to cut a tall story short
TRANSCRIPT
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To cut a tall story short
It was during my pre-JEE days and I was sitting in the classroom pretending to
listen to my teachers enthusiastic interpretation of Ode to the west wind while
secretly solving Irodov problems. A bunch of school prefects interrupted the
teacher and announced that the vice principal had ordered me and a few of my
friends to meet her immediately. elighted at a chance to be e!cused from the class
we followed them out but were a little worried as to the cause of the sudden
meeting.
"e were shortly briefed by a strict loo#ing prefect that we were guilty of avoiding
lunch duty $it is a stupid policy of my school that all students compulsorily have
their lunches in the school grounds and go to e!tremely stupid lengths of postingsentries at each gate to ensure that no student enters school premises%.I was
allocated the honor of being one such sentry by one of my prefect friends which I
respectfully ignored. I was to be persecuted for this heinous crime by the &.'. .
One of the girl prefects sniggered not so secretly at the mention of the &.'.s will to
punish us and that stupid laugh triggered in me a resolve to avoid duty and
punishment at all cost and laugh bac# this stupid girl for her impudence .(ittle did
I #now then that a womans laugh would once again spar# into a battle of epic
proportions ."e met the vice principal in a corridor outside the teachers room. The
vice principal was a lady in her )*s and bore an uncanny resemblance to +ruella
e &ille $villain in ,*, almatians% in both appearance and demeanor. he was a
person you would li#e to avoid messing with .he pic#ed me out of the line up
having recognied me as one of the late comers a few days bac#. he opened her
speech with how people li#e me showed had shown a total disregard of duty
towards my house $our school too li#e /ogwarts had a system of dividing the
students into different houses%0 she went on to tell me how it was the one chance
for people li#e me to contribute toward the house. I replied with a face as calm and
respectful as humanly possible that I was an active debater and 1uier untilrecently and given up everything in a concerted effect toward my studies. I told her
how my parents had high hopes for my academic success in the future and had
invested heavily in my studies .2aybe out of sheer e!asperation that I had played
the study card or the not so subtle hint towards my JEE coaching 0 she bellowed
that it was stupid of my parents to as# so much of me that I could not pursue these
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other activities .It was at this moment that I burst into a fit of rage and replied that I
was ma#ing a clear and conscious choice and told her that she had no right
whatsoever to comment on my parents. I replied in a angry yet composed fashion
that it was best suited that we not pursue this discussion further and stormed out
leaving behind a flustered teacher who clearly had not still completely processedwhat had happened and was left standing in shoc#. The surroundings too were left
reverberating with shoc# of what had transpired there a few moments ago.
3eedless to say 0the event was a public secret .I heard so many different versions
of what had happened there and most of them were garbled enough to ma#e me
wonder whether I was actually present at the infamous scene. I was victim to a lot
of pointing and whispering as I passed through the corridors$hopefully not because
my fly was open%.This act of unpunished rebellion against the system was
something unheard of and did not go down well with the enforcers of the system
4the prefectorial board5. The head boy who desperately felt the need to restore
order to the system and too# it as a personal challenge to ma#e sure that I bear the
conse1uences of messing with authority and wanted to ma#e an e!ample of me.
o later that day when I returned from recess I was greeted by no less than half the
prefectorial board waiting for me in the corridor 0clearly something unpleasant was
about to happen .The head boy stopped me and told me that he had 4reliable
intelligence 4 that I was carrying illegal items and that he needed to chec# me. /estarted to fris# me and the smile on his face told me that he was en6oying this tas#
to an abnormal e!tent0 this made me uncomfortable for more than one reason and
when he almost immediately reached for my right 6ac#et poc#et and delved into the
poc#et with the confidence of a man who #new he was about to get luc#y I #new
what had happened. I was about to be framed but little did he #now that my blaer
$which was a hand me down from my elder brother% had a big gaping hole in it and
how anything you put in wound up somewhere inside the inner seam of the blaer
and was free to wander within the cloth of the blaer.
