Over
the next few days Mithun had almost come close to revealing the incident to
Kishore, however my timely interruption saved the day. It was not that Mithun
wanted to deliberately share it with Kishore, but it was his natural behavior
and he can’t be blamed for it, in any way. Moreover he can never conceal even a
tiny piece of information with his close friends, and now since I had put him
in such a tight spot, he really found it difficult to handle the situation.
While
this was happening on one side of my life, in parallel on the other side, the secret
cute smiles & glances between Sri and I started rising rapidly, as we
couldn’t resist looking at each other even for a short interval of five minutes.
We never missed a single moment that gave us the chance of looking at one
another and we both seemed to relish it deeply. That was the first real
infatuation that we both had in our lives and well of course during the early
years of your teens, the hormonal reactions within you are totally
uncontrollable. So, we just let it go by the flow and didn’t suppress our
feelings. And as I had already mentioned in my last post, she had a fair complexion
and every single time that our eyes met, she totally blushes out and her cheeks
instantly turn pink, making her look like a Barbie doll.
So,
amidst all these happy moments, there were times when somewhere deep down our
heart a little fear would pop-up, especially while thinking of the school
rules. However, the fun side of the hostel life overshadowed our fears and we
continued with our so called puppy romance. And then there was this night, one
among the innumerable memories that I preserve from that time, which remains
fresh in my mind even now.
As
there was no television at the hostel, the school authority used to screen film
once in a month. So, as we were in the middle of the academic year, it was one
such movie night that we were all so eagerly waiting for. Right since we got
back from school, Kishore, Mithun and I were in full-on discussion about the
movie and we were so excited about it. It was a newly released Tamil movie
called “M. Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi” starring Jeyam Ravi in the lead role and a
debutant actress from Kerala called Asin. The first study hour was indeed busy
that evening, as every single student seemed to be heavily discussing only
about the movie, which the hostel wardens mistook it as students engaged in
serious group study. Well, yeah that’s how stupid they were in real.
Dinner
was served early that night and we were all chit chatting merely at our rooms,
by the time when the technical team was setting up the projector and the screen.
Minutes later, the announcement was made for the students to come and assemble
at the hall. The wardens had actually expected students to turn up in an
orderly fashion. However, to their surprise every single student barged out of
their rooms in such a hurry that they even knocked down couple of staffs who
were standing at the entrance of the hall.
But
no one cared about it and every one were in a rush to grab the first few rows
of the hall. It was a complete chaos and the crowd was being totally
uncontrollable. Nobody seemed to pay heed to the warden’s instruction and it
was well enough for the staffs be enraged at us. And in that rage they just
went and shut down the projector. In an instance the entire hall fell silent
and we could clearly sense the anger on all their faces.
It
was for sure that we would be subjected to heavy punishment that night and our
guesses turned out to be true in the next few minutes. All the students were
sent back to the hostel and were made to kneel down at the assembling point. By
now we had spent quite a lot of days at the hostel and we knew there were more
aggressive punishments, in line for us. The faculties arrived at the assembling
point and had started clearly identifying those miscreants who had behaved
wrongly with them. They started filtering them out from the entire lot, and
luckily Kishore, Mithun and I were not one among them or to say it on a
brighter note, unfortunately we were held up at our rooms and we were among the
few to reach the hall last. And therefore the staffs had very well seen us
entering calmly.
But
I would say that was not us totally and our starts were shining bright that day
to save our asses from the terrible punishments. Every single time the thought
of punishments made our blood run cold. So, on one side as the miscreants were
being filtered out, on the other side the studious one were also getting
filtered out and they were sent to the cinema hall.
Again
we were held up in between. Because unfortunately, we did not fit into either
of the category and we were actually wondering how come being studious related
to not being mischievous? But if that is how the understanding of the educational
system is, then we raising voice against it is like an ant trying to pitch its
voice against an elephant. So, with the only other option left with us, we
started making innocent faces and tried all sort of ways to get noticed by any
of our class faculty, as we were so desperate to watch the movie.
And
this time our trick actually worked out, as Mr. Basha, our Mathematics teacher
noticed us and called us forward. He gave a suspicious look at all three of us,
but we still maintained the same innocence on our face and then he asked us to
move out to the cinema hall, as he was one among the few staffs earlier to
notice us entering the cinema hall late. So, our false act plus our unplanned
late entry earlier paved us the way for us this time. We actually couldn’t
believe our luck, as our stupid trick worked out with one of the most dreaded
staffs of the school. Hiding our joy within ourselves, we maintained the same
composure until we reached the hall and then burst out laughing heavily.
Finally getting settled there feeling accomplished we were exchanging excited looks as the film started screening.
