I was eating paani-puri at a local thela when suddenly I got a call from an unknown number. I put down the saucer and attended the call. A strange voice asked me to come down to the police station as I had skipped a traffic signal in the city and I carried no license. I was shocked, how could someone call me for skipping a traffic signal? Everybody in the town does that. And even if they have noted down the vehicle number in the dim light of the night, the registration details drawn out of the database would clearly indicate my father’s mobile number and not mine. Then how in Devil’s name did someone get my number? And how did he know that I wasn’t carrying a license? I was completely at shock and started to apologize without even knowing whom I was speaking to. Then all of a sudden I heard a boisterous laugh burst out from the caller’s side. Somebody was making a fool our of me. I couldn’t recognize the voice. Later he confessed who he was and I laughed out with such an extreme joy that even the paani-poori guy was taken aback with my excitement.
It was an old friend of mine who was playing a prank on me. We’d studied in the same school till 10th standard. He asked me to come down to Delhiwala Sweet shop. It’s not a hangout place as such, but it is an important landmark in the city and everyone knows about it. I went to the shop to see what was he looking like, coz I hadn’t seen him in like 8 years. There he was, along with 2 more guys from my class. As soon as I approached the venue, they all started to make funny faces to tease me regarding that phone call. After a while, I too gave in and that short coincident get together turned out to be a memorable one as the school time scandals of Javed and Khalid started to unleash. I had almost forgotten everyone after going out of the school as I had other big plans in my mind and as there were no means of communication in those days to be in contact with the old guys. I’d lost all my contacts with school friends and now I truly regret that.
Those were some really sweet memories. We kept chatting for an hour or so about the whereabouts of other friends and then came the hottest topic of the day. It was about our Physics teacher.
Almost every one from my class had a teenage crush on her. Everyone tried their best to impress her in the class. Some of them by wishing her Good Mornings and Good Evenings every now and then and some others by staring at her continuously without blinking their eyes off. I, on the other hand, tried some sober techniques. I tried to get good grades in her subject; told her about the latest achievements and discoveries in physics; and pointed out her mistakes, at times, to make her know what kind of a perfection-lover guy I was. But none of them worked out. Alas! However, as I see it now, at least I made a nice attempt and I’m sure she loved me for my honesty and my dedication towards understanding physics as a young student and for my effort in the exams to stand out at the top of the class. But then one day we came to know that she was engaged to a NRI guy and was about to get married. Anarchy prevailed in the class and all the students were upset. After all, it was their first pseudo-break-up :P. Their first crush was getting married to a bloody NRI. There were even fights among some group of students who thought that thinking about the teacher was their own prerogative.
I mean, can you believe that? I had no notion about that but that little get together unveiled these facts and I couldn’t but resist myself from being awed at listening to these scandals.
A friend in that group maintains a database of all the scandals that had happened during and after the school time and starts narrating them whenever there is a company to hear to him. As usual, he started narrating the sexy school time scandals and my memory kept going back to those adolescent school days when I didn’t know what made women different from men, why is there an attraction between these two sexes and what drives the impulse to such an attraction. That was the time when I had no idea what I was going to do with my life; no idea how to talk to the opposite sex(as I had studied in a boys school); and no idea, whatsoever, of what porn was.
Well that’s how I was, and I guess that’s how everyone at that age were like. But later on we have developed and we came to know of all these things and we too, like others, were thrown into the web of conscience to find our own way. And the happiness in being ignorant had lost; the happiness in being shy towards the opposite sex had vanished; the happiness in being adolescent had disappeared.
No matter how much I think about being adolescent again, I’d never have such an opportunity again. But given a chance, I’d definitely like to go sit in those classrooms with all those idiot friends of mine and attend the class of my physics teacher.
At the end of our conversation, I could see a happiness in everyone’s smiles but I could even see the numbness in their eyes. A numbness created by the nostalgia and a strong craving to re-attend the school. We promised each other to keep in touch and to organize a get together of the whole batch soon. After giving a tight hug, we parted our ways. 🙂
You too might have had an interesting time in your adolescent days, if so, do write a post of your own adolescent days and paste your link in the comments!
I like it this way 