"The Change!"

Our worst nightmare came true when Mrs. Ghosh announced in the class that our uniform is indeed going to change from our smart , collared white T-shirts and jeans to Navy blue and White salwar- kameez. This change was for the three senior most classes  i.e the girls belonging to the tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades. We assumed that the reason was inappropriate tight-fitted jeans worn by some of the girls. We were scandelised by this information and fiercely defied the idea when Mrs. Ghosh announced it. But it seemed that this decision was final and there was no convincing Mrs. Ghosh or Mrs. Bhan about it. On the contrary, all the teachers seemed quite happy with this change and dismissed our pleas saying we would soon get used to the new uniform as the days would pass and insisted that it would be much more comfortable than the jeans. We groaned when we saw the sample of our uniform. The ‘Kurta’ was Navy-Blue and stand-collared with slanting lines running down the front . The ‘Salwar’ was white in colour. Speaking of myself, I , who had been a tom-boy always, had never ever worn an Indian attire all my life. I was dismayed thinking that I would look like a clown in Salwar-Kameez and Sakshi wailed that we would all look like Thirty year olds.

Finally, when the dreadful day came, I felt miserable as I turned to and fro standing in front of the mirror and threw a pillow at my sister who was laughing openly. I thought I  looked really very silly! I headed towards the bus-stop after my mother had assured me that I looked nice and not at all silly.

“Heyyy, what are you wearing?” Shama aunty asked even before I could greet her. Arkam was gawking at me in polite puzzlement.

“The new uniform!” I said, sulking, “Looking stupid, am I not?”

“No, you are not looking stupid!” she said, smiling “but the jeans looked smart, why did they change it?”

“Yeah, you are from the USA,” I said, “ofcourse you would like jeans better. Probably because some girls used to wear tight-fitted jeans to school which is ofcourse not right.”

“So where’s the “chunni”? she asked.

“There’s none.” I replied “ I suppose its modern form of Salwar-Kameez, so that we don’t have to fumble and mess around with a chunni!”

After Shama aunty’s reaction I got more panicky thinking about how children in bus would react when they see me in this uniform. I was the only senior-most girl who travelled by this bus and a couple of tenth and eleventh graders who also took our bus boarded it after a couple of stops than mine.

As the bus pulled in around the corner as usual, my heart started to beat wildly. It was just like the first day at a new school.

I ushered Arkam towards the sidewalk and waved to Shama aunty who gave me a thumbs-up. As I got on to the bus, I saw children nudging each other and laughing as I passed them. Heads turned and gossiping girls stopped talking as I moved further towards the back of the bus, eager to reach my seat and slunk as low as possible on it. One plump girl with a round face, who was obviously the most well-mannered child on the bus, smiled at me and said “Happy Birthday to you!”

“O lord!” I thought to myself, “They all think I have worn this thing for my birthday!”

“It’s not my birthday!” I said coldly and loudly, so that everyone could hear, “IT’S THE NEW UNIFORM! For the senior girls.”

“Ohh..okay!” the plump girl said, taken aback, “ Its….ummm..nice!”

She looked as if she thought I had lost my senses and didn’t remember that this wasn’t the school uniform.

Thankfully , I reached my seat and sat at the window-side where usually Venky sat.

“You are looking nice!” he said, suppressing a smile.

“Yeah right!” I said waspishly, “ You can smirk . I hope they change the boys’ uniform too!”

“Yeah! I hope they change it to Pink and yellow saree ” he said, corner of his mouth twitching.

I tried to stop myself from smiling as I looked out of the window.

“Or to Dhoti and vest!” he said.

I pursed my lips to suppress the laughter which was bubbling in the pit of my stomach.  

“Or to Green ‘lehenga’!” he said, grinning.

This was too much for me. I burst out laughing so loudly that even conductor bhaiya stopped scratching his ear to look at me.

The vision of Venky, Avtar, Amitayu and Aniket in flowing green lehengas with diamond shaped glass-work on themwas too much for me to handle and I visualised them playing football wearing this attire, stopping every now and then to get their skirts out of their foot’s way to kick.    

“HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA!” I howled with laughter ,holding the stitch in my stomach and gasping for breath.

“Enough yaar!” Venky hissed at me, looking at children staring at us.

When finally my laughter had subsided and I was wiping tears away frm my cheeks, Venky laughed and said, “Don’t worry! You are looking nice!”

I smiled and punched him on the arm.

He was really a clown! Venky always knew how to say the right things to make people around him laugh. I loved having him as a friend. We found out that we could share much more with each other than I could with my girl-friends and when do boys ever share anything with each other other than sports and good-looking girls! But both of us talked at lengths about Rahul Dravid whom I loved, Maria Sharapova whom he loved, school talks, mentality of girls, mentality of boys,home-work,teachers,cookery and every topic available on the earth. He had even instructed me through making aloo-parathas over the phone some days back when I was struggling with the process, alone at home.

We could easily confide in each other our deep-most secrets and confessed that we both haven’t been fortunate enough to have a liking for anybody other than our favourite sport stars.

By the time bus passed through the gates of the school, I had stopped worrieng about the uniform and was eager to see my friends in this new attire too. As we disembarked from the bus, I saw Sakhi, Sonal, Pratishtha and Khushboo standing on the steps at  entrance of the main building. They were all in the new uniform. As I reached them and we checked each other out, we burst into heaps of laughter, pointing to each other and slapping each other on backs. How different we looked!  The foyer was filled with senior girls wearing the new uniform. Most looked sad about it like us and to our surprise, some looked happy about it!   

As we made our way towards the class, we again started complaining about the uniform change.

“Whyyyyyyy did they change iiiiiiiiiiit?” Sakshi whined.

“I want our old uniform back!” Sonal pouted as we all nodded.

“It was so much trendier….WHHOOPS!” Pratishtha ran into another girl on the crowded corridoor and their heads banged together.

