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I sat in the corner of the room, fuming.
The whole class was shouting noisily around me, throwing things at each other, doing graffiti on the blackboard, gossiping, flirting, all the works.
I was sitting in the very corner of the class, sulking.
Mihika sat unhappily beside me, ever so often glaring in my direction. The rest of the girls were huddled over one desk, whispering, giggling and pointing madly at the boys. The boys, completely oblivious to this, were talking about cars and Pokemon.
I took out a notebook and decided to start doing my homework. Silly girls, wasting their time. Why don't they do something constructive? They could read the textbook.
Yes, in sixth grade, I was that bad.
I have heard that the teachers would patronize Apoorva Zarkar by saying that she should look up to me and Aishwarya as role models.
Don't say it. Please. Just ask the others.
But you have to cut me some slack. I was the new kid, hated by all and hated all. Being the new kid...sucked. I had just moved from the US, I was completely new to this stuff, and to top it all, I had a wonderfully posh american accent that Aishwarya claims I still haven't completely shaken off.
So anyway, my life pretty much sucked. I would go home everyday and cry in bed. And Mihika sitting beside me and glaring in my direction did not help my mood.
None of the girls in my class looked at me twice. I was some stupid annoying idiot to them. They didn't like me, and I thought them as 'ghatti'. You see, I didn't have much of choice amongst friends either. We were only five, not including me. Here were my options:
Mihika - puh-lease. She is one of my really really close friends now, but she knows as well as I do, what a horrible pain she was. Believe it or not, she made me cry (she stole me eraser ok? And that eraser meant a lot to me). Well, I was a crybaby, always have been, except now I'm a little more careful when it comes to the sensitive, emotional side of me. It still dominates my life though.
Sanjana - was actually one of the only ones who bothered to talk to me. She was always very nice and polite, but she was also the most popular girls in school, so I didn't stand a chance.
*This is just a short summary of the girl politics in sixth grade. The most popular girl (believe it or not) was Shristi. Her best friend was Sanjana. So Shristi and Sanjana were the most popular among girls and guys alike and their group included two girls - Nichita and Girija. Vaishnavi was the class prankster so she was well loved too, and the rest of them just follwed behind those five girls like puppies.
Vaishnavi - very boisterous and...picky about people. I was never one for violence, so I never understood the need to shove people out of your way, especially when they already are. She is a generally good person, but like ninety per cent of the girls, not one for 'newbies'.
Apoorva Chitnis - I don't think I ever heard her speak.
Apporva Zarkar - Do I need to explain?
So basically, the options were limited. And as for the boys...lets say that Namdeo class boys were still firm girl-haters and immature brats.
I wasn't the only new kid though. There was Padmanabh and Maloji too. Which made my day so much better.
And so I sat on the only available seat in the class; next to Mihika.
I felt my eyes water up like the leaky taps they are and immediately started rubbing them. Crying would not do, not here, where the girls would scoff and the boys would laugh and the teachers would patronize. God, I pleaded, joining my hands together in prayer, God, please send in a new girl. Please please please.
Of course, the chances of that were pretty slim, seeing that it was already July and we were a month into the academic year. But the situation I was in was so depressing, that I felt it was worth a shot.
And, just as if God had actually heard me, there came my own personal angel.
Ok, so she was the last person you can call an angel; in fact, she was the very incarnation of the devil himself. Cute and small, with a bob of short, wild black hair framing her chubby, dimpled face, an eleven year old girl was being herded inside our class by our class teacher. She looked sullen (the girl I mean), and very very unhappy. Glaring defiantly at everyone, which was more than I could do, she stood in front of the class, next to the teacher.
Madhubala Aunty smiled and her glasses slipped down her nose. "Class, we have an unexpected new girl in our class. I'd like you to meet..."
I didn't hear the rest. Dumbstruck, I rubbed my eyes, to check if they were defected.
God had answered my prayers. On the very day I had wished it, he had granted it.
