"Mrs. Bhan's Birthday!"

The next day, 9th of August was Mrs. Bhan’s birthday. As I had witnessed in my first year at P.E, this day was a joyous occasion, each year, for all of us!  Everyone, be it teachers, students, helpers or maids, hovered around the foyer waiting for Mrs. Bhan’s car to arrive. Back in Eighth standard, I had prepared a small card for Mrs. Bhan on her b’day. It was a picture of a bouquet of flowers which I had  painted in water-colours. I remember how I had coyly handed it to her and wished her a happy b’day as I fiercely blushed - the colour of a beetroot. I had been over the moon the next day when my mom, on returning from school, had told me that Mrs. Bhan had told her how she greatly appreciated my card. This she did  while on her daily rounds of the junior school. She had asked my mother whether I had drawn and coloured the card myself as she complimented me to my mother and said it was a beautiful card. I still remember wondering  to myself in awe,  how  anybody could specially remember a tiny card, amongst hundreds of huge ones. But such was Mrs. Bhan! She was not just our headmistress; but she was also our fairy god-mother who instantly put a smile on our faces with her magic wand that was her love and affection .  She was our mother-hen who noticed and appreciated us for every tiny little thing and also checked us whenever we put a toe out of line. Today four years later, I smiled to myself at the sweet memory and looked down at the different greeting card which I now held in my hand. It had taken me three days to prepare it and I knew that Mrs. Bhan would go over each of her cards separately and would appreciate our efforts. So I had worked as hard as everybody else had , each of us wanting our respective cards to be the best for our head-mistress.

As the past four years had passed and we had all entered adoloscence, Mrs. Bhan had become more of a friend to us than our principal. We could share each and every worry with her and she often took sessions for us senior girls consisting of sex-education and woes of teenagers!!. But today we were as excited as eleven year olds to wish her a happy b’day.  Around me, Sonal,Sakshi, Khushboo and Pratishtha were holding flowers and cards in their hands . We all shared a moment thinking that this would be the last year we would be celebrating Mrs. Bhan’s bday as students at P.E. We promised  ourselves that we would come to wish her the following year too. We suddenly stopped speaking on hearing the sound of a car screeching to a halt. We stepped down the couple of stairs at the entrance of the main building just as  Mrs. Bhan stepped out of her silver Ford Icon. Today she was dressed in  a maroon cotton saree and a slightly different jewellery from what she wore everyday, but that too was of silver.  Her arms were laden with numerous greeting cards and flowers which she must have received at Dhar Kothi. She smiled lovingly as everybody surrounded her at once. She thanked each and every person carefully, specially the bunch of little fifth-graders who were jumping around the crowd to give her the flowers they had brought. They blushed deeply as Mrs. Bhan addressed each of them by their names, accepting their flowers. I patiently waited for my turn and finally presented my greeting card to her. “Wish you a very happy bday Mrs. Bhan!” I said. She was smiling radiantly at everyone and as usual her eyes were sparkling with emotion. “Thank you Mallika!” she replied, hugging me, “That’s a lovely one” she added, looking over the greeting card.

“Mrs. Bhan gets cards from everyone!” a voice said from behind my back. Dr. Bhan was striding towards us. “No-one makes me any card. Not even you Harry!” he said. He had started addressing  me by this name ever since he had come to know about my craze for the Harry Potter books. When we were younger, we had been terrified of Dr. Bhan but today he joked around with us and particularly liked to pull my leg.

 “I’ll make you one this year Dr. Bhan.” I  promised, smiling at him. He frowned and asked “You will? Tell me when’s my b’day.”

 I looked at Mrs. Bhan for help as Dr. bhan’s face remained impassive. Mrs. Bhan looked at her husband and said “Dr. Bhan is just feeling a bit jealous today, aren’t you? Okaay bye byee Dr. Bhan. See youuu!”

 Dr. bhan gave me one of his mock glares, with a frown and his lips pursed, and took off in another direction. Mrs Bhan laughed and went into her office. Both of them always teased each other and made us laugh. I set off towards my class just as Gopal bhaiya went into Mrs Bhan’s office with a single rose in his hand, his warm and respectful smile intact .

Mr. Gajendra too shared his b’day with Mrs Bhan and he shyly bowed and accepted everyone’s wishes as we all headed outside for the assembly. After the hymn, we all sang the b’day song “Happy B’day To You!” for Mrs. Bhan and Mr. Gajendra while both of them pointed to each other with their hands at “Yoouuu!” which made the children laugh in delight. That day snacks were accompanied with a slab of vanilla  ice-cream and a  “Cadbury Chocki”,the recently launched liquid chocolaty candy, for each student. The  last class of the day,our  library period , saw the Four of us huddled in the corner of the room as Ms. Sanghi kept a careful eye on us from behind her thick book! We were deciding what we were going to do during the slumber-party we had planned for the weekend. Three days to go!! We knew it was going to be an amazing night!