"Geeta-Bhavan ke Samose!"

We entered the month of August with a striking realisation of how quickly the last month had flown! As the final  session of our schooling proceeded, quite a few things changed. First of all, the pressure and work-load of studies increased at an unbelievable pace. All the teachers now expected A high level of hard-work from us and their respective classes consisted of  non-stop assignments, tests,warnings and strict instructions. Speaking about myself, my worst fear had come true. Mrs. Bandi, though very sweet and warm as a person, was an extremely professional and  ‘no-nonsense’ type of a teacher. She constantly encouraged us to ask her any doubts that we might  have during the lesson and took forward her subject at a fast pace in accordance with the syllabus. I was seriously lagging behind in the subject due to my lack of interest and carelessness. Instead of gathering up the courage to dive into the subject and try to understand it, I chose to pretend, expertly, that I was following, by nodding my head and copying from Sakshi’s notebook. I knew that one day, I was going to end up in a soup when it would be time for us to appear in the board exams but the little red devil perched on my right shoulder reminded me again and again that the session had just started and I could always “pull up my socks” after a couple of months.  Even Mrs David, who was usually very easy going and lenient with us was constantly pushing us to take Economics seriously. Mrs Rubina had started giving us tests twice a week and we had admitted amongst ourselves that it was indeed helping us cover the syllabus quickly. Mrs Ghosh decided upon giving us essay-type questions and report writing as assignments as she said it WOULD help us increase our speed and we would be able to write long answers in a limited time as a practice for exams. 

The second change was a far more pleasant one for me than the previous one! Eventually, after many bus-rides, back and forth between  school and home, I had begun to find a close friend in Vyankatesh. Ever since I had joined Progressive, I had always hung out with my girl-friends and nothing felt amiss. But as Venky (I had started calling him by the same name everyone else called him by!) and I spent more and more time together, we ended up having a gala time. I was marvelled at how much fun we had in the bus. We always sat on the same seat, one right IN the middle of the bus which had a raised platform at the bottom. He saved me a seat everyday and moved aside to let me sit by the window. Venky was witty, outspoken and so funny! I suppose he also found me humorous as, shaking his head, he claimed that my booming laughter was not for faint-hearts to hear!

 Today, Venky and I were having an arm-wrestling match in the bus on our way to the school while the bunch of little fifth graders looked on with wide eyes and cheered EACH TIME THERE WAS any development.  Venky conceiled a yawn behind his free hand as I grunted and applied my full stregth with my arm. After getting exhausted of all my energy, I kicked him hard on his leg. He immediately pretended to give a loud ‘UUFFFF!’ and let me win. Our young audience –all of them boys- fell into a stunned silence.  One of them managed to squeak aloud his thoughts  to us. “Ladki se haar gae!!( lost to a girl!)”, he whispered as though this was the end of the world. My “win” was the topic of discussion till we entered the gates of the school. “Ha!” Venky guffawed, as we made our way to the main building, “As if I can ever lose to a girl!”.

 “Yeah Yeah!”, I replied, “at least you have hit an all time low with our young friends on the bus!”

 “I don’t care!”, he said, “ Am I their friend or yours?! See I am so sweet naa?” he flashed all his teeth at me as I made a  face. Just then, Sonal came rushing towards us and even before any of us could say  ‘hi’, she faced me and demanded, “Did u ask aunty, Maalu??”

 “Yes, I did and she said ‘YES’ !!”I yelled out the last word and we hugged each other with joy!.

 “Said yes to what? Sending both of you to Bareilly’s Mental hospital for a summer camp? Shrieking early in the morning like crazy!”.

“No you idiot!” Sonal said, “four of us are having a slumber-party at my place on twelfth night to celebrate my b’day, which is on the 13th by the way. We will celebrate it at midnight and have lots of fun!!!” 

“Night-stay haan? “ Avtar’s voice said from behind. We turned to see him and Amitayu walking towards us.

 “So am I invited too???” he asked, slyly.

 “Yaaa…you wish!!” Sonal and I chorused and burst out laughing.

 “I wont go there if somebody pays me to.”, Amitayu said as we made our way towards the class. “They’ll giggle like idiots the whole night and go gaga over Shahid Kapoor and some guy at the coffee house. Ladkiyaan bewakoof hoti hain.”, he added as if that ended the matter.

