The Drift

I walked into my office and switched on the intercom.

The first patient was a young girl. She had been suffering from an on-and-off stomach ache for many weeks. Her tests were nothing out of the ordinary, and her diet seemed balanced enough.

I did the usual things. Collected her vitals. Asked a few questions. Got her to hop on the scale.

That was when I noticed how much weight she had lost over the last two months.

And it dawned on me.

I asked her if she liked school. Then I asked who her friends were.

That seemed to click something in her mother's mind.

I saw that kid a couple more times that year, but never again for a phantom stomach ache.

✦

There was a girl in school. I don't quite recall her name or even what she looked like.

I remember Srilatha and I were in Siberia with her a few times and not much else.

After she moved away, Srilatha and I became friends.

Not the sort of friends people wrote poems about. There was no school romance, no passing of folded notes, no dramatic waiting near the gate. We were simply two children who had somehow ended up in the same corner of the school and found that we didn't mind each other's company.

She talked more than I did. That wasn't difficult. Most people talked more than I did.

I discovered that she was quite funny when she wasn't frowning. She seemed to think I smiled. We still got sent to Siberia, occasionally. Both of us had changed. She didn't defy teachers as much, and I have been told, I didn't glower as much.

What I do remember about the other girl was her climbing the guava tree at the edge of the playground. I never quite understood what she did up there. What was even there to do, up high on a tree! It wasn't the fruit I tell you, the parrots and sparrows ate them all, if they could get there before the crows did.

One day from curiosity born out of idleness, I climbed the tree.

I found her perch.

It was a little hollow between two branches, just high enough to see over the playground. I sat there and leaned back, almost upside down, with my legs hooked around a branch.

The sun was on my face, warming my closed eyelids. My almost-upside-down posture sent the blood rushing into my head, making me delightfully dizzy. For a few minutes, I understood exactly why she had spent so much time there.

There was nothing to do.

Nothing.

You could hear the shouting from the playground, the teachers calling out names, the slap of a ball somewhere below. But up here, everything seemed far away. The school looked smaller. The children looked smaller. The teachers looked smaller.

I began going there quite often.

Srilatha climbed up once.

"Why do you sit here?"

I shrugged.

She shrugged back.

That was about the level of our conversations.

Eventually, I had a degree, a stethoscope and people calling me "Doctor" who had no idea that I had once spent hours sitting in a guava tree with my head hanging upside down.

Sometimes, when I am tired, I think about that tree. It was a good place.

Come to think of it, whatever happened to that girl?

Srilatha said something about a one bedroom flat

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A glimpse

That was my third year in Grade Six.

When this cruiser first looked at me, and I opened my eyes wide. Did she look scared that day? I remember thinking I had no use for a slip of a girl who got scared of big eyes. Speaking of which, she had pretty eyes herself. She just didn't seem to know it.

When Prashanthi came down from the fourth floor to mind us sixth-graders, she was shocked to see us still there. What was interesting, though, was the girl's reaction to our interaction. She widened her eyes and even looked impressed. I just dismissed her as another daydreamer.

In general, I didn't know what anyone was up to. I couldn't care less. The first-benchers were always annoying, and the cruisers were generally quiet and kept to themselves. Smitha was always whining about her parents leaving her at the school hostel. Parimala was always bragging about the countries her father had visited. Between the two of them sitting on the fourth bench and nobody daring to join me on the fifth, it was a pretty boring situation all round.

Until one day, this cruiser went and slapped the DSP's son.

She had a very old-fashioned name, the sort of name that belonged to someone's grandmother, and everyone stressed the wrong syllable when they said it. She never seemed to mind. Of course, I knew she wasn't paying attention. She was a daydreamer, that one.

Anyway, the DSP's son decided to have some fun at her expense. He started saying her name all wrong until he finally got her attention. When that produced no reaction, he moved on to making up songs and teasing her.

They were eleven, mind you. Nothing lewd. Just incredibly stupid, very loud, and spectacularly out of tune.

She finally snapped at him.

He pulled her pigtail.

And in the blink of an eye, she started chasing him.

He was fast. She was clumsy. But, she dogged him up the stairs, around the science lab, down the stairs from the other wing, across the fountain, and finally caught up with him and slapped him across the face.

The recess bell went off, giving us all a fright.

The entire class had been following the chase with our eyes. No snack was eaten that morning. No water was sipped. Nobody even went downstairs to the toilet.