It was Sarika, a bulky tenth grader with rosy cheeks and twinkling eyes. We liked Sarika a lot. She was a very sweet person with a great sense of humor. She was cheeky to the core and she was one of the junior students, we had a very good rapport with. She was forever struggling with her overweight problem and we felt bad for her when her classmates teased her and called her ‘fatty’! She was in the new uniform too.

“I am so sorry, Sarika!” Pratishtha  apologised, rubbing her head.

“No problem Didi!” Sarika said brightly, giving all of us a broad and welcoming smile.

“My! my!” I said,smiling at her “Isn’t somebody in a good mood today!”

Indeed Sarika was looking overjoyed. She was beaming and we had never seen her in such high spirits before.

“Of course, I am !” she said “ Don’t you just looove the new uniform?”

We all gaped at her and Sakshi looked as if she might just hit her.

“Love this thing?” Pratishtha asked, astonished. “Are you serious Sarika?”

“Ofcourse I am!” she replied, still grinning.

“What…how…WHAAT??” I stuttered.

“I know that all of you must like our old uniform better!” she said, lowering her eyes.

“Yaa-haa!” Sakshi shrieked.

“Well….” Sarika bit her bottom lip before going on “You …you all are THIN, aren’t you?? You are not fat like me! I hated it when girls in my class teased me about my bulky  figure. I didn’t want to play any outdoor games because I would be too self-conscious running around in jeans. I was always making excuses to miss the games period. But this, (she pointed to herself) makes me feel good! It’s loose and airy and comfortable! Now I can run around and play hockey just like all of you. I can stand for the assembly knowing that people standing behind me are not making fun of me and my back .I am sorry that you don’t like it but it’s the best thing that could have happened to me.”

And giving us a radiant smile, she bustled towards her class, calling out cheerful greetings to everybody around.

We all looked at each other and slowly began to smile. We had all been selfish and silly! This was a really nice thing to have happened to Sarika and all the girls who had felt self-conscious about their figures.

“It’s… ummm… nice, isn’t it? Sonal asked.

“Yes, it is!” Sakshi said, in a tiny voice.

“ITS GREEEEEEAT!” Pratishtha bellowed, as usual alarming us with her over-enthusiasm, “Come-on! We looove our new uniform!”

“Hear! Hear!” We shouted as we walked arm in arm towards our class.

Passerbys, students and teachers  glanced at us and looked on in confusion but we just smiled. Once in the class, we laughed at the boys’ comments on how we looked and told Mrs. Ghosh that indeed the new uniform was very nice.

There are little lessons hidden in everything that happens around us and we were glad to have learnt and grown with this small incident of our lives. It was okay really, the new uniform!   

The Sequence Box!"

“Relax Maaluuuu!! It will be fineee!” Sakshi scolded me and hit me on the back of my hand to stop me from biting my nails.

It had been three weeks since that fateful day of the Accounts test and it had, at last invigorated my commitment towards the subject. After getting a sound scolding from my mother on the same evening, I had tear-fully begged her to give me one last chance to improve at the subject before she sent me off to a tutor. She had finally agreed but had nevertheless made it clear that the next class-test would be the deciding factor. I had eagerly accepted!

Such low marks had shaken up my morale  pretty badly and I actually began to visualise myself failing the board exams whereas all my classmates passed with flying colours. After crying over the frightening and awful thought overnight, I dived head-first into the dreaded subject from the next day. First of all, I prepared a time-table for myself scheduling my time -division for each subject for all the days of the week. Just like my three friends, I began to  grant two hours to Accounts each day at home. At the commencement of my newly- started endeavour, I understood the extent till which I had foolishly ignored the subject and how I had a long, long way to catch up with the syllabus.  I began by going through the solved examples of each chapter, illustrated in our text-book and practicing them myself once I understood them. Whenever in doubt, I asked Sakshi to clarify it who I observed, seemed to be a natural whiz at the subject. Mrs bandi had more than once suggested to her to try for CA once she passes out from the school. Thus, Sakshi was a great help whenever I got stuck with a problem and slowly but positively, I was finally beginning to get a grip of the subject. I had also, at last started to pay my full attention to the matter which Mrs. Bandi taught in the class and once she was convinced that I was finally trying to improve in Accounts, she was pleased and encouraged me to approach her during free-periods for any kind of help needed.  I accepted to myself the fact that the written practice indeed makes a person good in subjects like Math and Accounts and I was determined to do well in the next test so as to avoid a tutor after school. By now, I had begun to perform satisfactorily at the class-assignments and home-work if not exceptionally well. But I awaited the next class-test as it would tell me (and my Mom!) where I really stand. So when Mrs. Bandi had given the date for the test, I had slogged myself for three days to prepare for it. I was relieved, if not ecstatic once it was over. It had gone  reasonably well this time and I was happy that I had given it my best effort. It had consisted of two questions from ‘Depreciation’, one from ‘Consignment’ and two question (one theory and one practical) from ‘Shares and Debentures’. As we had matched our answers after the test, I was delighted to find that one of my answers matched with Sakshi and another one with Sonaland I also knew that my theory question had turned out well.  We laughed at the fact that we all had a different figure for the answer of the consignment question. It indeed felt good that this time, I was eagerly participating in discussing the test rather than avoiding it as I had priorly done for a long time!

So today was the day we were supposed to get the results of our test and I had been a nervous wreck throughout the morning. All my friends had laughed at me at the recess-time when I hardly touched my food and Khushboo had checked my fore-head for temperature when I had not teased her once during our Literature class.  The bell for accounts class had just rung and we were in the same class where I had cried my eyes out after the last test.

Finally, mrs. Bandi walked into the class. She had the answer-sheets in her hand rolled and tied up and I realised that I was as excited as I was nervous about the marks.

“Stop it!!” Pratishtha hissed at me and I took out the tip of my finger, raw from chewing, out of my mouth.

