Agatha and Sophie

She was terrified.

She was petrified.

She couldn’t let her best friend die!

Sophie lay beside her,

Storian speared through her heart.

The war around her ceased,

But the war within her perpetuated.

She stared at Sophie,

At the witch who was a princess,

At the witch who had saved her life.

Agatha didn’t know what to do.

She didn’t know how to save her.

She wrapped her dying friend in her trembling arms.

And tried in vain to fight the staunch wound,

With a bed of tears.

Her friend didn’t deserve to die,

For with her last breath,

Agatha would cease to exist too.

Sophie’s eyes flickered with life.

Sobbing and shaking,

Agatha kissed Sophie’s cold forehead,

Hoping that the magic of love would take away the evil death which resided in her.

The dead ground wept.

And Sophie’s silent heart faded.

The bright blue Storian turned a dull grey,

And Sophie’s luminous skin allayed.

Her cheek was wet with Sophie’s blood,

But Agatha continued to cry,

Until the blood vanished.

Sophie’s dead heart lived.

And her spotless skin glowed.

The deadly red blood evaporated.

And the tinted soul returned.

“Sophie?” Agatha murmured with difficulty.

“Aggie!” Sophie answered with a faint yet lively enthusiasm.

They smiled.

“Who needs princes in our fairytale?”

Sophie exclaimed.

With the strong gush of wind,

The Storian blazed with new life,

And returned to its tower in the sky.

The two girls retreated.

Smiling at each other constantly,

Their bodies shimmered and shone,

Gradually turning translucent.

Tedros ran towards Agatha,

For he didn’t want to lose his princess.

But it was too late,

The eternal fairytale of the princess and witch,

Culminated without a prince.

This poem is based on the book School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani.

School ke din-2

SST, or the long Social Studies, was, for me, a class I looked forward to. But since half of our class was of engineers, and the other half of doctors, the whole class wasn’t particularly fond of this period. This was the period where our dearest Geeta ma’am would put in all she could to make the class interesting and interactive. We used to have all sorts of innovative activities and our andar ki teacher used to be introduced to our dear XC.  There is one activity in particular that I remember; it was on my favourite chapter, The Indian National movement. It was a complicated one, so to be brief, we had to pass around questions written on a sheet and had to write the answers in 1 minute. We were in teams. And my team just rocked. Even the SST haters turned into curious and active people, who gave many answers. The best part was Dibya and I fighting over a date, which had a difference of merely a year!

The next class was English, which was our stress buster. Amit sir used to be our “dream teacher.” A master storyteller, who transformed every cheerless Ali into a determined Patol Babu, and who used to treat the not-great-hunter Mrs Packletide as a person who was as brave as Julius Caesar. He was the perfect mentor for an aspiring writer like me, for he didn’t just teach us the school course, but taught us much beyond that. He always encouraged us to be unique and think outside the box. He taught us that even sky is not the limit. He was, is and will always be our coolest teacher. We have had our share of funny moments with him, but on serious note, he has truly changed the way we all look at our lives.

Next up, we used to have Hindi. Well, not everyone really likes Hindi. But I must say, Shraddha ma’am certainly tried her best to make it interesting. The most memorable Hindi lessons were the ones when we learnt the particular chapter- “Tattara-vameero katha”, which was essentially a typical Laila-majnu type love story. It was written with so much prem-bhav, that our class of science and maths geeks just couldn’t figure out where the logic in that was. It described how Tattara and Vameero just stood and looked at each other for one complete evening, without talking and fell in love. That’s really bizarre. Then the end, in which Tattara breaks the island into two distinct landforms, and Vameero goes berserk was just crazy. I mean, if Tattara had the power to cut the Earth into two pieces, couldn’t he just run away with his beloved Vameero? So this Tattara-vameero was the new Priya Varrier in our class. It was viral, and everyone was really interested in making fun of it, and making ‘verbal memes’ on it. Ketaki had made one which I remember now. She asked everyone which Bollywood song would play when Tattara would break the Earth. When nobody had the answer, she started singing the song ‘Dharti hilade’ from Ajab Prem ki Gajab Kahani.