 “How do you know so much about slumber-parties amidaaa?” I poked him on the arm and teased him till he gave me a deadly look which sombered me at once.

Soon, Sakshi, Pratishtha , Sonal and I were sitting together, planning things for our slumber party. “Hey!”, Sonal said, “Shall we catch a movie on 12th evening with my family after I pick three of you from your homes?’ Parineeta,’  got released yesterday and I think it’s sort of an adult movie. So we can have fun commenting. What say?”.

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” , Pratishtha  shouted so loudly that three of us winced. “I am never going to watch any censored movie with family again.” She said, grimacing, “its so goddamn embarassing. I went to watch ‘Page-3’ with my grandparents once. You know that film is full of adult dialogues and swear words.  It was horrible! Dada-Daadi made me sit in between with each of them on either side and Dadaji, short of hearing as he is, kept on asking me after every dialogue – “Hain, kya bol raha hai”, ye kya boli?” They were the worst three hours of my life.”

I wiped away the tears which had slid down my cheeks due to laughing so hard. It took me another ten minutes of cajoling and hitting (by Pratishtha) to calm down. As we made our way towards the cubicle for Economics, we heard Mrs. Bandi’s voice calling us from behind. She hurried towards us and shoved a silver tiffin box in Pratishtha’s hands. “Here!”, she said, “The pudding that you had brought me that day was delicious Pratishtha. My kids enjoyed it the most. I did not get time to make you something though to fill your tiffin with. So I brought hot samosas for you from ‘Samosewala’ of my neighbourhood. He was making a fresh batch.” Mrs. Bandi stayed in a locality named Geetabhavan. Samose of that particular samosewala are famous throughout Indore. After Pratishtha thanked her,  Mrs Bandi rushed towards the left corridoor to take her class as we started up  the steps.  Pratishtha opEned the tiffin box and A delicious aroma filled our nostrils. “MMMmmmm!” I swooned as we crossed the library.

 “They’ll get cold soon.When do we eat them? “ Sakshi asked with a longing look, as Sonal nodded fiercely. Pratishtha turned to face THE three of us with an amused look.

 “When did I even say that I will share these with you three anyway?”. We pinched her and tickled her till till she screamed. “Okay Okaayyyy…I was just kidding!! You know what,” she said, “ Mrs. David always comes a bit late for her class in the morning. Let’s eat these samosas right now but we have to be quick and let’s sit on THE floor so that no one else can see us.” We all agreed and began to shift our chairs to make space for us to sit on the floor. The doors of all the classes were opaque from THE middle to THE bottom whereas THEY  had transparent glass on the upper-half. So as we sat comfortably on the floor with our legs crossed, we were sure that no one would be able to see us eating. Four of us were so excited about samosas that one would think we were going to eat them for the first time in our lives. But AN unexpected samosa feast in school was as unlikely for us as Mrs. Bandi taking a one week leave. I laughed loudly as Pratishtha, sitting opposite me, who unwound in a circular motion, the thread binding the green chutney packet, with a silly grin on her face. Sakshi covered my mouth with her hands and said “Ye Maalu ki wajah se hee marenge hum chaaron ek din.(we are going to die because of Maalu one day)”. Pratishtha handed us a samosa each  and kept the last one for Mrs David. The samosas were just delicious! The crust was crispy and hot and the potato filling just melted in our mouths. I felt depressed when mine was finished and hoped there wERE more. I looked longingly at Sonal’s last bite, which , noticing me looking, she immediately popped  in her mouth, smirking.

 “I say,”, Sakshi said as we stood up and dusted ourselves clean, “ it’s been almost fifteen minutes now and Mrs. David isnt here yet. She is present for sure as I saw her in the morning. Lets go and find her. She is never this late.” We all agreed and hiding the last samosa  in my bag, stepped out of the cubiclE to find our teacher. We spotted her midway on the stairs and she looked very angry. “Just where were you girls?”, she demanded as soon as we reached her, “I have been looking all around the building for all of u. I came to the cubiclE and didn’t see u there when I peeked inside. The chairs were empty.”  We all broke into explanation at once and Mrs. David probably could not understand any of it as she silenced US with her hand held up and looked at us with a sad expression on her face. “I thought that by being friendly with you all, learning would be more fun”, she said, “I always thought that even though you girls are a little playful, you would never ever think of taking advantage of me. You have started lYing to me as well. How can I not see you if you were in THE cubiclE.”

