I just remembered that A. Miss’s song went Darjee Maama. Years of watching tapori films have changed those lyrics to something out of a don movie. Imagine, the Darjee is actually an underworld don. And he is actually a loan shark, that is why the wolf begged that the Darjee not do fikr. Sometimes, I really wonder if A. Miss was the original Beatrice to my Dante. Such depth.
But I was telling you about making it to the abandoned shack, when -
I told you to stay tuned.
Anyway, I was trying to slip away when I saw Khatri striding down the field. We were all in rows, and the small field size meant that the girls’ rows followed after that of the boys. This was done with the wise realisation that a bunch of boys at the back meant a lot of stones thrown to the front. But there was a maneuover that gave us boys a brief window for retreat, which was precisely what Khatri was looking to obstruct. Thanks to the evening heat, some children were getting sun stroke and making for the cool corridors. Khatri decided go over there to slap them on the back of their heads for their malingering. They, after all, were real rule breakers, while the drill escapees hadn’t yet done anything. A brat in hand is worth two making for the bushes. I slipped off at the maneuver, making sure that the class monitor caught sight of me.
I shall now describe the class monitor.
She was a class monitor.
Description done.
I had made it to the shack. About now the song would start. A. Miss was so clever, she was going to start her show in medias res with the wolf’s prevarications. The song started. I had to work fast. The smell was overpowering. The crow was now only one in name. It was an abstract impressionist work in dry and wet decay. My masterplan had a flaw.
I was supposed to kick the damn thing in the way of the entrance, so that the class monitor would at least freak out immediately on entering. My initial idea had been far more elaborate, with me tying up the crow from a string and pulling it when she came, etc etc. Now I realised that I had to actually either touch the damn thing, or use my feet. And then I remember the shoes I wore were not the black leather ones, but the ‘Tennis’ shows that are painted white. They squeaked like fuck in the worn stone of the shack. This was looking like a retarded plan by the minute. I remembered why I had even formulated it. I had seen some little pest handle the crow before by the beak on a dare. At that time it was barely dead. Now it was an expert at smelling. I was a Brahmin! Look for sticks…. then I remembered! The gilli danda stash. Near the shack was a small hole dug out of the earth and covered with stone, in which we secreted the beloved rose wood sticks, polished plank bits, large pebbles and one precious bail that the winner of the gilli danda match got to use in the next round as his gilli. Time to get to the arsenal. I removed the stone. This stash was a secret very carefully kept from the girls, who were of course, maddened with curiosity. I sometimes wonder why I didn’t just set up an on demand kissing routine promising the girls I would show them the stash. Never paid for it, never will.
I took the lousiest danda from the stash, already rotting at the edges with moss, to push the crow. God forgive me, but I realised it would be more sensible to kick it in the path of the monitor the moment she entered the shack, rather than keeping it there for her to see a mile off. So I waited. It was dusk now, and I realised the long opening dirge to the Darjee would have made an excellent collection if it had been sung in trains. My love for A. Miss intensified. All this planning was for you alone, A. Miss! where are you now? How blind are you with cataract, how arthritic are you now!
I had gotten used to the smell by now, and the uncanny dusk rays made the shack look like a sacrificial altar. My expression of vulpine anticipation would have made Dostoevsky shiver. I could hear the squeak squeak of Tennis shoes, coming ever closer. I knew now that it wasn’t a teacher, and that I had been missed, and it was the monitor making the lone journey to the shack and its hideous predator. Thank you, Sherlock Holmes, I thought.
The bait was in place, I regretted not having the gumption to place a pebble or stick under the crow to give it greater leverage when the danda would launch it. Squeak, Squeak, Squeak. Breathe, Breathe, Breathe.
SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK. It was time. It was dark now, quite dark, and the Darjee was now singing his own song, an inspired reworking of Chitti Aatthi Hai from Border. Hehehe….I thought ‘Chutti Aatthi Hai’ when -
No need to stay tuned, cause today is a holiday so I can write.
When the lights went out and I screamed for dear life. Note: You may wonder how an abandoned shack had electricity and a rotten crow at the same time. It didn’t. But as it happens in all school festivals, powerful halogen lamps were strung around the perimeter so that there were no shadows. Now that all the lights were out, there was nothing to see by, and my inhuman scream must have scared the life out of several predators near by. And by predators, I don’t mean spiders and garden snakes, but fucking leopards. The Kolshet K.V had made news during the summer holidays by discovering a full grown leopard in the school. The SQUEAKs stopped. I called out her name, in what I hoped was a firm manly voice.
‘Monitor!’ I said.
