The day began on a bad note! It was a chilly morning and I was running late. As I ran towards my bus-stop at a top speed lest I missed my bus, my toe tripped over a stone and I grabbed the first thing which was within my reach : an arm of a passing lady. I fell hard on the concrete road anyway and heard the unfailing sound of the cloth ripping. I landed hard on my knees and I felt my brand new salwar tear and the harsh surface cut my flesh. Slowly, I rose to my feet and dusted my self. My fresh ‘out- of- laundry’ kurta was now dusty in places and blood was trickling from my knee which was exposed due to the tear. I was about to resume my run to the bus-stop when a hand grabbed the back of my bag and stopped me from moving. I turned to look into the narrowed, brown eyes of a stern looking woman who was eyeing me with disdain.
“Where do you think you are going?” she inquired in an angry, high-pitched voice.
It was the lady whom I had grabbed to break my fall. She was an extremely fair and stout lady with curly black hair . She had a torn sleeve too from where I had grabbed her arm and looking at her fuming composure, at once I knew that I couldn’t have chosen a more sterner person to annoy!
“Oh right!” I said, looking over my shoulder to check whether the bus is approaching or not, “See, it was an accident aunty. I am really very very sorry!”
I started towards my stop but again she blocked me.
“Don’t you have any manners?” she said, “You tear my clothes, almost push me on the road which by the way, could have broken my leg for all you care and u have the cheek to just walk away with a mumbled apology and a sneer on your face.
I blinked at her.
“Sneer?” I thought, “ God, who was this person?”
“Look Madam!” I said “I am really going to miss my school-bus if you don’t let me go. I am really , really, extremely, genuinely, truly ,actually sorry!”
“So now you are being sarcastic haan?” she said, “ Go, you have already spoiled my mood on the morning of my new job”. Letting me go, she walked away, muttering under her breath, “Teens nowdays have no manners at all!!”
I ran past her and reached my bus-stop just in time to see the bus emerging on the corner of the street.
“Oh thank God!” I gasped , clutching the side of my stomach and gasping for my breath. The tear on my knee was stinging badly by now and all the running had made me thirsty.
“Mallika!” Shama aunty exclaimed, coming to my side. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” I said, “Just had a small fall!”
The bus soon arrived and as it came to a halt, I saw the lady whom I had bumped into, walking towards me.
“Good Riddance!” I thought and waving to Shama aunty, hopped quickly onto the bus to avoid another encounter with the angry lady.
To my horror, reaching the bus, she followed me and stepped onboard too. Was she coming to slap me now?
I saw as she sat on one of the front seats of the bus and inroduced herself to another teacher.
“Hello! I am Mrs. Das!” she said, “The new science teacher for senior students.”
“New job!” I thought , comprehension dawning onto me. “She is a new faculty member.”
Catching a glimpse of me, she gave me a look of contempt amd I hurried to the back of the bus to get out of her sight.
“Don’t even ask!” I muttered at Venky as he raised his eye-brows at my dirty form.
Reaching the school,I told him to proceed to the class and I walked towards Gopal bhaiya to ask for the first-aid box.
“Mallika!” he said, even before I could say anything, “Mrs. Bhan wishes to see you in her office before the assembly.”
All my worry about my injury vanished on hearing this information and I turned and made my way towards the headmistress’s office.
“May I come in Ma’am?” I asked at the entrance of her room.
Mrs. Bhan was sitting on her desk, looking over some papers. Today she was dressed in maroon cotton salwar-suit and her spectacles were perched up on her nose and hearing my voice, she looked up from her work.
“Ah, Yes Mallika! Do come in!” she said, removing her glasses and closing the file of sheets.
“Good-morning Ma’am!” I said.
“Morning Mallika!” she said, “Please sit down!”
Looking at Mrs. Bhan’s grave expression, I could make out that she had surely not called me to bestow accolades on some task which I may have done..
“You called me Mrs. Bhan?” I asked, sitting gingerly on the chair across her.
“Yes!” she said, “To tell you the truth, I was very disappointed when one of the teachers complained about you to me yesterday.”
I was completely taken aback. As far as I could remember, I had not crossed any teacher in the recent past and my academic graph was going on well too. Mrs. Bandi had appreciated my effort at studies,just two days back during her class.
“I am sorry I don’t understand Mrs. Bhan!” I said, puzzled.
“Well” she said, “ a junior teacher has complained that a couple of days back when you might be in the field during the lunch break, she heard you saying the offensive ‘F’ word on the top of your voice.”