We had important matters to attend to.

They both got punished for returning late to class after recess. I don't know how that didn't turn into a full-scale boy-girl feud. Perhaps the fact that his father was the DSP and the girl wasn't, well, particularly popular had something to do with it.

I can't quite put my finger on when my nonchalance turned into a quiet interest in what this girl was up to. She did funny things, like trying to sneak into the library or making notes in her classwork while the teachers were writing on the blackboard. My interest was properly piqued when the sibling-delegation started taking an interest in her whereabouts and generally trying to disrupt her quiet recess. Of course, Jaya and Rani always hung about with her during recess, which was just as well. Otherwise, the brother who had once been my classmate and the sister who was now my classmate might have beaten her up.

It was one of those days when I got sent to Siberia. She was already out there, glowering at Smitha, who had tattled—quite untruthfully, of course—that she was playing Name-Place-Thing-Animal in class. If I hadn't watched her taking notes, I might have believed it too. Anyway, I was sent out five minutes later because, well,

I hadn't done the homework.

She looked at me when I came out, but said nothing. I went and stood on the same side she was, and for once, neither of us seemed particularly interested in the punishment.

I think that was the first time I realised that being sent to Siberia wasn't always such a bad thing. Sometimes, apparently, it was where the interesting people ended up.

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Siberia

While all of this was happening during Science and Library periods, English was shaping into a nice little nightmare. This was, of course, before I became the “outstanding” student.

This teacher was vicious in her own special way. Which was rather unfortunate, because she was also stunning. Rosy cheeks, a brilliant smile, not a hair out of place — she looked like she was made in a factory. She was always pleasant and kind. Just one tiny problem.

Her grammar was appalling.

And this cruiser, aged eleven and bubbling with confidence, had the audacity to correct her.

I was quite respectful about it. I sacrificed my recess and went to the staff room. I stood outside, waiting for permission to enter. Finally, she beckoned me in. I had copied her sentence into the last page of my notebook. I wrote, "Miss, that sentence should have been..." or something of that sort underneath it. I thought I was being discreet, respectful, almost tactful. I was so proud. Tsk tsk!

Her face turned a magnificent shade of red.

“Wicked girl! You think you know grammar better than me?”

She tore my page out into tiny little strips and chucked them at me while the rest of the teachers watched with various expressions of concern, confusion, amusement, and glee (we all know who that was).

That wasn't even the real problem. Her daughter was in my class, her son two years above.

Between the two of them, they made sure my recess was absolutely delightful.

So, in retrospect, perhaps I should have kept my grammatical excellence to myself. I had corrected one sentence and apparently earned myself a small family feud.

But, like I said, this was before Srilatha and I became the "outstanding" girls.

My mom's snacks were phenomenal. She'd make ragda, spicy with kharam, pulupu and uppu. Or atukula mixture, chekkalu, onion pakodi, roasted and salted peanuts, karappusa.

My woven lunch bag was a carefully engineered piece of logistics: one lunch dabba with a thick napkin wrapped tightly around it; one snack dabba, wrapped in a second napkin; two bananas; and a water bottle.

That second dabba was the reason I had any friends. They wouldn't take my side or anything, but they were by my side during recess. And I shared.

Until Srilatha came along and put an end to all sharing without caring, so to speak. I didn't mind that either. She'd at least keep the sibling-delegation away from me.

But it wasn't all battle cries and picking up pieces.

There was heaps of fun to be had. Only, I didn't know it was fun at the time. There was an abandoned well in the corner of the playground. While the rest of the kids played kho-kho, I was on the raised mouth of the well balancing and singing "takida tadhimi, takida tadhimi, tandana, hrudaya layala jatula gatula, tillana." Or I'd climb the guava tree and hang from the branches. I had this favorite spot where I'd perch and daydream. I didn't eat as many guavas as you'd think. The birds ate them all.

I just looked at the lichens on the surrounding palm trees. They were patches of green and grey making strange, beautiful patterns across the bark — magnificent on one tree, sickly and silver-grey on another. Some formed delicate little lacework; others were gnarly and brown, as though they had been there forever.

All of it — the lichens, the rough palm trunks, the bright blue sky and clouds that looked like soft white pillows — nudged my mind to wander.

And wander it did.

I dreamed of when I'd leave that God-forsaken village and live in a one-bedroom flat in the city, where I'd work at a big office and spend evenings teaching kids in the slum.