Apart from all these lovely classes, a time I really miss a lot are our lunch breaks. The perfect way to describe all of us during this time was the song, “Chahe koi mujhe jungle kahe..”  Foodies and bhukkads like me used to roam around the country i.e. our class. Others used to go on international trips i.e. to other classes to search for even more interesting dishes. We used to not just eat, but also jump around and unleash our wild sides. We used to do really lame things, like playing badminton with chalks and newspapers, or calling random people and in their response to ‘Kya hua’, we used to reply,nothing. There used to be spontaneous Shinchan dances, with some terrible songs, which self-proclaimed singers used to sing. It used to be like our little party.

Once school was over, we used to proceed to our buses again. Now, this back-to-home journey is the part I miss the most. We used to cherish our day and talk about it to each other, and Srija had some or the other complication and confusion from the day and used to be frustrated, and we all used to make her smile. Sometimes, we used to eat, and especially Srija’s tiffin was pounced upon. When it had chicken biryani, it was difficult to distinguish the chicken from the rice as most of the chicken was eaten. Then ofcourse, there were the lame jokes and unique conversations. And well today, the only bus I sit in is my dear bus number 166, and the only tiffin I eat is mine, and the only thing I truly miss is well, my school. 

School ke din

A morning in the past. A morning to look forward to. A morning at school. Mornings I miss. The ones I miss a lot. I miss it all.

A typical day would start with an angdai and a sense of excitement. The awkward dreams from the night before would still linger in my quirky mind. Every morning, I’d be amazed at my absurd and weird thinking which resulted in my extraordinary dreams the night before.  A sense of excitement would be more about describing these dreams to my dear Srija, and wee bit less about going to school.

With a lazy body language, the tired blue toothbrush would be taken closer to the white Meswak toothpaste, and then the boring process of scrubbing my teeth would begin.  Following this would be the unproductive task of bathing, during which I’d be partially asleep, and partially mesmerized by the beautiful fragrance of the mint soap. Then I’d put on the various layers of clothes and head to the dining table for my favourite part of this monotonous morning routine- breakfast! While munching on delicious food, I’d put on my so-called ‘accessories’ namely tie, belt, ID card, socks and shoes. Then I’d head downstairs and wait for the lovely yellow vehicle which is little a makeshift for us musafir-like students.

After this yellow vehicle would enter the society gate, I’d excitedly walk towards, totally ready to rock this new day, and to have a fun-filled little journey with my crazy but super-fun bus squad. I would run-walk towards the end of the bus and sit on mostly the second last seat with my one and only Srija, who is like my mother at school, and controls the absurd and weird thinking and keeps me tolerable. That’s what’s earned her the name Mataji. Apart from Mataji, there’s also Yash, who is a huge Dhinchak Pooja fan, and is called Lakshmi by all. His Vishnu is Nikhilesh, better known as Bella, who an aspiring Doctor cum padhaku baccha . Then of course we have our juniors- Parth and Divya, who add tad bits of lameness to our talks, and are also there to remind us that we are the eldest ones in the bus, and need to act that way.  The journey is characterized by Srija talking about how she slept pretty late last night, and still couldn’t complete the chapter, and hence hasn’t studied for the test. I pitch in and help her to complete the chapter and summarize it, but am never successful with Yash’s continuous chatter, which imply Srija’s irritated expression and invite Bella’s morning dose of his favourite dialogue- “Fight, fight, fight, fight!”

After this daily dose of noise pollution, the yellow vehicle finally turned into a carriage of some sort, and entered its palace- Our dear red and white school building!  We fought like the horses on the carriage to get off the bus. After this animal rights struggle, we used walk a decent stretch and reach our classes with ease. As members of the cabinet, Srija and I used to head back downstairs to perform the duty of traffic police at school. We used to handle the incoming morning traffic.