“So girls! Ready for your marks?” Mrs Bandi asked, the corner of her mouth twitching as she glanced at me.

We nodded and I thought I would faint with nervousness when she began to pull up the scrunchie from the roll of answer-sheets.

“Sakshi, you have outdone yourself this time..24 and a half out of 25.” Mrs. Bandi said, handing out the answersheet. We all clapped and Sakshi pouted for losing half  a mark.

“Pratishtha, 23 out of 25…very very good! And sonal- 19 marks…you would have crossed Pratishtha  if you wouldn’t have got confused at the second last step of the Depreciation.”

Finally, she turned to me and I could guess nothing from her expression. I had thought that I had done quite well but now as I looked at Mrs. Bandi, I did not feel so sure. Maybe I had messed up all the questions after all!

 “Dear tutor!” I thought with  a grimace, “Here I come!”

“Mallika, can you guess how much marks have you scored?” Mrs. Bandi asked me.

“No ma’am!” I replied meekly.

“Well! Mallika has scored…” she said, turning to her other students.

I lowered my eyes and sank in my seat until I heard….

“18 AND A HALF OUT OF 25!” Mrs Bandi announced in a loud voice, smiling broadly at me.

It took half a minute for information to sink in my system and as my friends yelled- “MAAALUUU!”, I jumped up from my seat and began dancing all around the class.

“Nooo tutorr!” I sang, waltzing with Mrs. Bandi as she laughed, “Ahh sweet freedom!”

It did not bother me that I had still got the lowest marks as compared to my friends. I thought it was a good thing because if I would have crossed even one of them, I would have definitely had to be carried away to the hospital on stretcher after having passed out from plain shock!  

So when I reached home that evening and my sister opened the door,  I walked into the house with a trot of a king, with my head held high, my hands at my waist and my face-expression converted in a conceited smirk with my right eye-brow raised!

“Call Mother, you  slave of mine!” I bellowed at my sister, pointing my finger at my Mom’s room.

In answer to my command , she kicked me hard on my leg and stuck out her tongue.As I began to kick her back, Mom came out of the kitchen, with a spatula in her hand.

“What are you girls doing?” she asked, glaring at us.

At once, I regained my royal composure and thrust the answer-sheet (which I had carried in my hand all my way back from school) in her hand.

“I believe I would need your signatures on this, Mother!” I said, grinning at her down my nose.

She had a look at the paper which had been placed in her hand and her face immediately broke in a delighted smile as she came and hugged me.

“That’s my girl!” she said and it was a great to feel that her sweet and proud smile was all because of me, until she added- “Next time, I want even better marks than these!”

I rolled my eyes  and went into the kitchen to get myself a snack. After having worked hard for this test, today I was relieved that I had finally passed it and had done well. I was determined to maintain my new graph in Accounts but for a couple of days as a reward, I could relax and enjoy!

All was well again!

..........................

“I am bored!!” I said , stretching.

It was almost end of September and the wind was gradually turning quite chilly, especially in the mornings and evenings! It was our free-period before the recess and Sakshi and I were sitting on a single bench right outside the entrance of the main building. Today, we had moved it a bit to the right so that we could sit and imbibe the warm, pleasant morning sunlight. We were sitting and admiring Sonal’s new sequence box which she had left in our possession for this period. Sequence may be defined as the small glittery little things which are nowdays  used in abundance to decorate the dresses. Sonal, Sakshi and Pratishtha used them a lot in their Fashion Designing class and had also started using them on the greeting cards which they prepared for occasions like b’days and friendship days etc. So, Sonal had ,the previous day, purchased a large plastic box which had sixteen compartments each of which was now respectively  filled with sequences of several different varieties. She had shown it to us and we had ‘ooh-ed’ and ‘aah-ed’ over the neat and organised way by which she had arranged her sequences in the box  in accordance to their colour, shape and size. Currently,  she was in the library to do some research for her fashion-designing project which was due for submission in two days.

“I’m boooored!” I repeated while I tapped the lid of the closed box rest-lessly with my fingers.

“Tell me on which song should I perform a special dance to entertain you!” Sakshi snapped as she took the box from my hands to stop the racket I was creating.

I began to flex  my arms to get some exercise until a small figure came out of the building,clutching lots of books and  passed us without even noticing we were there. It was Mrs. Sharma, a frail and thin lady teacher who took the subjects ‘Hindi’ and ‘Sanskrit’ in the junior classes. She seemed to be carrieng around 50 notebooks in her bony hands and was walking very slowly so as to avoid losing her balance. Sakshi and I smirked at each other and getting to our feet, tip-toed slowly towards her until we were walking right behind her.

“On the count of three!” I whispered to Sakshi and she nodded, “One…Twoo..Threee!!”

“SUUUPRABHAAT!!” Both of us shouted at the top of our lungs and jumped back as Mrs. Sharma let out a scream- “EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKSSS!” and promptly  dropped all the books at her feet.

We burst into laughter and slapped our hands in a high-five, doubling over with hands on our stomachs.  After getting over the initial shock, Mrs. Sharma joined in.

“You girls!!” she exclaimed with a twinkle in her eyes as we helped her gather the scattered notebooks.

We had long since christened Mrs. Sharma as “Suprabhat” as she always replied to our good-mornings with this word, encouraging children to use Hindi language in their day to day talk too. Eventhough she had never taught our class, she was a good sport and always mingled and laughed around with us.  

“Wasn’t that fun?” I asked Sakshi, as we made our way back towards the waiting, lonesome bench.

“I know!” she replied, sitting on the bench “Mrs. Sharma is such a delicate, little thing. She scares easy. I bet I wudn’t have dropped the books had I been in her place.”

“Tell me about it!” I said, still standing and playfully shifting Sonal’s sequence box from one hand to another. “How dificult it is to hold OOOOOOOOOOONNNNNN……”

I fell heavily on the hard, uneven concrete floor as a running fifth-grader banged hard into me on his way to the play-ground. Sonal’s beautifully organised box left my hands and after taking a big leap into the sky, fell with a thrash onto the floor on my right , its colour-ful contents strewn all around and all over me!

