

So lets return to the scene. The ‘Water War’ between me and Sandeep was on the extreme for we had already emptied our bottles and still were asking others for their’s. I got an idea that Sandeep has gone mad. I don’t know how it came to me, but I ran towards Isha to ask her to help me. And as you have guessed, it was a wrong decision, at least for Sandeep.

Sandeep while striving to wet me, accidently shot a full shower of water on Isha. Crap !! Crap!! Crap!!!

Instantaneouly, after Isha screamed, everything became still. I noticed Sandeep had made 40% of her school-dress totally wet. Although, she was looking real sexy in her wet dress, but certainly this was not the time for such issues.

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Sandeep ran out of the class after the incident to the boys toilet and didn’t return till lunch.

While, I was enjoying the situation and desperately waiting for some real show. For the first time in the last few days, a trouble had not occured to me, instead it just by-passed me. I was in the ’safe zone’ for sure. It was Sandeep who started this, and it was Sandeep too who threw water at Isha. I was just a victim. Wow…….it’ll be a real fun to see what Isha will do of Sandeep.

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SONG REHEARSALS: DAY 1

I was still a bit wet on my pants when I reached the common hall where the rehearsals of Naryana House were scheduled. You know, when your pants are wet, your mind stops working. At least in my case, it was true.

I noticed some 6 girls including the group leader, ‘Shraddha Didi’ were already present. Shraddha Didi was two years senior to me. But this is not the main thing to mention. She was a ‘fatso’. Infact a big one. In the whole school, I haven’t seen a girl or boy more overweighed than her. But still, I don’t know how, she managed to sing exceptionally well and was responsible for bagging soo many medals and trophies for our house and school.

The rest of the 5 girls were including Seema and Priya. I am especially taking their names because they were the so-called hottest girls of the whole 10th class. What more, Palak was also out there. Abruptly, I started to feel that I am the luckiest boy of this world. But the God had some other ideas.

“Excuse Me Di..”, I said.

“Ohh, you have come. You didn’t get the message.” she asked.

“No…which message? Something related to our song…isn’t it?” I exclaimed. I was very excited about the idea of singing with as much as 5 ‘hot’ girls.

“Umm…well…no…I tell you. First you sit.”, she replied softly. Whenever someone uses such tone, it surely means – something is damn surely WRONGGGG!!!!

“See boy…ac..”

“I am Himanshu.”, I interrupted her.

“Ohkk sryy..See Himanshu, actually, this group was supposed to contain 4 boys and 4 girls. But since boys of our house took no interest in it, I have decided to make it a complete ‘girl’s event’.” She said sounding as if she was feeling sorry for me.

I remained silent.

“Since you are the only boy left…”, she said, but I again interrupted her:

“Nooo….there’s one more boy, you had selected two of us yesterday.” I was surely sounding like a small child who was deprived of his chocolate.

“He quit.”

“what??” I got surprised. What a fuck..!!! So, it was clear by now, that I am fired out of this competition.

It was a real insult in the front of all the girls out there. And what to say more, I was again rejected.

REJECTED…..It was nothing new for me. I was used to get ‘rejected’. But it hurts everytime. Really…!

I was good for only tabletennis. And that too with Naina.

FUCK !! FUCK !! FUCK !!

I decided to return. While on my way to the door, I saw Sandeep. He came towards me as he saw me. He was still smiling shamelessly after causing a huge blunder. He told me that he has been selected for representing Vashishtha House.

I felt a sudden burst of jealousy inside my chest. I decided that I am not going to lose it so easily. So for the first time in my school life, I decided to use all my so called ‘earned’ prestige, reputation and sources to change the situation.

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I reached the Narayana House incharge, Pooja Maam (who was my science teacher also and I was good in science) and appealed her to make me the part of the group.

“But one boy with 6 girls…!! It’ll look awkward betaa..”, she said.

“Maaam Please……Please let me do this. Its my wish since childhood to sing on the stage.” I mimicried.

After a full 10 minutes of debating, she agreed.

“Ohk Ohk….you are a bright boy. And therefore, I am doing this for you.”, she said finally getting irritated by me.

Hurrrayyyyy…….!!!!!

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GURUS of PEACE

This was the name of our song, originally composed by A R Rehman and sung by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Anyways, Shraddha Didi agreed to involve me.

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

{rest continued in Chapter 10}

PS — Bhopal is 44 degrees hot. I wish girls of Bhopal were a reason for it.

PS — I am in love with Avril Lavigne.

PS — My favourite IPL team Mumbai Indians thrashed Rajasthan Royals. Hurray…party for you(if u ask).

PS — Someone help me with this linear programming.

PS — For Parth: Pls return soon from Delhi. Except you, no one listens to my craps.

PS — Sorry to mention it again, but I am seriously in love with Avril.

PS — Recently read a very funny article on The Great Khali.

PS — You can also read it from here.

PS — One last thing to say before I sleep.

PS — Sweet Dreams.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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}