“WHAAT??” I exclaimed, bewildered. My voice had gone all squeky. “Mrs. Bhan! I swear thats not true! I have never even uttered this word out of my mouth, let alone shouting it out in front of everyone on the field and I wince when I hear the boys of our class saying it sometimes. My friends can vouch for me that I never ever use bad language. And using such a bad word is completely out of question! Please believe me Mrs. Bhan! I didn’t say it.”
Mrs. Bhan was listening to me in a serious manner and I could not make out whether she believed me or not.
“Ok Mallika!” she said finally, “ I did ask her if she was sure it was you or not and she seemed be be sure that it was indeed you she saw. So, if it is true, please take care of it in future and well, if it is, according to you, untrue and you didn’t do it, then it’s fine!”
I could see that I had failed to convince Mrs. Bhan and realised that she must deal with students covering up their wrong deeds in such a manner everyday. So, it must be difficult for her to believe me.
I got up and slowly made my way towards the class with my head bowed low. Indignition bubbled inside me like hot lava. It was so unfortunate and unfair! I wondered which teacher had mistaken some other misbehaving student for me. I had always been close to Mrs. Bhan and I grimaced when I considered what she must have thought of me after hearing this false accusation.
“Hope the new teacher from my bus doesn’t complain about me too. What a morning!” I thought.
As I reached the class, I was annoyed to see that the door was not open ajar as usual but was just a tad bit open. Moodily, I pushed it and stepped in the room when something fell hard on the top of my head. It was the class dust-bin which Avtar, Amitayu and Aniket had kept on the top of the door so that it falls on the top of the person who enters the room.
On top of my dusty clothes, and torn knee, I now had strewn bits of papers and other garbage all around me and I looked up to see all my class-mates roaring with laughter and pointing towards me.
Hot tears filled my eyes and I ran out of the room towards the wash-room. The day was beginning to be a torture and it was not even assembly time yet. Reaching the washroom, I locked myself in a cubical. I could not stop crying!
Okay, to make things clear, I am definitely not a cry-baby who starts howling at drop of the hat but whenever I cry, I am unable to stop for some time. This is one of the things which I loathe about myself. I have always wished to be one of those people who are strong and do not cry in any situation but I suppose every girl has hidden taps inside her eye-lids which cannot wait to go off. This is so unfair too!!
On the sound of people entering the washroom, I tried to get a grip on myself and took long gulps of air to steady myself. I wiped my tears and stepped out of the cubical. Sakshi, Pratishtha and Sonal were standing outside, apparantly at a loss to say anything. I passed them and went to a washbasin to wash my face. As I wiped my eyes with a towel, I saw that the person staring back at me from behind the mirror had red, bloodshot eyes and nose which was an alarming bright shade of pink.
“What happened Maalu?” Sonal asked, gently.
“Nothing!” I snapped.
“Something must have happened for sure!” Sakshi said, stepping towards me. “You never lose nerve on practical jokes .On the contrary, you laugh the loudest on them. Today your mood is not right and you have torn and dirty clothes too. What happened?”
“Well, I am having a lousy day!” I replied waspishly “and you guys are doing nothing to make it better. Just see how a person’s mood is before you hurl a dust-bin at them. Just leave me alone.”
“Come on Maalu!” Pratishtha said angrily “You know that we all play such jokes on each other everyday. Sonal, amitayu and I, we all have had the same prank played with us too. How would we know that you are not in a good mood? It was an innocent incident. You are over-reacting!”
“Fine then!” I snarled, “I am the one who is at fault right? That’s why I am telling you to leave me alone! Go away!”
“Fine!” she said, starting towards the entrance of the loo “We can talk when you come to your senses, if you ever do.”
“You can go too!” I shouted at Sonal and Sakshi after Pratishtha had walked out “ Don’t let me waste your time.”
Both of them followed Pratishtha and after a few minutes I walked out of the washroom and went to join the class for the assembly.
The rest of the day was as bad. I kept brooding the whole day and my three friends did not try to talk to me again, contrary to what I had expected. As I calmed down, I felt lonely and sad when I saw the three of them talking to each other in the usual manner but turned my face in the other direction when they glanced at me. As we went to the main class for Mrs. Ghosh’s lesson, the boys kept on pretending to shake with fright when I passed them and I was glad that they had not taken offence on my outburst but seemed to find it funny! On the way back to home, I pretended to sleep in the bus in order to avoid Venky asking me questions. Overall, it was one of the worst days of my school life. Started with an injury, scolding from a new teacher, outrageous untrue complaint against me to Mrs. Bhan herself , made a fool of myself by crying over a petty matter and picked a fight with my best friends. By the time I reached home, I had developed a throbbing head-ache and I slept the afternoon away to forget the happenings of the day.
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