Like It Happened Yesterday (13 page)

From being someone who followed the English Ma’am everywhere she went, I now became the one who tried to avoid her at every step. From someone who waited the whole day to get a glance of her, I actually started hiding from her. Whenever I saw her walking down the corridor towards me, I would turn around and hide somewhere. Once or twice she even called out to me, but I didn’t listen. How could I? I felt cheated by her. I also felt a deep sadness within me.

My friends asked me the reason for my gloominess, but I didn’t say anything. I just shook my head. I began to avoid my friends and sat alone even during the break. Then, one day, while I was sitting on a bench outside the field, Nikita walked up to me.

‘Hi,’ she said with a smile.

I didn’t respond, but my sad eyes probably told her the story.

‘Listen, I know you like English Ma’am,’ she said hesitatingly.

I was shocked.
How had she come to know? Could she just figure out! Was I that transparent?

But I chose not to admit it.

‘What? What are you saying?’ I asked with as much surprise as I could manage.

Girls are probably more mature than boys—at least, Nikita was.

‘It’s okay. My mother says it’s normal for us to have infatuations at this age. This is a sign of our growing up …’ she was going on, but I wasn’t listening.

All I was thinking was if Nikita was able to find this out, soon my friends would find out too. Or, seeing me here with Nikita, they would think I was getting attracted to her! There would be no end to their teasing me.

Nikita was still talking.

‘Nikita … I … I … have to go, I have a class,’ I blurted out, and ran away from her.

From then, I tried to act as normal as possible. Studies came to my rescue and I began to think only about my subjects and how I would do well in them. I began working hard for my board exams. Soon I began to feel normal again.

The day I heard English Ma’am had got married and quit the school, I didn’t feel quite as much pain.

I thought my board exams for Class X had gone off quite well. I kept saying so to my parents, who were always worried. There was still some time before the results would be announced. Everybody was tense about it.

So far, in my entire school life, I had been in the top 10 per cent of my class. It didn’t matter how fun-loving I was; I had managed to stay near the top ranks. But, in all these years of school, I was yet to achieve my ultimate goal of topping the exams. There were about a hundred students in the same class at Guru Nanak Public School, divided into several sections. Being the topper at this school was not an easy thing.

With all my hard work, I had managed to secure the second rank in the half-yearly exams of Class IX, which had again dropped to the third by Class X. But I had a lot of expectations from the board exams that I had written.

When the results came out in June–July, I was in for a shock. I had scored 69 per cent in all! This was the first time I had ever dropped below 70 per cent!

The topper from our town had scored 75 per cent. I was 6 per cent behind him. In the ’90s, anything above 70 per cent was a great score and a reason to celebrate. Mothers
whose kids had done well had all the reason to call up and flaunt their kids’ marks in front of those whose kids had scored less.

‘My son scored 72 per cent. How much did yours score?’

As if you didn’t know?

I felt ashamed, embarrassed, guilty and humiliated, all at the same time. It had been my worst performance ever. And the board exams are discussed beyond the boundaries of school—across towns and cities. It’s a benchmark, I guess, for the entire nation. I had hopelessly slipped up on this benchmark.

When you expect fewer marks, you are able to handle this situation better. But when you expect to excel and something of this sort happens, you first have to learn how to come to terms with the dashing of your own hopes, and then cope with everyone else’s opinion about it. It was now that phase of my life.

At first, I went into denial. I sent in my papers for rechecking. But there was no luck. In Hindi, I had still scored 41 out of 100. My proficiency in the national language had pulled my entire percentage down. Some of my close friends tried to console me by saying that I should be happy because I had scored 98 out of 100 in maths. But they knew, as well as I did, that maths couldn’t change my aggregate.

As the reality of the low marks sunk in, I slowly went into a state of depression. The mothers of the batchmates who had scored better than me kept running into my mother and
haunting my life. I wanted to run away to someplace else, where no one asked me about my exams or expected anything else of me. I wasn’t good enough for those expectations and those expectations weren’t good for me. Instead of treating my friends as friends, those expectations had made me start viewing them as my competitors. This should not have been the case.

