It was a rainy day. The downpour was in fact so heavy that more than half the class absented itself. But it was the usual (aka. exciting) day for me. I set course to carry out my morning routine of procuring the Leader's report from the Head's office. As I made my way, I happened to come across Akshaya (Oh her grace! Oh that face!). I was in a daze, as I strolled back to the classroom. Now that I had seen her, I genuinely believed that the rest of my day would be a breeze, if not a let-down.
The first hour teacher must have taken a leave of absence herself, she didn't drop by. A PT teacher took over in her stead. He had nothing meaningful to say, so he asked us to submit our hand books. He said he wanted to check for our parent's signature on the previous day's homework reminder. Just about then, I realized I was a defaulter. Aravind, who sat to my left, was meddling with a pen in his hand. I quietly gave him my handbook and said, 'Parents sign pottu kudra'. Without much ado, he took the handbook and flipped to the previous day's column. He then started penning down his signature at the bottom. And now of all time, he decides to heed to every tiny detail. Before he could finish, the PT busted him. 'Enna panran avan?' he asked, gesturing towards Aravind, who quickly slammed my handbook shut. 'Enna parent's sign ah?' he asked, as he moved in to grab the handbook. 'Illa sir, vera oru edathula than eluthitu irunthen' Aravind lied. But it sounded pathetic. The PT clearly didn't buy his excuse, yet 'Entha edathula eluthuna nu kaami' he said, after having a short glance at the signature. Aravind then frantically searched my handbook, trying to find some sort of writing in black ink, but there weren’t any. If only he had used a blue pen, he would've had some sort of luck. However, he did find some black scribbling at the margins. But the PT saw right through his little act. He asked Aravind and me (yes, he read the name on the handbook) to accompany him to the Head's office. That's when Aravind started weeping like a bride who just lost her husband. I panicked myself, but not anywhere as close as him.
The head's office was (to our appeasement) empty. The only person there was Malathy Rayan. The PT reported us to her and quietly made his way back to our classroom. Malathy started enquiring us, we didn't try to deny anything, Aravind's sob however, was winning us her favour. She then took hold of both our hand-books and asked us to retrieve it later from Mr. Muruganantham. An overwhelming fear hit me as I heard his name. I knew for a fact that he wouldn't be remotely polite in dealing with us in the matter.
We were back in class and Aravind still didn't stop crying. Everyone had a wonderful time admiring his dismal state. I too would've, if it weren't for the trauma that I was in. I gradually recovered from it though.
It was Tamil hour next and Vijayakumar sir walked into the room. He noticed Aravind weeping (not that he was trying to hide it) and started questioning him. Aravind found it hard to speak with all the emotions choking his throat, so the others helped him with it. 'Nee nalla payan aache, nee en apdi panna?' Vijayakumar asked. Aravind had nothing to say. I felt relieved to see him not pointing fingers. 'Naa avanga kitta poi unna pathi nallatha solren' Vijayakumar boasted, as always (But he did nothing). We boys, being too few in number, occupied the last row for that hour. The class began and a short while later, Vijayakumar cracked a nutty joke. Someone made a loud funny noise, trying to humiliate him. The outcome was an infuriated teacher. With a belligerent tone, Vijayakumar asked the culprit to reveal himself. None responded (obviously). He asked the same a couple more times, still no luck. As his best guess, he then picked out Sarbudeen, Samuel and Mahizan. Those three sat to my far left, so I had no real idea of who actually did it. Bringing his so called investigation skills into play, Vijayakumar individually called each of those three out on to the corridor, starting with Sarbudeen. A few tense minutes of inquisition and then it was Sam's turn. Mahizan followed soon after.
When it was all over, Vijayakumar walked in with his head held high, he apparently figured out who the culprit was.He called Sam forward and spoke in a soft tone, 'Naa appave surrender aaga chance kuduthen, but nee kekala'. Sam tried to protest, but before he could finish his sentence, Vijayakumar landed six vigorous slaps on his face, three on each side, special delivery from hell. Sam made no fuss whatsoever about it as he stuttered back to his place. However, he didn't take his hands off of his cheeks for the next couple of hours.
The interval arrived and we all gathered around Sam, curious to know if the slaps had hurt. 'Dei innumum valikutha da' he said. We couldn't help smirking. We then had to turn our thoughts towards more pressing matters. How do we get our handbooks back?
I and Aravind faltered towards the head's office again, but there was no one there yet. We were exasperated. The wait would only worsen things up. But thank goodness Aravind had stopped crying.
Hours rolled by and it was evening before we knew it. We stood in front of the heads office yet again, but Muruganantham sir was nowhere to be seen. However, we did find TamilVaanan sir idling outside in the corridors. We confronted him with a casual façade and asked, 'Sir, our handbooks are in Muruganantham sir's cabin and he is not here. Ummm...can we take it?' We tried to not give him any insight whatsoever of what happened. 'It's ok, you go take it' he said in his breezy voice. I was finally able to ease my tensed muscles. Before Muruganantham sir could return, we rummaged his cabin and found our handbooks. We then ran for our lives. When we were at a safe distance from the head's office, we both heaved a sigh of relief.
I am glad that day is over!
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