We started to speak again at once but she wouldn’t listen. “I don’t feel like teaching today girls,” she said , “Enjoy your free period all of you,” she added, walking away from us. We all looked at each other and sat down inside the small room.

 “I feel lousy!” SonAl said in a tiny voice, “What should we do?”

Ten minutes later, we were all standing outside the Staff-room. “Ms. Payal!!” I called out to the teacher sitting nearest to the door. She was a young teacher, in her mid-twenties, with short hair and a smiling face. She took English in the junior classes. She looked up and glanced inquiringly at us. “Ma’am could you call Mrs. David for us for just a minute?” I said. She nodded and called out to Mrs. David . “She is coming.”, Ms Payal said, “She is looking sad though. Did you girls do anything bad to annoy her?” She looked at us sternly. We were just about to answer her when Mrs David herself emerged from the staff-room, looking grave.

 “Mrs. David,”, Pratishtha stepped up and spoke before Mrs. David could say anything, “Please at least hear us out once. After that if you tell us to leave, we will not come here again, but please listen to us once. It’s a misunderstanding.” Encouraged BY Mrs. David’s silence, she went on speaking and started telling her everything about Pratishtha’s tiffin-box, Mrs. Bandi’s samosas and our decision to  sit on the floor to eat them and that’s how she could not see us from outside. “This is what happened Mrs. David. Really!!” Pratishtha said, after telling Mrs. David the whole story. “We just want you to believe that whatever we do, we would never lie to you. And we would never ever take advantage of you. Really ma’am! See we even left you a samosa! ” She pointed at me and I held out the  last samosa which I was untill now holding in my hand behind my back. “SORRY  Mrs. David!” the four of us held our ears and chorused, the samosa still in my hand.  We looked at Mrs. David’s face to see whether she believed us or not.  Mrs. David looked at each of us and then at the samosa dangling near my right ear and burst out laughing. “You girls are so silly!!”, she exclaimed, stretching out her arms and pulling all four of us in a tight hug. “I knew you girls would never hurt me on purpose. Though you are the silly and naughty and full of mischief, I always told my husband that these girls have got their hearts in the right place. Today I was hurt to think that you would take me for granted and bunk my class. I am so relieved now.” She patted each of us on THE cheek fondly and said, “Now there’s no sense going back to the lesson. THE bell is about to ring in five minutes. TomoRrow I want all of you in time in for our economics class, ON YOUR CHAIRS!! And give me my samosa!”. We laughed as we headed towards the main building. How we adored Mrs. David! We were glad we could lift up her mood and clear the little misunderstanding which had arisen. We would never ever hurt any teachers of ours on purpose. We headed towards our next class, giggling and blaming each other for the samosa  fiasco which we knew none of us would ever forget!                     

"Chamatkaar!"

“That’s- the- third- time- I- have- called –you- for -dinner!”said  my mother through gritted teeth and in a slow and dangerous voice, as she  stood  at the door of my bedroom.Her hands were folded in front of her chest and eyes were red with fury. “Gotta go, gotta go, gotta gooo..” I whispered to sonal  into the cordless phone before disconnecting it and  hastily flunging it on bed. “Mom, I was just saying byee……”I stopped talking on seeing the look on mum’s face. She looked mad!! “Uh Uh!!” I thought to myself, taking in the pregnant silence and waiting with bated breath, till….. “WHAT IS THERE TO TALK SO MUCH ABOUT AND GIGGLE ENDLESSLY!!!” all the hell broke loose as my mother’s voice echoed in every corner of the house, “DON’T YOU GET TO MEET AND TALK AT SCHOOL?????? IF U PAY HALF THE ATTENTION IN YOUR STUDIES THAN THESE SILLY DISCUSSIONS,  ATLEAST YOUR MARKS WILL IMPROVE !!” and on and on it went!Thus,that day  dinner was accompanied by a delicious portion of maa’s ongoing lecture about my lack of concentration in studies and the increasing amount of the phone bill. I made a mental note of cuting our telephonic talks short or atleast start trying !

