A day without cellphone

Strange is the place called classroom.

It has its own aura around it, no one wants to get into it, and once you get into it you hardly want to leave it. But if you step out, stepping in is out of question for the rest of the day.

Having been driven out of the classroom by the HOD herself, I made it straight to my cozy bed in the not so cozy hostel room.

‘If there is a paradise upon the face of this Earth, it is here in Kashmir.’ aptly said by emperor Jehangir.

The snow capped mountains, the deep ravines, the pine and Chinar forests, fresh cold breeze, rowdy rivers and a shivering sheila; life looked right out of a Bollywood movie. I, who was enjoying nature’s bounty, am certainly not to be blamed for forgetting the Earthly reality that Kashmir had been infested with terrorists for the past half century and continues till the present. I realized the Earthly reality on the planet’s Paradise after hearing a loud bang.

My heart skipped a beat. My mind coaxed my heart that it must be a Deepawali fire cracker and not a terrorist’s AK47 and not at all a suicide bomber, while I slowly turned around. I had hardly lifted my trembling foot that more bangs followed. The bangs were loud, but frantic and hollow, like a wild child banging upon plywood.  Pandiculating, I opened my eyes to hear a song or curses and expletives appended to my name, while the banging door kept the rhythm. I cursed out loud before getting out of the bed and opening the door with sleepy eyes.

Half an hour later I and a couple of other boys were in the nearby orchards stealing mangoes. By the time the constellation Scorpio hung on the tree tops we had filled our parched stomachs with about a dozen partially ripe mangoes. Since the day we had spotted the fox in the orchards we had promised to ourselves never to venture there alone or to stay after night fall. Hurriedly and hungrily we headed towards our hostel mess. After gobbling the bland dinner we sat down to play least-count, while the Telugu heroes dashed around the computer screen upturning cars on one hand and waltzing with half-their-age heroines on the other. It took 12 games, 2 Telugu and an English movie, for us to realize at past 2 that it was time to sleep.

hAy meri cell!

The recess bell rang and I dashed straight to her desk, she had already pulled out the Milton Tweety headed 'akshaya pAtra', her Tiffin box. The intoxicating smell of roasted gram flour and clarified butter filled the air when the lid of the Tiffin box was removed. My favorite! I exclaimed in excitement, how could I have survived the hostel food without the ‘akshaya pAtra’ I wondered. I took the largest chunk of the sweet and had barely made to my lip when I heard a loud screech “Rey..........idiot that was the fifth alarm to go off..............."

I opened my eyes to see the furious face of my roomy, "could you not have waited till I ate the yummy sweet", I mumbled. "Its 9:45 and principal's class begins at 10:00 do you remember, today is Wednesday", he continued slinging his bag over his shoulders. Without any more protests I went to the bathroom. Curses flowed out at the sight of the soaked clothes. A choking wring, a rough brush and heavy punch made the T-shirt bright as new, next it was the turn of the Bermuda( a type of caprie for men) the choking wring produced a cubical bulge in the middle while the rest of the fabric coiled to form a cylinder.

The gloom of the night became afresh, I had lost my cell phone and a few seconds through future I may find it. Gently un-wringing the Bermuda I pulled out the cell phone from the pocket. If I were a poet, "water was here, water was there. water was everywhere upon the cell phone”. Water could be seen flowing through the screen when you shook the phone, a change in angle let out a jet of water from every possible angle. Unable to decide whether I was happy or sad at finding my cell phone; I went to my bed and dismantled the phone. My mattress grew soggy; water scarcity has certainly not affected my cell phone. With very few options left I dried up the parts with a towel and left it on the windowsill, hoping the sun with all its nuclear activity could lead my phone to desiccation.

Both the consecutive classes by The Principal were apparently over and the tiny bespectacled, Sari clad architecture teacher smiled and let me into the classroom. Two sleepy hours and then the sonorous recess bell rang.

"you see I accidentally rinsed it along with my clothes." she stared at me with her left brow raised (hope someday her eye brows have a bout of alopecia), with I-could not-expect-anything-better-from-you look on her face." I have left it to sun-dry" I said.

"You have left it for what?" she rolled her eyes all along the circumference of her cornea. The disgusted expression told me I had said something wrong. I scampered off to the college mess, taking the refuge of long wait, instead of answering her question. I made sure to linger around the male toilet for an abnormally long time when she came out of the classroom, and enter the classroom five minutes after the bell marking end of recess had sounded.

The HOD got annoyed upon my rhetoric late coming but facing an annoyed HOD is much better than facing the annoyed girl. An annoyed nod by the HOD and I was back to my comfortable, airy, snug, last bench. I took a gasp and then grinned to myself, having been successful in avoiding the beautiful beast.

"You can sundry nothing", came a whisper; I turned around to find her right opposite to me in the adjacent column of benches. I was aghast, she had changed her bench during the recess, even pests would find this pestilent; I can bet a million if I ever had.

My grin changed to a grimace, she smiled. she tactfully looked around without turning her head, after ensuring teacher's minimal attention she continued," you cannot sundry, though you can leave your sundries in the sun to dry." I loathe riddles, but I hate them when they come from the oral orifice of this particular creature." sundry is an adjective which means various, example: - The conference had people with sundry ideas. When used as a plural it can be used to mean miscellaneous items...."

"Both of you, at the last! Out of my class!" the teacher needed no repetition, I made straight to the door heaving a sigh of relief while the classroom was drowned in a solway of apologies and excuses in a quaint feminine voice.