Besides, despite all my hard work, I had scored way less than expected. What else could I have done?

I decided to give up.

One day, I broke down in front of my mother and told her that she or my father should not expect anything great out of me, because I wasn’t as good as everyone else. I was smart enough but not the best, and I felt suffocated in this madness to become Number One.

Mom wiped away my tears. She made me lie down with my head on her lap, and stroked my forehead affectionately. She told me why she wanted me to succeed. She told me how my father worked hard to afford all the expenses of my education. She told me that my father hadn’t been able to complete his own education, because my grandfather hadn’t been able to afford it. Perhaps that’s why Dad made it a point that I took my education seriously.

Mom told me about the sacrifices that both of them had been making, only to afford a good education for my brother and me. She never asked Dad for new clothes for herself—only for us. She never did any shopping for herself,
only for us. As a family, we never went out to a restaurant for a meal—we always ate at home. Before she told me, I never knew that most of the money that my father earned was being spent on our education. But it was in our hands to do the rest.

She told me that getting good marks for me should not be a matter of winning the rat race or showing off to everyone else. But a good education was our only way of bringing the family out of poverty. Our parents were not even concerned about themselves, only about my brother’s life and mine. The only way for us to have a good life when we grew up was to score the finest of results.

Whatever Mom said that evening kept ringing in my head for a long time. She had her reasons and, indeed, she was right in holding them.

As the days passed, I even started liking the song
Papa kehte hain
. It had started making a different sense to me. Soon, I wanted to become the one who could sing that song and prove to the world that I meant every word of what I was singing.

This time, there was a positive change within me. I no longer envied those who were ahead of me in the rat race. I felt calm, composed and focused solely on my own goals. And then, just like that, I returned to the rat race …

But this time, I no longer felt like a rat.

Class XI started on a brand new note. I opted for the science stream. I promised myself that I would beat everyone else in my class. I now clearly knew what my goal was. And I had planned an entire strategy to achieve it. But then, there came an obstacle—a giant 6’ 1” of it—and placed itself right in between my goal and me.

He had a name as well—Nitin Ramchandani. A Sindhi who hailed from my own town, Burla, and had recently joined my school in Class XI, Nitin had one half-blackened tooth and a dark patch, almost half an inch in size, underneath his left jaw. Every time you looked at him, he would give you an unnecessary smile.

He had studied till Class X at St Joseph’s Convent School (yes, the one where girls wore skirts!) and had come to Guru
Nanak Public School because the convent didn’t have Classes XI–XII, something I too would have had to do had I gone to that school.

In the initial days we used to treat him and all the other new entrants like step-classmates, if such a term can exist. It was not a nice thing to do, but it was our way of venting our frustration at not having the privilege of studying at the convent.
Why had they had all the fun?

However, I was not at all jealous. I was happy that there was finally someone in my class who was from my hometown. In the past three years, I’d not known anyone in Burla to whom I could reach out and discuss homework, or sit with and prepare for examinations. It was quite natural, then, that Nitin and I formed a good bonding in the very first month. By the second month, we had visited each other’s houses and had eaten meals cooked by each other’s mothers. That made us best friends—so we were! And the last-minute preparations for a unit test, the late-night revisions at his place and other such things had made us grow even closer.

But the results of the unit test made me realize how wrong I was. That giant, with his half-black tooth, had grabbed the top rank in my class!

I had come second.

I could not believe it. I had beaten the old top-rank holders but had lost the battle to this grinning monster!

There is no pain more brutal than to see your good friend get ahead of you in the race that means a lot to you. From
that day onwards, I started envying Nitin. His only crime was that he had scored better than me.

On his face I congratulated him. But behind his back, I started bad-mouthing him.

‘Itna lamba hai, phir bhi basketball nahi khelta—what a waste of height! He should have been playing basketball!’ I kept saying, until it became a matter of public embarrassment for him.

Just like other students from the convent school, he was good at English. He was also extremely good at biology. At times, even the Bio Ma’am would forget the scientific names of some of the organisms from the animal kingdom, but Nitin would remember. Not only that, he would, at times, correct the teacher when she ended up making an unconscious mistake.