Mum had been cool towards me the following morning as well, as she dismissed me with a wave  when I said goodbye before leaving for the school next day . After the serious and lowly ongoing mood since last night, I was dieng to lift up my spirits by cracking a joke on somebody and making everyone laugh.   As I made my way towards out classroom, I smirked when I saw Mrs Ghosh already in. Though she was not “we-are-pals” kind of teacher,she usually spared a smile when we teased her.Opening the door, I barged inside the class, bellowing on top of my lungs, a line from a hindi tv commercial “ MRS. GHOSH!! MELODY  ITNI CHOCOLATY  KYUN  HOTI  HAI??” The moment the words were out of my mouth, I sensed that something was wrong, very wrong! looking at mrs ghosh’s narrowed eyes , pursed lips, and at the heads shaking all around the room, I instantly knew that she must have been in a very serious discussion with the class. “Dammit!” I thought, grimacing. I dared to look up at Mrs ghosh’s eyes and waited for the second time in last 24 hours, to hell to break loose again. “GET OUT! JUST GET OUT  OF THE CLASS  I  SAY!  YOU THINK THIS SCHOOL IS SOME KIND OF A  JOKE!!” Mrs ghosh shouted , pointing to the door, her eyes popping “ HERE I AM PLEADING ALL OF YOU TO PULL UP YOUR SOCKS AND STUDY HARD IF U WANT TO PASS OUT FROM THIS SCHOOL WITH RESPECTABLE MARKS, AND MISS FUNNY-TWO-SHOES WALKS IN WITH A SILLY PRACTICAL JOKE EARLY IN THE MORNING…. GET OUT AND STAY THERE. YOU CAN EXPLAIN WHAT YOU DID, TO MRS. BHAN WHEN  SHE COMES OUT OF HER OFFICE FOR THE ASSEMBLY AND ASKS YOU WHY YOU ARE PUNISHED SO EARLY IN THE DAY. OUT!” I  bowed my head and putting my bag inside the cubby hole of my desk, walked outside the class to stand near the door.  The junior classes were filing out of their classes for the assembly and little 6^th graders burst into laughter on seeing me standing outside the class. I stuck out my tongue at them and turned to another direction, cringing at what I saw–“MEN WASHROOM”. I turned my head again when I heard someone running towards the class. Avtar stopped dead in his tracks on seeing me. “Well! Well!” he said, his face breaking into an evil grin, “What did I miss? And so early in the morning too!! Sly!” “Yeah! Yeah!”, I  replied, making a face, “I am pretty sure you are going to join me here in the next two minutes. She is not in a mood to forgive you for loittering around in the football field when you are supposed to come straight to the class before assembly.” His smile vanished as he hurried inside the clas muttering apologies to Mrs. Ghosh. I smiled to myself in satisfaction when I saw avtar’s tall figure slouching… “SO YOU THINK YOU ARE SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU DON’T NEED TO COME TO CLASS ON TIME????”     

“Give it a rest guys!” I shouted at sonal, sakshi and pratishtha as they followed me out in the foyer chanting “Melody khao, khud jaan jao!” It was recess time now. We headed towards our favoirite spot behind the main school building where the buses were stood during the daytime. It provided us the perfect hideout to plan our pranks and to gossip! “You know what?” I said,closing my eyes in determination, as we made ourselves comfortable in the deep, dry drain, “I am going to make mum, mrs. Ghosh and every teacher proud of me this year. I will study hard and get good grades so that they start taking me seriously and not just as some sort of a clown as they do. Its high time I , what did Mrs Ghosh say, yeah pull up my socks and get down to bussiness. I will study hard day and night and will finally prove myself! Yes, I - AM- GOING- TO- DO -IT!” I ended dramatically! “Do u guys think I have it in me??”  when I heard no cheering and the supportive response I was expecting to get, I opened my eyes only to see my three friends standing at some distance and laughing their heads off. I had no idea as to when I had lost them but clearly they had not heard a word of my speech. “What are you guys doin?” I inquired on joining them.  “Remember a tv seriel named ‘CHAMATKAAR’?” Sakshi said, forming an ‘L’ out of both sets of her index fingers and thumbs and sticking the latter into her ears. It gave an impression of horns sticking out of the sides  of her face. “Arree…”, she continued impatiently, looking at my blank expression, “where actor Farooq Sheikh could hear anyone’s  inner thoughts by doing this!!” She adjusted her ‘horns’ in her ears and looked around for her prey. I forgot all about my resolve of studieng harder as we watched sakshi hide behind the mulberry bush waiting. I could barely supress my laughter when I saw poor Mr. Gajendra trotting towards us. He was singing to himself in a low  voice,obviously composing some new tune. As soon as he had passed the bush, sakshi jumped from behind it, in front of him wheering and shouting “CHAMATKAAAAR!!! CHAMATKAAAAAAR…!” she was moving her horns in a way u would adjust the antenna of tv to get better network! Mr Gajendra gave a great scream of shock, “AAAAAARRRGGHHHHHHHHHHH” and fell on the ground, thankfully on a patch of grass.  We burst out laughing as Mr. gajendra dusted himself and stood up. He glared at us, though with a twinkle in his eyes. He was into his early-thirties then and was always a good sport. “Not one day passes when you girls don’t create a havok in this place! I saw my first grey hair yesterday and I strongly suspect its because of you four . and you Nayaa ladki”, he said addressing me.  ,(he had called me by this name ever since I joined the school in eighth standard, it meant ‘new girl’ ). “I had told you to come for the choir practice yesterday, didnt i?” he asked, “Why didnt you come then?” “Mr Gajendraaaaaa!” I replied, in a bored voice, “I don’t like singing! Stop pushing me please siiir!!” “Okay!” he said, starting towards the school building. I let out a huge sigh of relief! “Come for the practice tommorow at lunchtime!!” he added, grinning.  I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Try it maalu!” I heard pratishtha saying. I stuck out both my arms and imitated an airplane, wheering and running. “WHHHHEEEEEE…CHAMATKAAAA…OOPS!” I banged hard into somebody and fell heavily on their feet. “UH!OH!” I recognised these sandals. I slowly looked up to meet Mrs. Ghosh’s  narrowed eyes. Here we go agaiin…………..