Covered from head to toe in glitter, I looked up at Sakshi’s face. She had her hands cupped on her mouth identical to those of Sushmita Sen when she had been crowned Miss World. The thought would have been funny in any other situation but now, looking at each other, we waited for hell to break loose.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Both of us shrieked at each other, coming to our senses at the same time.

The sequence which Sonal must have taken hours to organise carefully in different compartments according to their shapes, were now lieng scattered on the ground. The whole heap now consisted of a uniform colour, that like a cocktail prepared with all the various available flavours, chocolate being signified by dirt and tiny pebbles.   

“MMAAAAALUUUUUU!” Sakshi shouted, shaking me hard, “What are we going to doooo! Sonal will kill both of us!”  

“Relax!” I said, wishing I would feel the same confidence as I was commanding Sakshi to have. “ There are still ten minutes left. Let us try to separate the sequence. Maybe we can manage to do it before the bell for the next class rings.”

As there was no other alternative to our crisis, we started to separate the tiny, little, monstorous things accourding to their colour and size.

It was impossible! As impossible as finding a needle in a hay-stack. As impossible as Mrs. Ghosh singing a hindi song. All the sequence had mixed with each other in such a way that even if we  tried for 10 hours, we would achieve little out of it.  Still we kept on at our task, praying for a miracle to happen somehow.

“TTTTTTRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNG!”

The bell for the next class rang leeringly all around us. Sakshi and I looked at each other and instantly, began to pick handsful of fallen sequence in our fists, (dirt and all!) and started throwing them into the box. We paid little attention to the  students starting to come out of their respective classes, who leaned to see across our bent backs in a puzzled manner before heading to the next building.

Half an hour later saw Sakshi and myself sitting in the last row of the class. We had a double lesson with Mrs. Ghosh and today we were listening to her with such rapt attention that she herself was becoming more and more suspicious of us with every passing minute. Pratishtha and Sonal who were sitting on our either sides were occasionaly stealing glances at us, but we looked straight ahead, our heart-beat still not running at a normal pace . We had managed to put most of the scattered sequences in the boxes beforre Sonal returned from the library and in order to avoid confronting her, we had ran towards the class-room at a record-breaking speed, bumping into many people and shouting hurried apologies over our backs.  Thankfully, by the time Sonal and Pratishtha had arrived at the class, Mrs. Ghosh had already started the lesson. So, now here we were, sitting quietly at the back of the class with angelic expressions on our faces, Sonal’s Sequence box, tactfully hidden in the cubby-hole between the two of us.

The rest of the day passed slowly and Sakshi and I stuck to each other till the last bell rang. Sonal and Pratishtha had repeatedly asked us what we were upto but we just laughed and waved our hands in dismissal and avoided all their questions. We sighed in relief when the last bell of the day rang and Shoved the sequence box back in Sonal’s bag and zipped it before rushing to our respective school buses.

“Both of you have been upto something today, havent you?” Venky asked me as I flopped down beside him on the bus-seat.

“Rubbish!” I snapped at him, “Sakshi and I havent been upto anything!”

“Who said anything about Sakshi?” he grinned at me.

A Valuable Lesson!

Bang on the first day of September, I got a nasty blow which shook me from head to toe!

“Well done Sakshi! You have again received the highest marks – 22 out of 25.  ” Mrs. Bandi said, who was handing out the corrected answer-sheets of the Accounts  test which she had taken last week.

“Pratishtha, 18 out of 25 and Sonal, 17 and a half out of 25” she said , handing out their corrected sheets and smiling at them, “Not bad at all! I can see both you girls are putting good effort at the subject now.”

I was sitting at the far end of the desk and now, hearing the marks my friends had achieved at the test, my eyes lowered and I slunk further in my chair thinking of my soon-to be announced marks.

 Okay, so I was not really working as hard in accounts as my friends were.  The only time I half-heartedly  practised it, was during 45- minute single free-period everyday which my three friends had jointly alloted to the subject so that we could study it together and help each other. The three of them had also vowed to give Accounts two hours at home everyday without any break as it was the most tricky and scoring of all the other subjects. I knew that it was high time I tackled the bull by horns and start working on it seriously but till now I had not paid much attention to warnings by Mrs. Bandi or my Mom or my friends.

“ How bad can it be!” I thought everytime I heard the reproaches, “Board exams are still far far away and there are theoritical questions in exams too. I am good at theory, am I not? I can always scrape good marks in them. So there’s pleeeeenty of time to work on the practical portion!”

But now, as Mrs. Bandi was soon going to announce my marks for this test, I didn’t feel so sure of myself and my heart was beating thunderously against my chest . The devil who had been feeding me excuses to lay off studieng, had long since vanished from my shoulder.

“Fine!” , I thought to myself, “So what if Pratishtha and Sonal have done well ? I would have managed at least 8 out of 25, which is the passing mark.”

“Mallika!” Mrs Bandi said, turning to look at me with narrowed eyes and a disappointing frown on her otherwise ever-smiling face, “Can you guess how many marks have you scored?

“No ma’am!” I said in a meek voice, hardly daring to look up at her.

“You have received 6 and a half out of 25,” she said, “and I have not been strict in marking this time. Any other examiner would have hardly given you three.”

Sakshi, Sonal and Pratishtha stopped scrutinising their answer sheets to look sideways at me.

Mrs. Bandi shook her head and wordlessly slided my answer-sheet towards me.

My copy was full of  large ‘cross’ signs in red ink which Mrs. Bandi had scrawled right on top of my each attempted answer.  I had not got a single answer correct as they had all been practical ones. It seemed that Mrs. Bandi  had taken pity at me and given me a few marks for the primary steps of each question. My vision became obscured as tears filled my eyes.