Life had other plans.

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Do you look back and come to the realisation — I never quite realised how much I was dreaming?

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A Ripple in Time

When I first met Srilatha, I was 11 years old. She was taller, darker, and looked so much stronger. Back then, a dark complexion wasn't considered a mark of beauty. But she had big eyes and, in general, a pretty face. She always frowned, though. Did I forget to tell you? She was older and used her eyes to express displeasure. I thought she was scary. She had been held back that year, and the year before that.

One time, when we had older kids minding us, two girls walked in, went straight to her and asked, "Are you still in 6th?"

Srilatha pursed her lips and shrugged.

The girl who asked was appropriately shocked and saddened to see Srilatha in my classroom, but what comes back to me with greater clarity is Srilatha's defiance. Who cares what other people think? Who cares what the world thinks and what judgements it passes? Sometimes, I wish I were that way!

And then there was Sunil, the pale, scrawny kid who everyone knew was around but never quite noticed. He was very quiet when we were little and generally kept to himself.

His birthday was on the 29th of February, so he technically had a birthday only once every four years. I remember that particular year when his birthday came around, he didn't wear colourful clothes like some of us might have. He wore a new school shirt and a pair of new school shorts. Is it weird I felt sad for the kid?

By around 6th grade, he seemed to be in a terrible mood most of the time.

None of the teachers commented on his academic performance. If you ask me, that was a sweet spot. The popular kids were those who scored well, and the kids who failed were ill-treated and called all manner of names.

Some teachers said awful things like, "Aren't you ashamed of eating so much and not even passing a slip test?" or "You are such a burden on your parents."

Cruising in the 60th percentile, flying under the radar, so to speak, those were the lucky kids.

And who was I? Neither the popular one nor the lucky one. I was the cruiser who, for some reason, caught the teachers' eye in a bad way. I got it worse than the last tier—or so I felt.

Girls and boys never really talked to each other. Not unless we were fighting in groups, which happened often enough.

School was a horrible place, and yet there was nowhere else I would rather be.

My school had a massive library. And once in a while, when a teacher was on leave, we were sent even if it wasn't library period. Everyday, I hoped some teacher would go on leave. In general though, we couldn't just walk in whenever we wanted and read, even during lunch and recess. The "library ma'am" would look up the class timetable—not in a computer, mind you, but in a book she maintained—and shoo us back to class.

She was especially wicked. She wasn't content with simply not letting us in. She went on to complain to the vice-principal, who in turn called our homes and complained.

My school had internal phones. Extensions, they called them. Who would have thought of such an awesome thing about telephones?

She used her extension to call the vice-principal and complain.

On one such occasion, my grandmother answered the phone. The vice-principal ma'am started her rant, and my grandmother cut her off. In her agrahaam Telugu, she asked what a kid was supposed to do if the teachers were unworthy and demeaning instead of going to the library!

Do you reckon that made my life easier?

Oooooh noooooo!!! No, no, no!

It got worse.

Now it wasn't just the class teacher and the librarian who hated me. It was the whole staff, starting with the peon outside the staff room, the ayah who helped out with the pre-primary kids, all the way to the PT sir.

Because guess what?

He was the principal ma'am's husband!

On one of those dreary days when I was punished and made to stand outside the class, Srilatha joined me. She smirked, which she later argued was a smile. Whatever it was, it said,We are not so different, you and I. They hate us both equally!

And boy, did they.

She tried to talk, but the teacher came out, thunderous. That only made Srilatha talk more.

There were many subsequent occasions when we chatted away standing outside the classroom and getting beaten up for talking.

They told us not to talk — what did they expect, huh!

That is how I know Srilatha's family wasn't ashamed of her. They didn't care if she did well in school. There was a pond outside their house where she swam often. She had two older sisters, one of them already married and with a baby on the way.

And on one of those bright frosty days, Sunil joined us.

What had he done to get sent to Siberia? I never found out.

By then, he had already turned into this melancholy youngster who frowned at you if you said hello. He was still pale but had shot up and towered over us like a starved ghost.

Despite his frowning, he edged closer while Srilatha and I chatted. He hung his head but we caught a smile or two from his profile.

It would have been a great friendship, but my family moved away to a different town and that is the end of it.

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Do you look back and come to the realisation - I never quite realised how strong I was

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