"Our new accounts teacher!"

Our new Accounts teacher turned out to be a thin, middle-aged, fair and delicate looking Maharashtrian lady with curly hair. She was standing near the green sofa in the reception area and seemed to be searching for us with a thick book in her hand.  As we went closer to her, I took in notice her neatly pinned-up grey and yellow chiffon saree and her square-shaped rimless spectacles. My first silly thought which popped-up at her first sight was that her face looked like that of an innocent sparrow, with small, pouted lips and tiny, almond-shaped eyes. As we greeted her, she smiled nervously and led us towards the empty classroom at the corner of the west corridoor whose occupants were probably at the field for their sports period. “Hello!”, she started once we all were comfortably seated. “My name is Supriya Bandi and I will be taking your accounts classes. In this class, I thought we would just get to know each other well and we can start the subject in the second class after the recess!” For the rest of the class we kept on chatting and we all immediately bonded well with Mrs. Bandi. We came to know that she has not joined as a full-time teacher but as a visiting faculty.  In her second class after the recess,she taught us the basics of the journal entry and we cud see that she was really a very experienced and learned teacher. By the time the bell rang, we had spent a lot of time with our new ma’am and decided that she was ‘cool ’!

 “Khushboo and I have a Literature class with Mrs. Bhan now.” I said, extracting the navy blue text-book from my bag after our commerce class with Mrs Rubina, who was also a new faculty member and was very friendly and chirpy. “You guys cannot have Fashion-designing, right? Because Khushboo takes it too!” “Thats right Maaluuu!!” Sakshi said while jumping around the class and bumping into Amitayu, who scowled at her in return, “We have a free-period. These are meant for us to revise our lessons as exams get near but as the session has almost just started, it is a total fuuuuuuuun timeee!” I pretended to hit her with my text-book and made my way, with Khushboo, to Mrs. Bhan’s office where she took our classes. “So, moti!” I said, calling her by the hindi nick- name I had long since given her, “where had our dear Mr. Seth reached during the last lesson?” “I think,” she replied, opening her book, “last read, he was complaining about the man sitting behing him in the bus eating very,smelly goat-meat on their way to resort-cottages at the Heaven’s Lake. “Yeah!” I said, screwing up my nose, “now I remember!” we waited outside Mrs. Bhan’s office as she finished a conversation on her office phone and ushered us in, while searching for her own blue colored book before sitting down besides us on the only empty yellow  plastic chair by the window. We were studieng  an Indian novel called – ‘From Heaven lake- Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet.’ By- Mr. Vikram Seth, the author of the famous book- ‘A Suitable boy.’  “So girls!,” Mrs. Bhan started, opening her book, “ Where were we? I think Mr. Seth had arrived at the cottages and was happily surveying his surroundings and thick, quilted beds after having a tiring bus journey.” We nodded and I started reading further lines on Mrs. Bhan’s instructions-

“The lake is an intense blue, surrounded on all sides by green mountain walls, dotted with distant sheep. At the head of the lake, beyong the delta of the in-flowing stream, is a massive snow capped peak which dominates the vista; it is a part of a series of peaks that culminate, a little out of view, in Mount Bogda itself...”