I need signatures from your parents on these by tommorow .” she said ,turning her head towards her other three students “I need to submit these in Mrs. Bhan’s office to show the progress you all are making. All teachers have been asked to do this for their respective subjects.” 

My  mother’s smiling face swam in front of my eyes and immediately, tears began to slide down my cheeks.

“Come on!” Mrs Bandi said, opening her copy of the accounts text-book “We are going to start ‘Depreciation’ today.”

As I began slowly hiccuping, I could sense from the corner of my eye that Pratishtha was the first one to notice me crying . She gestured to the other two, each of whom glanced in my direction to look at me. 

As Mrs Bandi finally followed their gaze and saw me crying, she stood up from her chair and came to stand in front of me.

“What use is there in crying now Mallika!” she said, her voice stern and disapproving, “I have been repeatedly telling you to start taking Accounts seriously and you have been ignoring my warnings. You have a long way to catch up with your friends. Look how hard Sonal and Pratishtha are working and they have really improved a lot by practising seriously. You are the only one who has not made a single effort to improve. I am giving you a final warning now. If you don’t start taking your studies seriously soon, it will be difficult for you to pass the Board exams. Now go, wash you face and come!” saying this she turned to the black board and began to write the heading of the new chapter on it with chalk.

I slowly got up and stepped out of the class-room. I had always known in my heart that I should have started taking Accounts seriously since the beginning of the session. I had avoided everybody’s warnings and I knew that I deserved all that had happened with me in the class today. I turned on the tap in the washroom and splashed cold water on my face. The only thought which was going on in my mind was  “I wish I had listened to everyone” .

After wiping my face, I slowly made my way towards the class-room. Mrs. Bandi was dictating the definition of Depreciation and Sonal, Sakshi and Pratishtha were noting it down in their notebooks. They all briefly glanced at me as I entered the room and silently, continued working. It seemed as if I was not even present in the room.

“I deserve it!” I thought to myself as I took out my notebook from my bag and began to write.


 “Your nose is red!! You have been crying Rudolph” Venky said, coming to sit besides me on the long bench, “What happened?”.

 We were in the dining room and it was lunch time.  After the Accounts period, I had kept to myself and my three friends, probably at a loss to say anything had said nothing to me since I had cried. It had been painful to listen to them excitedly discuss their good marks and the test questions with each other as we had walked out of the  class and  I had quietly walked behind them hugging my books to my chest, my head lowered  and struggling not to cry again. 

Todays lunch was probably one of Captain Shekhawat’s best creations! Students were happily devouring hot, small tringular ‘methi ke parathe’ with bowls of steaming  potato and peas curry.
But I could hardly make myself touch my food and I kept on chanting in my mind “I deserve it! I deserve it all!”.   

“Nothing!” I replied, turning my face in the other direction.

“That’s not true!” Sonal said , coming to sit on my other side and setting down her plate of food near mine. Putting an arm over my shoulder, she said to Venky, “She has not fared well at the Accounts test and she has been crying her eyes out since last 2 classes.

“Thankyou!” I muttered sarcastically as Sakshi and Pratishtha arrived with their plates and sat right across the table to face me.

“Whhhaaat??” I yelled moodily at all of them, wanting them to just leave me alone.

“You have cried enough!” Sakshi replied crossly in the same level of volume as mine, “ I think its good that you have got this lesson today. It’s time you start giving our Board studies some serious hard work.”

They all nodded and as I continued sulking, Pratishtha stood up and gave me a whack on the head across the broad dining table.

“Enough Maalu!” she said, frowning fiercely “You will do well in the next test if you are really feeling so bad! Apologise to Aunty and Mrs. Bandi and promise that you will start studieng very very hard from now on. You are good in all the theoritical subjects. If you pull up your socks in Accounts in time, you can fare quite well.”

“She has had a bad day!” Sonal said softly, stroking my head. “It will be fine Maalu. Don’t worry!”

Comforting words from my friends lightened my mood instantly and I nodded and smiled gratefully at them.

“Its okay yaar!” Venky said, patting my head, “If you score well in half-yearly exams in December, nobody will even remember these tests. I have same plight in Physics.”

I resolved inwardly to start working very hard from that day on itself and vowed to promise the same to Mom in the evening.

“Errr…. Maalu!!” Avtar ,who was sitting near Sakshi, said, standing on his place and leaning towards me across the table.

“Such thoughtful friends I have !” I thought. Surely Avtar must have heard everything and was wanting to offer his consolance. I leaned towards him with a smile to listen to his supportive advise….

“If you are not eating your methi parathas, may I have them? There are none left anywhere else on our table!” he asked, grinning sheepishly.     

Sonal's B'day!!!

“You say it best….When you say nothing at all!!” Ronan Keating’s voice filled the room as the alarm of my phone set off exactly at midnight. As if on cue, the huge clock on the wall also let out the defeaning song of ‘Gongs’ as it struck twelve.

“HAPPY B’DAY TO UUUUUUU!” We yelled and hugged Sonal on turning seventeen. Sakshi took out two crackers from her bag and as we pulled their strings, they burst with a loud bang filling the air with colourful strings and tiny pieces of sparkling paper .  Sonal twirled and danced with glee, her smile stretching frm ear to ear!

The three of us took our respective presents out of the bags and  thrust them in the bday girl’s hands. I had bought her a teddy bear frm ‘Archies’. I smiled when she squealed with joy on opening my gift and cuddled the bear for a full ten seconds. Sakshi had bought her a very trendy and colourful t - shirt whereas Pratishtha had got her a lovely summery fragrance. As we began clearing the bed of strewn wrapping paper and messy strings, the intercom buzzed.

“Come on!” Sonal exclaimed, jumping off the bed and putting on her slippers. “Mum and Dad are calling!”