‘Haan?!’ She said.
‘I was looking for my drawing here.’ I said.
‘Did you find it?’ she said.
‘Yes’ I said. This was going super smooth. Scared out of her wits, she had no time to think of how she was going to tell my name to Miss. and Khatri and just wanted to get back.
‘Come out now!’ she said.
I suddenly realised what a stunning deus ex machina this whole lights out shit was. She was all alone, and I was the only male within whole yards of her! And knowing K.V Teachers, nobody would have missed us yet, except Khatri, who would probably still be whacking kids randomly.
‘I can’t’ I said.
‘Why?’ she said
‘There is a leopard here’ I said.
‘WHAT?’ she said
‘Yes! I think it came here because of the crow’ I said, and said a silent prayer of thanks to Jim Corbett.
‘Is it big or small?’ she said
‘It is a leopard’ I said.
‘Waaaahhh’ she wailed.
‘Don’t worry, I will just give it the crow and it will go away.’ I said
‘Waaaaaaah’ she wailed
‘See its already gone, it likes the crow. It is a small leopard only, not like the summer holidays one’ I tried.
‘WAAAAAAAAAAH’ she wailed, remembering the summer holidays one.
‘Don’t worry I am coming out now’ I said.
‘WAAAAAA- ok,’ she said, tears stopping immediately.
I came out, feeling like the most unbelievable hero ever on this planet and all the three worlds. You could have floated Atlantis with my inflated chest. I brandished the danda like a policeman’s baton and stepped smartly over the threshold, beaming, waiting for her to run into my arms.
She didn’t. This is bloody India after all. I realised there was still some work to do. Here wipe your tears, I said offering my kerchief. She took it to wipe her nose, but recoiled instantly, shouting that it was papery!
My Sherlock Holmes was now covered in snot. What was to have been a gift to her as a possible bribe for not telling my name to miss, was now snot. My first artistic endeavour, my first pencil sketch of a man’s profile was snot. She instantly detached the piece of paper and threw it on the ground, and then started inundating my kerchief with her snot. She suddenly became all businesslike after having recovered her composure by losing her snot.
‘Where did you get that stick?’, she asked.
‘I won’t tell you,’ I said. Bad answer. And at this moment, I realised that the saviour always falls in love with the saved, but the saved doesn’t always follow suit. Especially if the saved is a goddamn class monitor.
‘You left very early! Why didn’t you come back earlier?’ she said
Maybe this was her way of hinting at how badly she needed me? Maybe she kept stealing glances at me?
‘I couldn’t find my drawing. AND YOU JUST THREW MY DRAWING ON THE GROUND!’ I shouted, braving armies of Khatris to come and ask me for my etikayt.
Like all women, she missed the point.
‘I didn’t see any leopard,’ she demanded.
‘Shall I call it for you? I read Tigers of Kumaon’ I said.
‘You said it was a leopard,’ she said.
Class monitors cannot be given a quick course on animal taxonomy when it is your intention to kiss them. By this time, I was trembling at the thought of the kiss that I had been so sure of getting. And here she was asking me about a goddamn leopard. Why couldn’t she realise it was a McGuffin?!
‘Leopards also come when little girls are around, along with the tiger’ I said. And then started scaring her with weird guttural growls that Corbett would have probably attributed to a boar. She started crying again and played her trump card.
‘I’ll call A. Miss!,’ she said.
‘More food for leopard,’ I said.
This was going all wrong. It had been fairly simple as a plan. Crow, scare, console, drawing, kiss! Followed by A. Miss’s solicitous remarks towards both of us and appreciation for me about saving the monitor from the dead crow, and maybe a peck on the cheek also.
‘You want A. Miss also to die! I will tell A. Miss definitely’ she said.
I was waiting desperately for another goddamn deus ex machina. There was no way this was going to lead to a kiss from anyone except Khatri.
What to do!It was all lost. I felt miserable. How was I going to ask her to kiss me! These things are instinctive. Parul was so easy, she was was very experimental. This class monitor was going to be a legendary marm when she grew up. I had to try the last thing.
‘I will show you where we keep our dandas if you don’t tell A. Miss’ I said.
She stopped crying immediately and asked me where it was. Maybe I could even wangle a kiss later after showing her our treasured armoury.
I led her to the back, where the Gear – hole was barely visible in the incipient moonlight. I prayed for a porcupine, or squirrel, or any damn little critter to rush past and scare her into my arms. I had no intention of showing her the real sticks of course. There was obviously a fake collection kept in another hole, which had grown disused after someone had seen a snake disappear into it.
To be continued.