Though Mr. Seth’s story of his  journey was in first person format as in a tale, it was endowed with many difficult synonyms and metaphors. As Khushboo and I took turns reading the chapter, Mrs. Bhan kept on explaining its gist and meanings. As always, as we read, she made us underline the confusing and unknown words with pencil for us to look them up in the dictionary later and tell her their meaning in the next class.  we had finished two long chapters (having marked the last read page by inserting a bookmark as Mrs. Bhan strongly disapproved of folding the corner of the pages) just as the bell at the end of the second Literature class rang." Tuesdays were good in this session’s timetable",i thought as we stepped out of Mrs Bhan's office- double economics, double accounts with a new nice teacher who doesn’t seem to be strict,1 commerce class , literature with mrs bhan,  and double english language with mrs ghosh after the lunch break!!!

Returning to the class for keeping our books before heading for the dining hall for lunch, we waited outside the class-room till the boys get finished with their Physics lesson with Mrs. Awasthi. After latter had left and we all walked towards the terrace, we discussed how nicer the place looked now after having being converted into an eating- mess. It looked like a roof-top restaurent and on cloudy, breezy days, it was a pure delight eating there.

We started ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens with Mrs. Ghosh in the last class of the day and immersed in the heavily narrated tale of Pip and his sister Joe Gargery, who had, by the way, married a blacksmith.We had heard that Mrs. Bhan and Mrs. Ghosh  had seen the Bollywood movie- Bride and Prejudice, which had recently been released in the theatres to see how much it was similar to the classic they had read. We didn’t know if it was a rumour or not, but if it really  was true, I was sure they would not have related to it at all. on my way back home, I again sat with Venkatesh in the bus…..

" Beloved Mrs Ghosh and Mrs David!!"

“Goodmorning class!”, Mrs Ghosh greeted us as she opened the attendance register and started calling out our names one by one. Being one of the seniormost teachers of the school, she had been assigned as the class-teacher of the seniormost class i.e  us! Being such an old teacher she knew each of us well !  She spoke only in English or Bengali and just for fun, we enjoyed speaking to her deliberately in the Hindi language as she was not very fluent at either understanding it or speaking it. We absolutely adored her ! Today the boys had decided to answer to their roll-call in Sanskrit. So whenever their names were being called out, they were answering it by saying –“Asti! Or Upasthit ” (both of which mean present!) .

Mrs. Ghosh adjusted her spectacles on her tiny nose and glared through her square shaped glasses, saying- “Now come on! Stop being silly all of you. We are getting late for the assembly! What is this ‘aasti-aasti’ business! Answer properly.” she had just closed the register and was about to say something when Khushboo came hurrieng to the door. She was a chubby girl with a booming laughter and a sensitive temper like amitayu’s. She was the only one who had opted for the arts stream after our board year but we all shared  a common class of English language with her, which was compulsary for students of every stream. I, however also had an additional subject of English Literature with her for which only both of us had opted. It was taken by Mrs. Bhan and we studied the classic literary works in this class, analysing the character-sketches and doing thesis on the writing style of the different authors. Sonal, Sakshi and Pratishtha had opted for fashion designing instead!   “Sorry Mrs Ghosh!” Khushboo said, catching up her breath, “I missed my bus and thats why I had to come with Mrs bhan in her car after she had taken the assembly of the junior school!”  After Mrs Ghosh had allowed her in and had marked her present, she took a new pile of dark green thick books from the classroom cupboard and distributed them to each one of us. “Children, We have a double English class today after lunch. So, we would be starting with ‘Great Expectations’ from Charles Dickens now and we would also be continuing with ‘The Tempest’ simontaniously.”  “Thats a relief!” a voice whispered “ we need a break from thee, thy and thou now or we will soon start speaking that way amongst ourselves too!”  I think...” Mrs Ghosh remanded, looking straight at Avtar, having heard his comment, “that on the contrary, Mr. Shakespeare is the one who needs a break from all of you! You murder his dialogues sometimes. Anyway, I also have to inform you four girls of the commerce stream”, she said gesturing towards us, “ that your new Accounts teacher would be taking your classes from today. Mrs. Bhan has found a very nice and talented person finally for the subject.” The four of us groaned, as we got up to form a line for the assembly, as till now we were getting all the accounts classes as free periods because of the absence of the teacher for it and in that time we enjoyed long sessions of frolicking and chatting. I was most depressed as I knew that I, in particular, would come out to be the lousiest at the subject. It was afterall, a close cousin of Mathematics!

