#1 - The Fork

You know all those tele-serials and movies where the guy (the “hero”, so to speak) describes vivid details from his past with clarity, breathtaking precision and heart-rending emotion...well, it’s all a lie. I don’t even remember if it was March or April: I know it was March, but I am pretty sure I don’t remember that. Is that weird? If someone had told me then that someday I would forget when my 10^th boards¹ ended, I would have laughed. Well, I have forgotten. Anyway, the good thing about the boards was that the school year got over in December: practically an extra summer vacation smack in the middle of winter. Of course, since the genes that had allowed my father, and his father before that (and his father before that...), to have fun had somehow been lost to the brutality of random genetic recombination, I spent the time trying my best to reach the target of studying sixteen hours a day. What an effort it was...I would stay cooped up in my room all day, in front of the brand new study desk that my parents had bought me. Two evenings every week were spent watching WWE on the television (see, I told you I had a life back then!), and every night studying by the light of my (brand new) pelican-beak-shaped study lamp. It was a marvellous time...

All this effort was just to reach three small goals:

a) Achieve the highest score ever by a student of my school in the tenth boards (a.k.a my big ego).

b) Score 100% in mathematics (don’t ask me why...I think it was puberty or something.)

c) Beat (I think we agreed on this name) Cynthia’s score in English (refer to b above...this was supposed to be the grand climax of an year or so of romance)

As far as achieving these aims is concerned, a) was a partial success, I equalled the previous highest score, b) was a disaster, I scored 99 and became one of the crowd. I haven’t been able to decide about c) yet: I did score about five marks more than Cynthia, but surprisingly, she did not come running into my arms when the results were declared. Guess you can’t plan love after all...

I guess I’ve run ahead of the story. This is where the story was supposed to start: So it was March, the last day of the boards (I think it was the 27^th but I am pretty sure I am wrong). The exam had finished half an hour or so ago...and we were standing in a park. I am not sure I was wearing my sweater or not...you see, it must have been quite warm, but we were still expected to wear winter uniforms: full sleeved white shirts, grey trousers and an optional blue sweater (yes, no tie! Government school students did not have to be reminded that there was a noose around their necks...).

My sweater story is pretty interesting in itself. Back in 7^th standard, when I had first moved to Gurgaon from the hot tropical city of Kochi on the coast of Kerala, my mother had knit me a nice blue sweater. Now the sweater posed a number of problems. It was a slightly wrong shade of blue, not wrong enough to look trendy like all the rebels of my class but just wrong enough to make me feel oddly uncomfortable (of course I was self-conscious, refer to b above). It also looked distinctly home knit, and although I could never stop praising the comfort and durability of a home knit woollen, it did make me look a little rustic. Thirdly, and most importantly, I could never decide if my mother had knit it hoping that I would finally get that growth spurt we all had been waiting for or whether she was afraid I would get angry one day and blow up like The Hulk (to think of it, that shade of blue might have gone well with a green skin). Neither of these ever happened, and consequently, the sweater always remained three sizes too big. Till one day, in 9^th or 10^th standard, I could finally make my parents refer to b above and buy me a readymade one.

Coming back to whether I was wearing my sweater that day or not, I probably wasn’t. So we were standing in a park, I, Will, Adam and Peter. I am not sure if Rick was there, he was a weird creature anyway. All of us knew it was my last day with the group: I had decided to change schools next year. That’s what bright students unfortunate enough to be stuck in Indian government schools were supposed to do: get to a nice Public School² and actually make something of themselves. More on that later...I had wanted our last group hang-out to be somewhere better...a Nirula’s³ maybe (I don’t think I had heard of McDonald’s then), but all of us were broke. Not just ordinary end-of-the-month broke, but I-hope-Grandpa-visits-soon-so-I-can-buy-that-packet-of-biscuits broke. I have no idea what we had talked about, but I think anyone watching from a distance would have thought we had been punished to stand there...I guess teenage boys aren’t really good at farewell meetings. I think we somehow passed half an hour like this, and then bade each other good-bye. I probably gave everyone that weird awkward wave that makes people think someone’s holding a pistol to my back.

I don’t remember what I was thinking as I walked back. NTSE⁴ classes were due to start in a few days: I was probably looking forward to them. As for all my friends, I have never talked to Rick since. Adam and Peter called me last year around my birthday, it was nice to hear from them but we haven’t been in touch. I exchange phone calls with Will once every few months, even met him once last year. I guess best friends amount to something. But our lives have been very different since that last exam; our paths seem to have forked out.

1. Board exams/The boards/Boards/10^th Boards: The living dead ghosts of the british educational system used to scare children into studying right from the beginning of elementary school. Exams held on a countrywide scale to judge nothing in particular and of very little consequence unless you want to change your school, also see 2.
   
2. Public school: A really expensive school filled with snobbish children who are sure of going to college in America riding on their rich daddy’s fat wallets. Also, a place that promises quality education and a wholesome learning environment, as well as a peer group that can pressurize you into completely suppressing who you really are.
   
3. Nirula’s: Famous food chain in and around Delhi and some other major Indian cities. Serves heavenly hot chocolate fudges.
   
4. NTSE: An exam conducted by the Indian Government to select the best 1000 odd students of the country and pay them a scholarship enough to buy them peanuts for snacking once a month, and that too the cheap kind.