As we made our way down the stairs, we saw Uncle, Aunty and Saurabh bhaiya (Who was holding a bouquet and a huge greeting card in his hand!) waiting for us. All three of them hugged and kissed Sonal a happy b’day. A groggy eyed servant came out of the kitchen and place two square shaped cakes on the dining table. One was chocolate and the other one was of  black-forest flavor. All of us crowded around the b’day girl and sang the b’ day song as she blew out the candles and cut the first piece. We skipped our favourite line of the song- “Many many boy-friends to uuu!” in the presence of  Sonal’s beaming parents. After smearing a lot of cream on Sonal’s face and eating three pieces of cake each, we wished Uncle and Aunty  a goodnight and made our way back to the room. We spent the next couple of hours chatting and clicking our pictures in funny poses. Our favourite one turned out to be the one of Pratishtha, Sakshi and myself in various ‘Shivji’ poses. We had fondly nicknamed a junior teacher at school- ‘Shivji’ because of her unusual hairstyle and dedicated this photo to her.

At around quarter past three, we all admitted to being hungry and tip-toed out of the room to, once again, descend the stairs and go to the kitchen. The silent house was completely immersed in a coat of darkness and we had to be careful not to touch the windows and the doors lest the alarm got activated and filled the house with ear-splitting sounds of the siren. Keeping our hands on each others’ shoulders, we walked slowly down the stairs in single file. Pratishtha’s free hand was covering my mouth to block out the sound of my giggling and by the time we reached the foot of the steps, she was pinching me on the arm, out of fury.

“MAAAALUU!” she said, exasperatedly, as we finally entered the kitchen and Sonal switched on the lights. “What is so funny?”

“Nothing!” I said, grinning, “just visualising how we must be looking, walking like that!”

Shaking their heads, the three of them spread out in the kitchen. Sonal started preparing maggi, Pratishtha was already pouring chilled ‘Frooti’ in four glasses and Sakshi was raiding the huge fridge for the leftovers from  dinner. I was,as usual, sitting cross-legged on the platform, yawning.

“Maaaaalu!” Sonal hissed, pulling me upright for the second time, “if u accidently brush the window behind u and the alarm goes off, you will be the one answerable to Dad!”

“Uhh alarm-smalarm!” I replied, stretching widely, “You worry too much mumma !”

Once their arms were full of merchandise, I jumped onto the floor and started towards the door.

“Not so soon madam!” Pratishtha said, grabbing the back of my top and pulling me back.

“Whaaat?” I asked, turning to face her.

“You are so lazy Maalu! I am tired of your laziness!”  she answered, giving me a stern look.

“Heyyyy!” I said , keeping a hand on my heart and my voice full of mock pain. “I am so hurt!”

“Good!” Pratishtha said, taking everything but the tray of Maggi and Frooti out of Sonal’s and Sakshi’s hands and shoving them in mine. “From now on, you can do some work too while we enjoy stretching occasionaly. You take most of this stuff upstairs. Now come on…after you!!!!”

Sulking and with my head high, I passed her outstretched hand and marched outside the kitchen,  making a grand show of my anger. Once inside the room, I dumped two bags of wafers, half empty bottle of Frooti, a pack of cookies and and air-tight bowl containing heated pasta onto the bed and sat with my back towards the door.

“Now that Maalu is not interested in eating or talking or ‘helping’,” I heard Sakshi’s loud  voice as the three of them entered the room, “we can sit here and enjoy ourselves!”

“Noooooo!” I shrieked,jumping onto the floor and helping them with the trays laden with food. “I’ll help!”

 They roared with laughter and I made a face at them, realising that they had anticipated my exact reaction.

We dug into the food and chatted about what to do next.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Sonal asked, twirling Maggi around her fork.

“Borrrrrring!” Sakshi replied.

“Shall we curl our hair?” Sonal offered.

“Eeuuuuww!” I groaned in reply, pretending to throw up in my glass of Frooti.

“I know!!!!” Sakshi said, rising to stand slowly and dramatically. “Lets…” she reached out behind her to slowly sieze something, “PILLOW-FIGHT!!”

The thing she had grabbed from behind  was a big white pillow and in an instant, we all were on our feet, attacking each other fiercely with pillows of our own. I had just managed to place my glasses on the side-table to keep them out of harm’s way when I was roughly pulled by a leg and next moment, I was lying on my back on the bed, being hit by all three of my friends. I quickly managed to grab Sonal’s leg and yanked it hard. As a result she heavily fell down on the bed and sitting up, I hit her everywhere with my yellow, sun-shaped pillow. “HAPPPY B’DAYY GIRLIE!” I yelled, as  she shielded her face, giggling and trying to fight back.

Meanwhile, Sakshi was chasing Pratishtha around the room hitting her hard on the back of her head with the largest pillow in the room.

At around five am, we finally collapsed on the floor and lay against each other, panting and catching our breath. What fun we had had! We even took a picture to capture the fun-filled moment!

“You know what!” Sonal said, “I can’t believe that after a few months we will leave school and…well, we will all go our different ways, right?”

“Noo!” I replied, lying  down on her outstretched legs, “Its upto us, isnt it? We will make sure that even if we go to different colleges, we will keep in touch and keep meeting for outings and nightstays just as we do now.”

“Yeah! Lets do that!” she said, holding out her hand, “ Sounds corny, but…We wont let our friendship fade out …ever! …. PROMISE????”

“PROMISE!!!!” the three of us yelled, putting our own hands on top of hers.

“Come on now!” Pratishtha said, getting up, “I am in no mood to get sentimental and besides, we have a monster called ‘Board Exams’ to defeat, before worrying about our teary-eyed moment of farewell. Tell you what! Let’s click a picture of four of us sitting in the bath-tub..it will be fun! We can laugh about it together when we get really old and lose our teeth!”

“Yeeeeeah!” Sakshi said, jumping and running towards the bathroom. “The last one to reach the bath-tub has to eat all of our cabbage covered pizzas when Captain Shekhawat serves them next!”