The loo# on his face when he found nothing is one I cannot forget to this day. /e
fris#ed me repeatedly in disbelief but in vain. I did not try to hide the smir# on my
face and watched the puled headboy stare at me in wonder. I was about to ma#e
a clean getaway but alas it was not to be. The head girl noticed a circular dis#
bobbing up and down near the bac# flaps of the blaer which covers the buttoc#s.
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$I li#e to thin# she was loo#ing there for a reason 7' %. I #new I was about to be
busted so I ran off in a hope to somehow rid myself of the merchandise .The
prefects too bolted after me and half of them ran to cut me off from the other side. I
was surrounded and was face to face with the ever so pretty head girl when I was
about to surrender .The overenthusiastic head boy in his 1uest to catch me got alittle too e!cited and #noc#ed over the head girl who fell right on top of me.
Though I fell with a great thud on my bac# the pain was nothing compared to the
ecstasy I felt as she so gracefully fell on top of me. I still remember every
millisecond in slow motion as her body slowly arched forward toward me and each
animate e!pression on her face as she tried to stop herself from falling0 And that
my friends was the moment I fell for her once again $though she fell on me%. As
she lay on top of me for a few happy moments I had finished planning the names
of our two children and would have completed living this lifetime had she not beenso promptly lifted up by the many prefects surrounding us. 3eedless to say no one
offered me a hand and I got up on my own savoring those moments and wor#ing
simultaneously on a contingency plan to escape this stic#y situation and as I was
getting up I 1uic#ly and stealthily snapped the + in two and surrendered to the
prefects .The head boy proudly con6ured the disc from the blaer only to find it
bro#en0 dismay had 6ust begun to set on his face when I started yelling at him for
destroying important programs which were meant for the school computer
festival ./is 6aw dropped in amaement as he began to comprehend what had
actually happened and how it loo#ed . In a desperate attempt to nail me he
crosschec#ed my story with the +omp c. /ead who sided with me thoroughly as I
was one of her few #ey organiers and was wor#ing hard for the festival. It was
over now and I had once again thwarted authority and had become a celebrity in
school. I was officially now the boy who lived with one more encounter left to go.
8or the remainder of the day I was thin#ing about the head girl0 who lived in the
street right ne!t to me and how once she was my first love. "e used to be great
friends up till 9th
standard or so but then the girl coodies concept was introducedand we #ind of drifted apart .I really did love her but I labeled that love as 4puppy
love 4 and let it pass. This past encounter brought an ocean of emotions to the
surface which had been bottled up for goodness #nows how long. This was really
messing with my head. I was so happy leading my simple life studying for JEE
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without a care for anything else in the world. It is truly said that women have a
way of complicating things.
That day as I was cycling bac# home it started pouring so heavily that I was forced
to pull over near a shed where I nearly hit someone. It was a pretty girl who wasdrying her hair 6ust li#e all pretty girls do$mostly in public% 0she had 6ust strained
water from her hair and was 6ust tossing it up as I nearly collided with her the
second time that day. he hurriedly 6umped out of the way and angrily as#ed me
whether I wanted to run her over .:efore I could even try to thin# up something
clever0 a speeding motorist $bless him% swerved too close for comfort0 she 6umped
to avoid the vehicle and fell $head over heels% over me .After a second or two we
both burst out laughing and tal#ed0 tal#ed the whole way bac# home. "hat really
happened with us is another story altogether.
I was so pleased with the day I had that I couldnt stop smiling for wee#s. I was
soo happy that I even decided to do the stupid lunch duty. On my first day of duty I
once again saw the haughty prefect0 she had a smile moc#ing me and how I had to
succumb to authority .I replied by giving her a loo# I am not so proud of 0
immediately ma#ing her uncomfortable and wiping that smir# off her face.
'.. 3eedless to say nothing that you 6ust read ever happened 7%