It
seems a long time ago that we started our lock down with guess the movie name,
guess the song name, guess alcohol name and such quizzes. From there we moved
on to group prayers and pass the prayer chains. Now we are at online seminars
and webinars, movie releases on online platforms, slowly transitioning into
online classes and exams, hoping a new normal.
What
has kept me sane during these times have been conversation with my soulmate,
PP. The nostalgic and bittersweet conversations always end with us reminiscing
over the moments we had together. It comes as a surprise to people when I
confess that we have been together only a year, in our 9th grade, and we are
still on. You can't but help admire the cosmic coincidences that happen. I thank
the stars that made my class teacher (Sindhu miss, my neighbour) in 9th put PP
in between me and Rajalakshmi (again my neighbour). She would have probably
thought that being neighbours made me and Raju best friends or something.
Nothing could have been more wrong.
Those
memories are starting to fade and I am worried that I will lose them.
"Write them down somewhere", she told me when both of us expressed
the concern. After all these years, it has become difficult for me to say for
sure if I was experiencing the things with her or her description of the events
made me share the same feelings as being there when the event was taking place.
So here comes the rant dedicated to our memories and moments together.
My
first memory of PP dates a year back than that. In our 8th, my best friend,
Jaya, was in the same class as PP. During a break hour, I met them and I found
PP squirming because she was carrying a sanitary napkin for another friend,
while she herself wasn't familiar with it. The next thing I knew she was in the
class with me the following year. As school in India went, we had to chant a
certain set of prayers every day. Normally the class teacher would guide you
through it. But in her absence, we had a substitute teacher who happened to be
our library teacher. The whole class was lost because we had an exam coming.
Without realizing any of it, we were saying the prayers in a continuous loop
and none of us cared enough to notice, except one - PP. She noticed and gave
out a laugh. I was getting nervous because I didn't want to be punished. I told
her to keep it quiet. But she pointed it out to me and then I guess the whole
class noticed it because we were chortling. We bonded over that.
I
recollect an event where our teachers were going through our bags to check for
any prohibited items. It was all cool, until PP unleashed the hell or rather
her bag did. I was checking the bag when I saw at the bottom, lay rice grains,
I was puzzled as to why she was carrying them. I rummaged through her bag and
the next compartment was even more surprising because a cockroach flew out of
it. My heart leapt out of my body. We still laugh over this. Another incident
with her bag, which PP doesn't remember is one with the tangled wool. We had
just finished about chromosomes in our biology class, while in our craft hours,
we were making crochet with wool. She had put her wool in the bag in a tangled
mess. During the time of the class, our craft teacher was upset with the way
she was treating the wool and asked in a very angry tone, "What is
it?" and without hesitation, our hero says "It is a chromosome"
and laughs. The horror on the teacher's face is still fresh in my memory. She
was a pioneer, even before roasting became a trend. She stood up to teachers
like this. I remember one incident where she was called to the office. Later I
came to know that someone complained to the office about her FB account (back
in 2009). She simply told them to call her parents up. Sass!!
It is
very common to cook up an answer when you run out of points, but it is another
feat when you get appreciated for it. She achieved that. Normally teachers call
upon us to punish, but that day was different. Talking about calling to be
punished, there were numerous times, we got punished. If one of us was caught,
they were sure that the other was responsible. No matter how much you protest.
This event is our favourite one. We had an English teacher who wore a scarf
around her head. It made her look like a kid in kindergarten. PP made a song
about her, parodying a famous song dedicated to snake gods. As she sang, we
started catching the rhythm to it. That was when the teacher walked in on us.
To indicate the teacher's arrival, I nudged her. She, in her "A.R
Rahman" mood thought I was increasing the tempo of the song. Finally, I
had to shake her up and when I did, I was asked to come forward with my notes
and sit near the teacher's table while the class was going on. And I wasn't
going down alone, I was taking PP with me.