Shedding Some Light # ! A First Class Nincompoop

At 4:46 am in the morning, I had this idea of a weekly series in which I will write about an incident from my life. And what I learnt from it. I am going to call it Shedding Some Light. There are some things that never fade away from your memory and from time to time, you visit those incidents. I am going to share those visits with you guys.

One day, in 5th grade, during the Geography class, our teacher called a guy from a grade above us. His name was H. He was a pompous ninny whose favourite past time was bragging about his London brought up. Naturally, I did not like him. He came into the class, the teacher asked him something but he kept denying it saying its not mine, its not mine.

A few days after that, while walking to the school, me and Huzaifa saw H standing outside the school gates with two older guys. One of them had a metal bicycle chain wrapped around his hand and the other had a cricket bat. H said Hi to us and introduced us to his older brothers.

I do not remember what I did next but I wish that I had slapped him or strangled him at least.

Than I proceeded to my class upstairs. After throwing our bags in the classroom, me and my friends were coming downstairs, lacing our skates, when we noticed the commotion around us. Everyone was running outside towards the main gate.

Had I been 18, I would have thought that someone was naked outside or there is a free ice cream truck.

On our way out, someone told us that H was beating our Math teacher. The same teacher who used to wear ill fitting suits with gigantic ties with rainbows and dogs on them. He even had a Happy Birthday one, complete with balloons and streamers. H had brought his gang with him and wanted to kill the teacher.

The teachers sent us back to the class before we made it outside.

All of a sudden, the whole school had something new to gossip about. Everyone was on H's side, claiming that the teacher had beaten him first.

Than I remembered something.

The true story was that that 11 year old jerk had written love letters to a girl on the back of her notebook. She took it to her class teacher, who called him in our class and confronted him. On his denial, she took the matter to the sir. H went on to make lame excuses, one of them being that the notebook is his sisters.

Sir was forced to read out loud the cheesy lines he had copied from some third rate magazine. He went on to being himself, which was selfish, rude, arrogant, show-off and a world class jerk.

Sir started lecturing him and asked him to apologize to the girl, on which H became more rude and said,

"Its none of your business. Keep out of it."

What happened next was that I heard the most beautiful sound in the world, that of a hand coming together with a cheek and going "Chatakh ! "

And for that the sir was badly beaten with three broken ribs, a hairline fracture in the arm, two fractures in the left leg, a split lip and a concussion.

I wish I could understand why H did what he did. As if a reason could ever justify his actions.

The age where my days were spent waiting for the next HP book to come out, attending all the after school sports practices, having sleepovers at our best friends and learning to skip in a week. He was planning his revenge. And his older brothers were helping him.

And the fact that that teacher has to live with the fact that once upon a time, his respect lay in a Cricket bat and a Bicycle chain.

P.S. And let me tell you that first class nincompoops are those who are well aware of their qualities.

P.P.S. My current on repeat song is I Will Be Waiting. This is actually an English version of a Hindi song "kabhi Jo Badal barse". Both of them are awesome.

...SAP...

A Tale Of Chevron

I have one word for you. 

Chevron. 

If you ever have an idea. Think about it. Five years from now if you will regret doing it, than do not do it. In my case its five minutes.

So the story starts with my obsession with everything and anything of chevron print. This leads to the idea of my painting a chevron wall. Yes, my mom regrets handing me a paint brush in 10th grade.

If you think about it, its a pretty good idea. But not when you are kind of notorious for leaving things undone in the middle. And making a mess of things. The word mess is taunting me right now because it can see the storeroom my room has become these days. But I tell you. Not my fault. Okay. Maybe it is. Whatever.

But for now, lets continue with the chevron story. So the paints came. The colour was wrong. And the can was too big for just one wall. Arguments were made. No one liked the colour. Someone thought it was stupid to paint in the first place. 

I started out with the determination of Bob the Builder, taking measurements and marking the whole wall with tape. The paper tape finished half way and than scotch tape had to be used. Our stool was with someone else so I used a table. I had bought a huge meter scale but because we think we are such cool people and are in Games of Thrones. So apparently, it was being used as a sword. And ofcourse, it broke. 

Somehow the taping got done. Two lines of the chevron were painted. And voila ! This happened. 

Calls were made. Huzaifa brought over Petrol. We hurriedly cleaned everything. We made stupid what if if we light you up jokes while taking the paint off of our hands. 

After wasting the whole day and feeling like a complete disaster, amma came to my rescue and finished the paint job. Than we pulled the tape off, took a shower, put our feet on the table, relaxed and saw our handy work.

Bob the Builder would have been proud. 

No, despite many tries, I managed not to fall off the table. 

And yes, I spilled the canister of paint. 

......

I Lost Faith

Faith.

Merriam Webster defines it as a strong belief or trust in someone or something.

For me it is riding with your brother despite the countless car accidents, he has been involved in. Or eating pasta on someone else's reference. It is when you buy a pair of jeans without trying it on, trusting that the size will fit you. It is telling someone a secret and believing that they will keep it.

It does not matter whether you end up in a car accident once again. Or the pasta gives you food poisoning. Or there is no refund/exchange on the jeans that don't fit you. Or that by the end of the day, the whole school knows that your family is broke.

What matters is that you believed in something. You had complete and utter faith.

Sometimes in yourself, sometimes in the other person.

I trust too easily.

I take that as a strength but it does not always play out like that. But when they say that there is no shortage of faith here.

They are right.

That changed last year.

I lost faith. In myself. In the people around me. In things. In destiny. In everything. It was like achieving complete oblivion.

It was like losing something I never realized I had in the first place.

Somehow I stopped believing that Allah has the best of plans in store for us.

But now I have found myself drinking Grape fruit juice on my aunt's recommendation. I can see all the plans folding out for me. And I can believe in them.

Sometimes you just need to close your eyes, let go of everything and have faith.

If not in yourself, than your family, if not that, than your friends, if not even that, than at least God.

.........