After the tiring yet routine morning drama, we’d head to our classes and finally meet our dear friends. I’d usually meet Shruti,(lovingly called unicorn), Tina (Doc from Back to the Future), Tanu and Dibya, who were my jigri dost since 4 years. And my morning was incomplete without scaring Mr Himawari aka Aarya. Then ofcourse, there was Anjil to greet me each morning. But the morning is incomplete without meeting my cuddly bear- Sid.

The first period would start. It was usually maths, and Bhagyashree ma’am, who was also our class teacher would enter the class. We had a couple of math wizards in our class, and I was certainly not among them. I don’t know whether those guys had calculators instead of cerebrums in their heads, or it was just their talent, but they solved the sums even before I could finish writing the formula. So maths class was basically about ma’am giving us some sums, and these guys finishing them in just 15 minutes and the rest of us lamenting the fact that we had cerebrums, not calculators in our brains.

The second period was mostly Biology or Chemistry, which were both taught be Deepa ma’am. I must say that if it wasn’t for ma’am, I’d just be a person who would never understand why HCl doesn’t react with H2SO4 or how why my hair is brown. The best part about these classes was the arguments between ma’am and Sujay which were mostly fruitless and confused me to a great extent. But the icing on the cake were Ketaki’s comments. Ma’am used to be the only teacher who used the ICT regularly. She used to explain everything in depth, which would make me, a student with an IQ of -100 in science, a super attentive spectator of the interesting scientific phenomenon.

This was followed by the short break, which evaporated even before the ingestion process for my first bite of poha could take place. I distinctly remember that Deepa ma’am used to be so engrossed in the concept, that the break bell was never heard. And when our next period, SST would begin, we would just be opening our tiffin boxes.

Lollipop

She sat on the worn-out wooden bench.

Which was bound by solitude.

She was surrounded by clouds of thought,

Which had the same grey colour of monotony and melancholy

Silence was paining her ears.

But it was short-lived.

A girl walked up to her.

She had two pigtails,

Which fell over her shoulders.

She was holding two orange lollipops in her hand.

And was wearing a blue pinafore with a white shirt underneath.

Her white socks reached to her knees,

And she wore black buckle shoes.

Her face was plump and adorable.

Her cheeks had a natural blush.

And her lips were lit up with a homely smile.

She smiled.

And the girl from the blanket of isolation peeped out.

“Hey! Want to share?”

The girl with the lollipop asked with warmth.

With her heart in her mouth,

The lonely girl replied

“Sure, why not?”

She finally lifted her blanket of isolation.

And stood from the bench bound by solitude.

And walked into a new land,

One filled with gummy bears and cotton candy.

And liveliness without an end.

One with a friend.

The stain of blood

The blood-stained cloth lay comfortably in her blood-clotted mind.

She lay restless.

And stared at the four unyielding pillars that surrounded her.

Society

Tradition

Impurity

And Guilt.

All gazed at her,

Menacingly,

And unperturbed.

Was she truly impure in these few days of her life?

Did all her serenity, purity and tranquility also leave her soul along with that hideous red liquid?

Did all her good vanish with that one drop of evil blood?

Was the red fluid what defined her?

She didn’t think so.

For her, red was purity.

Red was as tranquil as the red lehenga she had adorned on the pious day of her marriage.

It was as pure and powerful as Goddess Durga.

It was as feminine as she was.

She wanted the four pillars to collapse,

Along with the beliefs they encapsulated.

And she knew that only she could conquer them.

She stared at the blood-stained cloth.

She walked towards it.

She lifted it.

She looked at the one tiny door which stood amidst the four pillars.

She walked towards it.

And opened.

With each step she took, one pillar fell.

But she continued to walk.

Until she reached a spout.

She poured the water from the spout onto the cloth.

It colored her water-like life with the pure blood.

The pillars fell.

And she rose.

With the blood brighter than ever.