After the assembly, where after the hymn, Mrs Bhan had warned the chidren to behave properly in the bus while coming to the school as she was getting a lot of complaints from the teachers, we four girls took our books and made our way to the first floor for our first lesson of the day- the Economics class. Boys’ classes were held in our main classroom and we only spent a little time there before the assembly and during the English lessons. We had been assigned a small cubicle near the staffroom for all our classes which had initially seemed to be very small and stuffy but with the passage of time, we had come to love it and now treated it as our privately owned domain. We crossed the library and entered the door of the staffroom, immediately on the left of which was our cubicle. There was room for exactly four small-sized blue chairs for each of us and a plain, roomier chair for the faculty in our room. Our places had long since mutually been fixed amongst ourselves and lifting aside the joint panel attached to the hands of our chairs for keeping the books, we took our seats. Economics class was taken by our very dear Christian teacher in her fifties- Mrs. Barbara David. She kept her hair short in the boy-cut style and was fitter than many younger people in the school. Previously, she had been incharge of the whole junior school but she had been transferred here, to the senior school  for taking our commerce and economics classes as she had majored in these subjects in college and also took excellent coaching classes for them at her home in the evenings. Even though Mrs. David was much older than all of us, we shared a great rapport with her and she was always there to favour us and  to eagerly discuss all types of our academic as well as personal matters openly. Today, she strode in ten minutes late and immediately commanded us to open up our text-books to page 38. “I was talking to Mrs. Bhan about a student and did not hear the bell at all!” she said in a wheezy and huffy voice by having rushed to the class in such a hurry, “I bet you girls must have been elated thinking that Mrs. David is not going to turn up for the lesson!” “No ma’am!”, Pratishtha said, “We would never do that! We loooooooooove  eco classes.” “ Young ladies!” Mrs. David said, raising her right eyebrow and smiling, “I am not that old yet that you could butter me up and I would not understand it. Whenever I take reading lessons, you all are asleep halfway through the class. I think you don’t take me seriously enough. I should be more strict with you girls, you know! Other teachers say that I have spoiled all of you rotten. And I think they are right. Now come-on! Toooooo the next chapter.” She loudly exclaimed over our defensive replies and mock outbursts. We never took Mrs. David seriously but loved her a loot!   Turn by turn, we read the chapter about the monopolistic market conditions and its effects. During the second-half of the class, Mrs. David dictated us some important points regarding the topic and the answers of the commonly asked questions. Sometimes, when only a last few minutes of the class would be left and we Mrs. David would see that we all are tired, she would let us off early. But today, even after our pleas and requests, she made sure that we keep on writing the matter.  Sonal, who was eventhough sitting nearest to Mrs. David kept asking her to repeat the ‘last sentence’ and finally, latter retorted in an irritated manner “Arreee, this one! Sonal, are you short of hearing or what!”   rest three of us burst out laughing and kept repeating to Sonal in unison- “short of hearing or what!” for the rest of the lesson. “That’s enough girls!” Mrs. David said, closing her register and putting the cap back on her pen. “and by the way, I keep telling you that the jeans you wear are far tighter than the ones which would be appropriate according to the school and you all don’t listen. The girls of junior classes even more so than you. Now I have heard that if this continues then your uniform might get changed to something more suitable and comfortable.” “Noooooooooo!”, we all exclaimed together. We absolutely loved our uniform. It was so much cooler and trendier and smarter. The idea of wearing something else to the school was frightening and appalling! “ I said its a possibility! So mend your ways girls and tell your friends and juniors to do the same too.” Just on cue, the bell rang, announcing the end of the lesson and Mrs. David left for her next class. While coming out of the cubicle to search for our new Accounts teacher for our double  period, the possibily of changing our beloved dress-code was the only topic of discussion between us and we looked over each other if they really were as “inappropriate”  as they said, for wearing them at school!