‘No Ma’am, the scientific name of the chimpanzee is
Pan troglodytes
. Hominoidea is for apes,’ he once corrected the teacher.

‘Lagta hai zoo mein kaam karta hai!’[Seems like he works at the zoo] I immediately quipped, and everyone laughed. But Nitin laughed along with them, and that shut me up. I had wanted him to feel embarrassed. But, hell—it seemed like he didn’t even know the emotion!

There is no substitute to jealousy. No matter how many times I went over to Nitin’s place to study with him, I would still envy him for being a better student than me. I hated it when our common friends in class approached
him
, instead of me, to solve their problems. It was part of his practice to read a chapter the day before it was supposed to be taught in the class. So he had an answer for every question, and soon became the apple of every teacher’s eye. He was somewhat weak in maths, so he made a smart move to compensate—he started taking tuitions from the schoolteacher early in the mornings.

Nitin’s grey Chetak scooter was another reason for my jealousy. While I would go to his house on my bicycle, he would come to mine on his scooter. He was rich and, on weekends, used to ride a green Mahindra jeep with his leg out on the stepper. I only liked his scooter when he used to offer me the rear seat and take me for a ride to the Burla market.

There was a huge difference in Nitin’s and my unit test marks, despite the fact that I had doubled my efforts, and started praying as well. I no longer prayed to God for getting me good marks. Instead, as per my new strategy, I would pray to God to limit Nitin’s score.

Nitin, again, was one of those irritating people who just before the exam would say, ‘Phatt rahi hai meri. Bus, Bhagwaan, is subject mein passing marks aa jayein.’ [I’m in a terrible shape. Please, God, let me at least score passing marks in this subject.]

‘Amen!’ I would say in front of him, but would silently add to his prayer, ‘Please, God, hold him at the passing marks only.’

‘Sardaar, kyun chidta rehta hai tu mere se! Chal, aa, exam dete hain,’ [Sardar, why do you seem so upset with me! Come, let’s go and give the exam] he would say, dismissing the whole issue.

On the top of it, my mother and father loved Nitin. They found him sincere as well as easy-going. They would let me go to Sambalpur or other distant places late in the night, if only I went with Nitin. My father knew Nitin’s father well. There were only a handful of people in Burla who were highly respected in the society, and Nitin’s father was one of them. I loved his parents as well. Even before I knew Nitin, I knew his father—every summer, when we used to pluck jamuns from our jamun tree, Dad would ask me to take a basket to Nitin’s house. In return, Uncle would give me a packet of biscuits or a chocolate.

If only his son would have scored a little less than me, the two of us would have been best friends. But destiny had its own plans.

The next unit test went by. I slipped to the fourth place this time, while Nitin successfully stayed at the top. Slowly, half a year and a few more unit tests passed by, but nothing changed this pattern. The only change was that now, instead of just our class, the entire school knew Nitin. He became the head boy of the school. He came, he conquered and he
ruled, in a school that was
mine
first, and only then his! It was his habit to agree with everything that the teachers said. If they said yes to something, Nitin would nod his head first, and only later think about what they had said. And when they said no to anything, he too would shake his head. Once I saw him agreeing to two opposite opinions over the same issue with two different schoolteachers. He was good at marketing. The product he marketed well was himself.

‘How can a boy like you, from a different school, become the head boy in this school?’ I asked him in frustration one night.

Nitin was very forthcoming and honest. He explained things to me that no one had taught me at school. He told me what to do and not to do in order to hold influence. He gave me some quick tips to get people’s attention. He was good at it.

Taking a chance, I implemented his lessons, and soon I became a house captain. I realized that it wasn’t such a big deal—just a little bit of tact, awareness and a play of words, and 75 per cent of the work was done. With this sense of achievement, my attitude towards Nitin also changed. He didn’t feel like a rival any more. Rather I began to respect his wisdom and sincerity towards me.

With that, in the last few days of Class XII, my hostility towards Nitin also went down. Just like it happens with a months-old new year’s resolution, the importance of becoming a topper in my class also became less. It was
pointless to bang my head against the strong-willed wall called Nitin Ramchandani.