The Battle of Streamipath- 2

Humanities: I think we can certainly try yaar,  but first this whole ‘caste system of streams’ needs to be abolished.

Commerce: I agree with you. People say that the mentality has changed, but trust me, it hasn’t. In our country, its just thought that the dumb kids take commerce and humanities, and all the smart kids take science. That is so not true.

Science: But at the end of it, you guyz do need to accept that I am the most important. I mean, your subjects are all ratta, anyone can do them

.

Science sings ‘Ratta maar’ from Student of the Year.

Humanities: I don’t agree with you. I’d say that all streams are equally important.

Commerce: Ya, I agree with her. And, our subjects aren’t ratta. Just tell me how you can study economics or accounts by rote learning.

Humanities: Or even psychology and sociology.

Science: Arrey, but students from your stream cannot pass NEET and JEE.

Commerce: Arrey, they pass CA and UPSC.

Humanities: All those coaching classes  that engineering or medical students go for become a curse for the children, matlab even the kids who genuinely want to become engineers or doctors, find it difficult due to all that pressure thrust upon them. They are pareshaan.

Commerce and humanities dance on ‘Main pareshaan pareshaan pareshaan pareshaan….’

Science: Even your CA and UPSC classes aren’t less. Students take 3-4 attempts to pass the exams. UPSC is all cramming useless info, and it isn’t even of much use later. CA is mahan, the most you guyz earn is 24 lakhs, I’d earn that much in a month.

Commerce: Who will your engineers and doctors turn to when they need advice about financial records, haan? Who will fill their income returns and maintain their financial records?

Humanities: Who will look into the issues faced by the people who do not have jobs in the IT sector? Who will represent our country on a global platform? Who will arrest the corrupt doctors who take extra fees from their patients?

Science: Accha, and why don’t they arrest the most corrupt people- the politicians? Chalo maan liya ki you guyz have some use. But you need to respect me if I need to respect you.

Humanities is really sad after hearing the comment on politicians. She is as still as a statue.

Commerce: Chalo theek hai. We are all equal now. All of us need aadar and samman so that our country can scale new heights. Kyun, kya hua Humanities?

Humanities Devi changes her roop to Political Science, who sings the following song:

Tadap tadap ke iss dil se aah nikalti rahi,

Mujhko saza di corruption ki,

Aisa kya gunah kiya?

Toh lut gaye, haan lut gaye,

Haan lut gaye hum desh ki mohabbat mein.

All of a sudden, she calms down.

Humanities: Bolo?

Commerce (shocked and stammering): Hmmmm….We..were..actually…talking about…mutual..respect….

Humanities: Okay, I’m fine with it. Unless and until the topic of corruption isn’t raised again. You see, I turn into Kaali maata when someone does that.

Science: I guess we saw your unknown side.

Commerce: Okay! So we are all good! No more fights.

Humanities: No more allegations.

Science: No more hypotheses!

Humanities and Commerce (together): What?

All three join their hands and say “Stream maata ki jai ho!”

DDLJ title track plays. A little boy dressed like Shaharukh Khan from DDLJ  with a mandolin enters and sings:

Tujhe dekha toh ye jana sanam,

Asli stream hoti hai vocational sanam.

Ab baaki streams ko kahan bheje hum.

Unke subjects ko kahan bheje hum….

Commerce: Ab tu kaun hai bhai?

Vocational: Vocational. (removes sunglasses and says). Naam toh suna hoga.

Science: Kahan kaam karta hai? I mean in those clothes, no engineering firm would let you in. Tum dono ki hi streams ka hoga ye toh.

Humanities: I don’t know him.

Vocational: Don’t worry senorita. Bade bade streams mein aisi choti choti baatein hoti rehti hai. I’m the career education stream and I prepare people to work in various streams.

Commerce: We officially do not accept you as a part of the stream clan.

Humanities and science nod in agreement.