My mind started working in overdrive. I could not, no, would not let any other girl in our class talk to her. I could not lose this opportunity. I would never forgive myself if she became their friend.
I glared at all the girls in our class, who looked downright bored. I had a claim over her. God had sent her here for me.
~
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Furious with myself for not having been able to talk to her the previous day, I ran to the classroom, huffing and puffing on the way. I walked into the class, where everybody had already settled in. My eyes automatically skimmed to my usual seat at the back of the room next to Mihika.
.
I froze.
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My seat was occupied by the new girl.
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This was not what made me angry, how could she have known it was my seat? No, I was seriously pissed with Mihika for letting her sit there in the first place. I had managed to let someone steal my only potential friend from me. Mihika, without having a need for a new friend, without doing any work, had managed to secure a seat next to the new girl.
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Life was so unfair!
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Angry, hurt, and furious with myself, I dragged my feet despairingly towards the other end of the class. A desk over there was empty, but it was cornered by other desks, which were crowded by boys. The nervous, hyperventilating side of me took over. I was going to have to sit all alone next to boys. I had never really been popular among boys. The witty, outgoing girls like Shristi, Sanjana and Vaishnavi were. Not unattractive, shy girls like me.
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Ameya Gokhale raised his eyebrow as I nervously placed my bag beside the table. He may have just been in sixth grade, but he was still Ameya Gokhale. A smile twitched on his face and he whispered something into Rugved's ear. They both burst out laughing, hitching their thumbs over to my desk. I glared at them, turning a brilliant red, and yanked the chair back for me to sit. Boys.
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"Um....can I sit here?"
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I looked up in wonder to see the new girl standing awkwardly beside the table, chewing her lip and shifting her weight from one foot to another.
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I started vibrating with excitement. I could not let this opportunity go.
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I beamed at her. "Of course you can sit here!"
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She gave me a weird look before sitting beside me. Thrilled to finally have the new girl to myself, I jumped up and down beside her. "Do you need help?"
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She blinked at me. "Uh..."
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"Here," I yanked open her bag before she could stop me and started pulling out her books.
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"What the f...!"
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I ignored the use of bad language (I had, and still do, have a thing against swearing) and started arranging her books in the pigeon hole. "Here is were the science notebooks go....maths is above that and history and geography to the side. The Hindi and Sanskrit book are on that shelf. Give me your textbooks, they have to be kept in that cupboard and we have to take them out whenever we need them. You can keep them in your desk if you like, but I doubt there's enough space. Lunch time is at twelve thirty and we have to go downstairs near the dining area. Do you have an ink pen? Yeah, ball pens are not allowed so you better have one. I have an extra if you need one..."
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I paused to take a breath. The girl stared at me with wide, awe-inspired eyes that told me I can't believe she's being so nice! They were actually wide and horrified and said Who the hell is this freak?
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I beamed at her, hugging her English notebook to my chest. "My name is Namrata, by the way. I just moved too, a month ago from the US..."
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Before I could launch into a history of that (which, trust me, bugged the hell out of her later on), the girl interrupted, "Right, okay."
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"What's your name?" I asked politely.
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The girl leaned back and gave me a good look, as if to see if I was really worth the trouble. What she saw was a short, chubby girl with two geeky ponytails tied as high upon the head as humanly possible, round, out of perspective glasses, big socks drawn up to her knees, her arms cradling an English notebook, a huge, nose-twitchy, stupid smile on her childish face.
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She groaned, as if asking God why he didn't give her anyone 'cooler'. And then, taking a deep breath, as if bracing herself then and there, for the next four years of her life that I have bugged her, she finally seemed to accept that I was not about to let her go. And surely enough, to this day, I haven't. Except now, neither can she (Of course, if you ask her, she'll deny it).
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The girl made a face, a face that all who know her now are so fondly familiar with. The very face that greets you early in the morning, accompanied with an equally earsplitting yell and an authoritative finger that can only come from having a deputy head-girl badge.
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"My name is Aishwarya."