For the first time, I was very comfortable and relaxed during my exams. I had forgiven Nitin for his crime of being better than me. Actually, I was too tired of being jealous. I became more carefree, and that reduced the pressure I used to face while studying. I had again begun to enjoy games, and I did play some of them with Nitin, especially after the Class XII exams were over. What was more, I loved the change!

Nitin and I developed a great friendship during the vacation after Class XII.

I am nervous.

Finally that moment has arrived which each one of us has been waiting for. I know I have done well this time. But what if history repeats itself? Memories from what had happened almost two years back keep flashing in my mind.

The honking of a scooter temporarily interrupts my fearful thoughts. And then I hear him shouting, ‘Sardaar, jaldi aa ja!’ [Sardar, come here quickly!] Nitin is bang on time.

I tell Mom that Nitin has come to pick me up. I touch her feet and run out of the house. She shouts after me, ‘All the best and have faith in God!’

Outside the gate of my house, I see Nitin on his scooter. He too looks anxious. The two of us exchange smiles.

‘Chal, chal, jaldi kick maar, bhai!’ [Hey, kick-start the scooter quickly!] I say to him and hop on to the back seat.

The scooter springs to life and, in no time, we are on the highway from Burla to Sambalpur. We talk, but we don’t know what exactly we are talking about. We are talking just for the heck of it; just to make each other comfortable.

With every mile towards the school, our nervousness starts making its way to our faces. The enthusiastic smiles vanish and a familiar fear creeps in and makes its home between the lines of our foreheads. We know we are moments away from witnessing something that can either lead us to happiness or to sorrow. I am sure about Nitin. But I am only hopeful about my own self.

At the entrance of the school, we park the scooter. We are the early birds—there is no one yet out there. Still, we race between us to reach the entrance gallery of the school. The noticeboard in the corridor is our destination.

We make a hard stop at the gallery. Our bodies come to rest, but we continue to breathe hard. In no time, we make ourselves busy trying to spot the freshly clipped A4-sized paper on the board. There are so many of them! The last-minute flurry has muddled our minds. We are no longer calm or relaxed.

‘Here!’ Nitin finally shouts, pointing to the noticeboard behind me.

His words make time stop for a moment. I turn towards him and feel an adrenaline rush. I can almost hear my heartbeat now.

I read: ‘Rank-wise Class XII (Higher Secondary Examination) CBSE Results’. I am seconds away from seeing how I have done.

Nitin points his finger to the first row. I don’t follow his finger too carefully, knowing that he will top the school, as usual. I don’t want to waste my time congratulating him, as long as I’m fighting my own fear and trying to know my fate.

My eyes scroll down to the second row. I don’t see my name. The typing is terrible on the result sheet. I look down to number three, and then number four. In my hurry, all I am trying to look for is the initial letter ‘R’. I don’t see it.

My fear is again coming true. Oh God! I am not there in the top ten rows. I am about to break down. I am shouting that I don’t see my name! I am calling out to Nitin and telling him that I don’t see my name.

He grabs me by my shoulder. He is trying to tell me something, but I am not listening to him. I continue to shout aloud.

He slaps me hard.

I’m stunned. I ask him if he can find my name.

‘You arsehole! What else am I doing?’ he shouts at me, and then points his finger again to the first row.

I finally look at where his finger rests on the board. I read the first alphabet. It is ‘R’. I read the rest of the name. It’s me.

Oh God! It’s me! I take my time to understand what that means, and to come to terms with the reality.

‘Sardaar! Fattey chakte tu taan!’ [Sardar! You’ve made it!] Nitin screams out, and gives me a tight hug.

Oh boy! I have finally made it! Yes! Yes! Yesssssssssssssss!

I AM THE TOPPER. I–I–I–I–I–I–I–I—AMMMMM—THE—TOPPPPERRRRRR!

It is an unbelievable moment for me. I can’t express how I am feeling. I keep staring at the noticeboard. There are a thousand things I want to do. But, for the time being, I want to run to my parents. I want to tell them that I have come first in the school! Finally.