Vocational: Sattar minute, bas sattar minute hai tumhare paas. Tumhari zindagi ke sabse keemti sattar minute. Inn sattar minute mein decide karlo ki kahan jana. Kyuki yahan toh mai tumhe rehne nahi doonga. Main streams ki industry ka badshah hoon!

Science: Tu hamara kuch nahi bigad sakta. Tu badshah hai toh hum thalaiva hai. You cant even hold a guitar. Guitar ko bhi Doraemon ki small light se chota karke use karta hai. Dumbo.

Commerce: We won’t let you do so. We support Make in India! Doraemon Japanese hai.

Humanities: Aye haye. Guyz that’s a mandolin. But still Mr Vocational, aap yahan nahi reh sakte.We just decided that we will respect each other and now you came out of nowhere. Streams, chappal attack!

Science: Yes! I’ll even check at what speed it hurts the most.

The three streams launch a chappal attack on vocational and he is driven out of the park of education.

Moral of the story: There can never be equality among streams in India.

The Battle of Streamipath- 1

Humanities and Commerce are walking together in the park of education. Humanities is in a typical traditional attire of sari and bindi, whereas commerce is wearing a suit and tie.

Commerce: Arrey Arts! You’re shining too bright nowadays yaar! The 12^th toppers for the last 2 years have been from Arts only!

Humanities: Commerce! I have told you so many times! Its not Arts, its Humanities! The other two streams, you and that Chatur Science have such complex names, why should I be stuck with this stupid 4-letter word, haan?  Anyways, this victory isn’t mine, its ours , over that stupid science.

Rajnikanth music plays in the background. Science enters in the attire of Superman with black goggles, and puts them on in Rajnikanth style. Instead of the Superman logo, his costume has the face of Einstein on it.

Commerce: Aiyo rama. Logic ke chakkar mein science forgot that the underwear goes under the clothes. That’s why its called an underwear! Incase he’s planning to use it as a marketing strategy, Science ji, nobody is going to buy an underwear with Einstein drawn on it.

Science: You Commerce! You see how I switch off all the computers during your marketing meeting. You are nothing without me! I’m the best! I’m invincible! I’m Thanos! *evil laughter*

Humanities: Do you even know who Thanos is? I thought you didn’t get time to watch movies.

Science: He’s some superhero na? I bet he is so powerful just because his name rhymes with cosmos! I told you na, I rock!

Commerce: Hey Ram, this person is as Chatur as Chatur from 3 idiots.

Science: No beta, I’m Rancho.

Humanities: Did you know that Ranchi is the capital of Jharkhand?

Commerce: The mines in Jharkhand will yield me so much profit! Humanities, partnership  mein business karegi?

Humanities: Well, I’ll have to see its historical background for that.

Science: Hahaha, bola tha na. You can’t even do your mining without my technology.

Humanities: As if you can pick your mining site without looking at the geographical factors. Matlab kuch bhi bolta hai.

Commerce: But whatever said and done, bechara Science suffers the most.

Science: I refuse to believe such hypothesis which has not been proved by mathematical means. I require formulas to prove the same.

Commerce: Chalo, take simple statistics, 60% of India’s engineers are unemployed.

Science: Since RHS is not equal to LHS, I do not accept these facts.

Humanities: Bhai, MBAs also only 7% are employed.

Commerce: Oye Humanities, what about those politicians indulging in corruption and all, haan? Aren’t they doing ‘socially irrelevant stuff’?

Humanities: Half of the politicians are uneducated.

Commerce: All I know is that Rahul Gandhi has a degree in International Relations.

Commerce goes to Science and hugs him. Goes behind and winks.

Science: Commerce, what was the aim of your experiment?

Commerce: To prove that Arts isn’t as “humanities” as she says.

Humanities: Vah vah, so much stats and information. But don’t forget my dear, even Modi has an MA degree.

Science: But best was Kalam. ‘Cause he had a science degree.

Humanities: But he respected all the streams. Science, seekh unse kuch.

Commerce: If he can do it, why can’t we?

…….to be continued