(This was written four and a half years ago. But I didn't have the heart to edit it (or maybe I was just too lazy). Kindly bear with the wordiness.)
I was facing an unenviable prospect. A 2000 word article on
the viability of complete Capital Account Convertibility for India is never an
easy task. That, at 11 o’clock at night, and with an hour left for the deadline
to expire was impossible to achieve. Especially when I still had 30 of a 56
page RBI paper to read before I could commence writing. I decided I needed a
break- procrastinating for another ten minutes could hardly hurt. Accordingly,
I turned to the one source of relaxation that, as I had recently started
appreciating, never failed to provide succour. Facebook.
My account showed that a certain Sanjri Mehta wished to add
me to her already burgeoning friend list. I stared at her profile picture for a
good 35 seconds out of pure surprise. I knew her, from school. She looked
different now, much thinner, but with the same angelic smile that unfailingly
melted the heart of even the most hardhearted of disciplinarians. It was no
surprise then that all the children of Nursery A fell in love with her the
moment she entered the monochromatically green classroom for the first time. It
was not long before I learnt one of the most fundamental truths of life- looks could
be deceptive.
That day, I waited patiently for my chance at the swings
(patiently for a three year old in any case) while Sanjri took what seemed to
me like her 18th turn. No longer being able to control myself, I told her to
let me have a go as well. In response, she stuck out her pink little tongue
while her minions (yes, in kindergarten) shrieked in delight at their leader’s
wit and presence of mind. I appealed to my class teacher, but not wanting to be
labelled a complaint cock (in nursery A parlance), omitted the part involving
the tongue showing. Eventually I could enjoy the pleasure of the wind blowing
in my face while my toes pointed at the sky, for all of three minutes but it
still seemed a victory to me.
Of course, the victory was even more short-lived than I had imagined.
When we trooped back to class after the PT period the teacher stood in front of
us and extolled the virtues of sharing-our books, toys, food, even the swings
and then went on to reward my adversary with a chocolate for having shown the
that particular behaviour in the playground. Appreciating the unfairness in the
world, I decided to drown my sorrows in the nimbu pani with which my mum had
filled my Little Mermaid water bottle that day. But I had only to take the
first sip when I found out that the cool drink had metamorphosed into sand-the
kind that prevented kids from getting hurt, when they fell in the playground. I
looked up to find Sanjri and her three friends pointedly giggling in my
direction.
It all came flooding back- all the memories of kindergarten.
Of having been teased mercilessly for having oiled hair. Of losing my favourite
crayon and being scolded for that even as I was certain that it had been
pilfered by my devious foe. Of never being allowed to captain a team during an
intra class kho-kho match because it was invariably always Sanjri and one of
her friends. You might call me immature but at that moment, I felt a certain
power. With one click, I could ignore her friend request- the ultimate snub in
the virtual world – and that would be my revenge for all the injustices heaped
on me during my childhood. After all, Sanjri was an important reason for my
premature loss of innocence, responsible for making me realise early in the day
that the world was evil even though my
world was confined to the toys-filled corridor outside the classroom.
I recalled the gigantic dollhouse in the centre of the same
corridor. It had a big and ugly doll inside that we named Martha, after one of
the Nursery teachers. She was soft and cushiony and immensely huggable, the
doll I mean, and I remember slipping out of class with my best friend,
Madhulika, on the pretext of going to the washroom (truancy at three) to play
with her.
Madhulika’s dad was a journalist, the free lancing kind (which
I did not understand then), so he generally made the time to pick her from
school in the afternoon. At times, he took me too, and dropped me home in his
car, after treating the two of us to ice cream at Nirulas’. I always chose the
21 Love flavour while Madhulika tried a new one each time. Uncle sometimes had
a Banana Split, which I thought was a disgusting combination but I could not be
sure since I was too meek to try it. I also loved their car-my parents did not
have one then, actually not until much later, so the little doll that hung from
the rear view mirror of the white Maruti800, and made a squeaking sound every
time the car crossed a speed breaker never ceased to amuse me.
Their house was another novelty, very unlike the boring
government quarters that I lived in. It was not big. Just a small whitewashed
bungalow, I am not sure where, but with a tiny garden in front. They did not
have a drawing room with stuffy sofas, like my house did, where you couldn’t
even sit with your feet up. They just had some mattresses and lots of colourful
cushions and Madhulika and I could mistreat them in any manner. Her mother was
always too occupied to reprimand us, and naturally, we took full advantage.
They also had a room with three walls covered completely with books, all kinds-
thick, serious ones and the ones with a lot of pictures as well. Her mum told
me I could borrow any when I learnt how to read properly. That made me pay a
lot of attention to what the teacher used to recite in class, and the stuff
about the alphabet that my mother regularly tried to drill into my head. What
they did not have was a television set so Madhulika could not watch All The
Best or Super hit Muqabla on DD but besides that, she did not miss much. I, for
one, could never understand my parents’ enthusiasm for the Sunday Matinee Show.
It only aired old movies anyway, that invariably ended in a fight sequence and
a death (never of the hero or the pretty girl he intermittently hung out with,
on screen) but generally of the hero’s mother or friend (who had had a thing
for the pretty girl too).
When things became more interesting with cable, Madhulika’s
parents might have got her a TV, I never knew, because sometime after
kindergarten we stopped being friends. It was not a squabble or a fight, just that
we were shuffled. While she went to II-C, I remained in A section. We might
have cried and sulked for a while but soon made new friends and forgot all
about each other till our citation ceremony in 12th standard when Madhulika (now
predictably called Maddy by her commerce classmates), overcome with emotion,
gave me the tightest bear hug. For that moment, it seemed like we were back in
the green classroom and the 14 years that had passed when we had last been
there, all but vanished. She promised to call that day and I likewise vowed to
keep in touch. I did keep it- I occasionally comment on her status on Facebook
and she posts a ‘Wassup’ on my wall every now and then.
I was about to visit Madhulika’s profile for the same
ritual, when my phone lit up- a message from the editor reminding me that my
article was not in yet. The clock on my computer screen showed that it was 11:35
pm. Sanjri’s pretty face was still grinning mischievously from the screen. I
looked at it one last time, then clicked on the Confirm Friend Request button and
logged out.
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