The food incharge at school- Captain Shekhawat, had recently invented a new dish, which consisted of small,round  cakes made of  refined flour i.e ‘maida’, covered with pieces of capsicum, tomato and lots and lots of cabbage!! When it had been served for the first time for breakfast, Aniket had asked the passing Captain Shekhawat, what the new dish was supposed to be.  The Latter had looked at him in surprise,  blinking!

“But It’s a Pizzaaaaaaa!” he finally said, bowing low and holding out his hands as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Aniket!” Avtar said,in mock outrage, “It’s a pizzaaaaaa! How could you not knowww???”

At this Captain Shekhawat had beamed at Avtar and had shaken  his head at Aniket’s lack of judgement before walking off.

 Now, we all screamed and ran towards the bathroom, grabbing each other’s arms to pull back and trying to beat the others to the bathroom. None of us wanted to eat more of those ‘Pizzas’  than we had to! 

"THE NIGHT-STAY!"

“MAAAALUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!”

I ran to my balcony on hearing Pratishtha’s voice. I saw Sonal’s red Swift reversing , then taking a U-turn and eventually coming to a halt  right outside my Multi-story’s main gate . Pratishtha was nearly  fully leaning out of the car’s window as she shouted for me to come downstairs. Running back inside the house, I grabbed my small runsack and hugged both my mother and sister before rushing towards the front door of our house.

“I’ll be home by tomorrow afternoon Mom!” I said.

“All right beta! Enjoy yourselves and don’t create a  havoc there for Sonal’s mother!” she said, with a knowing look in her twinkling eyes.

“Don’t check her now Ma!” my sister said, rolling her eyes “Let them have fun!”

After kissing each of them goodbye, I ran down the stairs to the ground-floor  and reaching the car, yanked open the backdoor of the car. Sonal was sitting in the passenger seat at the front, with her family’s driver  behind the wheel at the driver’s seat. At the back, Sakshi and Pratishtha shifted to make room for me. They both had bags of their own on their laps and we greeted each other with loud shouts and laughter. We were super excited!

“Hey  look! There’s Aunty! And Manna Di too!” Sonal pointed towards the balcony of our first floor apartment.

 ‘Manna’ is my sister’s nickname. She is named after our paternal grandmother whose name was- ‘Manorama’. Both Sonal and Pratishtha  leaned out of their respective windows to wave at them and I had to retrieve my glasses as Sakshi incidently knocked them aside ,while leaning across me to shout her greetings as well! 

“Be good, Children!” Mom said, waving back “Enjoy your stay!”

All three thanked Mom as the driver turned the key into  ignition and the engine purred to life. We all chatted  nineteen to a dozen as the car sped towards Sonal’s house.   

Sonal belonged to a strict, business-class  ‘Jaini’ house-hold! Hers was a nuclear family consisting of her parents and an elder brother. Her dad did not allow her to spend the night outside the house so we always had night-stays at her place. She lived in a handsome, white bunglow situated in a locality named-‘Janki-Nagar’. Most of the residents living here belonged to the Jain community and the whole area was neat, green and beautiful, with magnificent mansions lining the streets!

As the car entered the main gate of Sonal’s house, her mother opened the front door and stood smiling warmly to welcome us. All three of us greeted and  hugged her as we reached the doorway, our bags slung over our shoulders.  Sonal’s mother was a thin, ever-smiling simple lady who was always dressed in a  saree .She was an excellent house-wife and their house was always buzzing with a couple of servants who kept everything sparkling clean under Aunty’s careful supervision. Sonal was also equally proficient at all the household chores and this was the reason we called her “Mumma”.

“Children!” Sonal’s mom said, leading us inside the house, “ I will send the servant with the snacks while you all put your things in Sonal’s room and make yourselves comfortable. Sonal has arranged today’s dinner keeping in mind all the special requests by her  friends.”

Both Sonal and her Mom were fabulous cooks and we usually started making special requests to her a few days prior to our slumber parties. Thanking Aunty, we started up gleaming black marble stairs, which led to the first floor, where Sonal’s room was located. As soon as we entered Sonal’s room, we immediately felt at ease. She had a huge room with countless posters of bollywood and Hollywood celebrities pasted on the cream-coloured walls and plenty of soft-toys crowding the glass shelves.  There was a small changing room accompanied by a  lavish washroom and also a huge terrace was attached to the other side of room from where Sonal had once upturned a bucketful of water on us as we had entered her house.  We had had many night-stays in this place and that was why it was home away from home.  

The stereo was already on and a soft English song by Enrique Iglesias was playing in the room. Sonal switched on the AC as we threw our bags on the floor and flopped onto her low bed.  

“AAAhhhhhhhhh!” I sighed, lying on my back and closing my eyes. Sakshi immediately kicked me hard on my knee.

“You are so  lazy Maalu!” she said, lying next to me flat on her stomach,  with annoying expression on her face “if you fall asleep early today and spoil the fun, then I am going to strangle you with my bare hands!”

“Don’t you worry,  Missy!” I said, yawning widely and stretching “I haven’t forgotten the kind remarks you all showered upon me when I fell asleep ‘early’, pardon me… at 4:30 am during our last nite-stay. Today, I will be the last one to hit the sack. We will chat and chat and chat!” I promised, crossing my heart.

The knock on the door immediately made us sit upright with sensible expressions on our faces. Pratishtha who was closest to the door, opened it. The servant, a young boy of seventeen or eighteen entered , carrying a tray laden with four bowls of steaming, hot soup and mini pizzas, all crowned with melted grilled cheese. Setting down the tray carefully on the side-table, he left, asking Sonal to summon him using the inter-com  if we would need anything else.  We all began to devour the delicious lemon coriander soup and pizzas which Sonal had  prepared herself.

“Sonal you are so lucky!” Sakshi said, taking a bite of the pizza “you won’t have to learn anything before you get married. You are already fully trained!”

“So are your Sakshi!” Pratishtha said, keeping a straight face “Didn’t we congratulate you last month when you finally succeeded in lightning the gas stove with a lighter without any mishaps?”

We roared with laughter as Sakshi threw Sonal’s bulky teddy bear (which we had christened ‘Salma’ , a couple of years back, after seeing a commercial of a flop B-grade bollywood movie- ‘Salma pe dil aa gaya’!)  at Pratishtha.

 Sakshi’s family consisted of her parents, a brother who was ten years older to her and a bubbly and chirpy bhabhi, whom we called ‘Dolly didi’. Sakshi was the baby of the family and had never made as much as a cup of tea in her home, about which we constantly teased her. 

As the evening proceeded, the four of us lazed around and chatted about school, board exams and our favourite topic- Boys!  We went downstairs for dinner at around eight pm and greeted Sonal’s father and brother, both of whom had just arrived home from their office. Her dad was a shy and a polite person who always asked all of us about our families, studies and health. Sonal’s brother ,Saurabh Bhaiya was also an introvert person to whom we usually just said ‘Hello Bhaiya!’ to which he warmly responded with a smile.   

Sonal’s family was strictly vegetarian but as always, the supper was delicious! There was Pasta  in red sauce, Chilly paneer with just the right amount of gravy, Fried rice, a typical ‘Jaini Sabzi’ consisting of various veggies like cauliflower, potatoes,beans, peas and egg-plant ( which to our surprise, we all loved!) accompanied with ghee-smeared Rotis and for dessert- Custard with both ice-cream and home-made strawberry jelly! The three of us enjoyed the dinner immensely which having a pleasant conversation with Uncle and Aunty (Saurabh bhaiya was having dinner in his room). We shyly nodded and allowed the servant to serve the second helping of everything on our plates but grinned  at each other knowingly as we refused, one after the other, for the third helpings, knowing well that each of us longed for more. Pratishtha  leaned towards me on the pretext of reaching out for water jug and whispered in my ear- “The Mid-Night Feast! Don’t Worry!”

After having our Dinner, we returned to the room and changed into our night-wears. I was wearing a brand new night-suit which consisted of a long white t-shirt with a picture of an apple on it, paired with half pajamas also printed with red apples all over. My new purchase fetched me many compliments today from my friends! Sonal was dressed in an elegant,full navy blue satin night-suit which suited her to perfection  whereas Pratishtha, in her tom-boyish manner, had opted for a white-collared dark- blue  t-shirt and full, light-blue and pink printed lowers. Sakshi, as usual had decided to stand out. She announced that she would be sleeping in her jeans  as “she didn’t look good in pajamas” but switched her sleeveless red top with a comfortable and a loose haldi-yellow coloured one instead.

“So whatdo we do next??” Sonal asked, smirking and wiggling her eyes-brows.

“FORTUNE!!” the three of us yelled ,jumping onto the bed.

Fortune was a silly card game for which the boys of our class would have rather opted to jump in a lake than to agreeing to play it with us, but we absolutely  loved it!

 This game is played with two deck of cards. One deck is distributed equally amongst the players while the other is kept in a heap in the middle of the players’ ring. As the game starts, the first player asks a question for example- “Who will score maximum marks in tomorrow’s  Math test?”.  He/She then picks up a card from the deck kept in the middle. Who ever amongst the players  has the same matching card from the other deck which was distributed, wins the question! Then the game proceeds in a clockwise manner with each player posing a question before picking up a card. We knew this game was childish and foolish but we always ended up having a ball while playing it. Our today’s chosen topic for ‘Fortune’ was- ‘Our Future Husbands!’ .

“Okay, I’ll start!  Whose husband would be the most romantic of all?  ” Sakshi said, having distributed the cards amongst us and the second deck kept carefully in the middle of the bed,around which we sat in a ring.

Picking up the topmost card and looking at it, she said- “Ace of Diamonds!”

We all scanned our respective cards eagerly till…..

“Meeeeeeeeee!” Sonal gushed, taking a bow.

We threw envious glances at her as this game was really going to decide our fate.

“Okay, my turn!” I said, hardly able to supress the laughter thinking about my coming question, “Whose husband would beat his wife up?” I reached out and picked up a card from the middle- “Three of clubs!”

“UUUrrrgghh!” Pratishtha moaned as she extracted the card from her set and threw it aside “Disgusting person!”

We laughted as Pratishtha herself asked the next question.

“Whose husband would be most jolly natured one amongst all?” she said “Eight of Spades”.

“That would be meeeee!” I said, grinning.

“If he’ll be as jolly as you,” Sakshi said “then the world will come to an end before your honeymoon!”

I stuck out my tongue at her as Sonal asked “Who, amongst us ,will get the most dominating husband? ….Two of spades!”  

“Noooooooo!” I said , grimacing and throwing aside my offending card.

“Whose husband would shower his wife with presents?...Queen of hearts!” Sakshi said.

“Yaaaaaaaaay!! Finally my kinda guy!” Sakshi squealed herself, jiggling her hands in a funny dance.

“Most charming husband”- Sonal

“Most miser husband”- Pratishtha

“Mosr daring husband”- Sakshi

“Most Shy”- Pratishtha

“Most snobbish”- Pratishtha

“Most short-tempered”- Pratishtha

“WHAT THE HELL!” Pratishtha bellowed, as we howled with laughter at Pratishtha’s bad luck tonight, “THIS GAME IS HELL BENT ON GIVING ME A LOSER FOR A HUSBAND! STUPID GAME!”

As usual, we had a great time playing ‘Fortune’ for the next three hours. Our questions proceeded to get naughty and then to being downright sleazy, which would have given our respective mothers, a mild stroke each in the  least. We finally wound up the game and went to the terrace to get some fresh air and to stretch our limbs, which had gotten stiff because of our sitting for such a long time. I glanced at my watch to see the time- 11:46 PM. It was almost midnight! Sonal would be turning seventeen in just another fourteen minutes!

                                               

                         

"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!