ThE OtheR GendeR !

Ahem.. ahem… certainly not a very fascinating topic to talk on, but yeah worth blogging about!

From the boy-girl fights in primary… to competitions in middle school… to hating each other in high school till finally befriending them in senior secondary, the journey was damn exciting and full of ups n downs… but the worst part of the whole experience is that it came to an end abruptly. It would have been lovely if the last phase could have lasted for long… but then the ‘farewell day’ of the school came n before I could realize anything, things came to an end! Let me take u down the memory lane… to peep into some of the precious pages of my diary….. ;)

There wasn’t a single day in my 5th grade when I (Preeti supporting me) and Arun (with Sreenath’s support) did not fight… Believe me, we used to fight like cats n dogs.. rather cats n dogs will fight more humanly than we used to do! One of the reason we used to fight for was coz we shared the same favorite song those days.. dil deewana, Pardes.. imagine we used to fight calling each other as copy-cat. I remember once me and my friends decided to name all the boys in the class. None of them were nameless.. so as to mention.. but we kinda wanted to show our innovations. We wrote down their new names in front of their old names on a paper n tried memorizing it. As a return gift, when the boys did the same… being girls, we all started crying n shouting n at-last our Hindi teacher got us sorted out by asking us to write the huge chapter of ‘tennali raman’ 10 times!!!! I am just wondering, who won? Hee… hee.. :)

When we girls had hurted their ego’s enough by always getting the top ranks, there came a challenge to me… but then we both ended up sharing the first place… n with that, the challenger gave up. Right after finishing off with the primary classes, this war of who is superior started, in all the possible spheres… right from quiz competitions… to recitation competitions… to debates to what not!! There wasn’t a consistent winner although, but the ups n downs kept the spirit up. Any one girl’s victory was as if the whole community has won and ofcourse a boy’s victory used to be hyped up… like all rare occasions ;)

By the time we reached 9th class, things had completely changed. They were not so interested in such silly competitions or fights… their ‘interests’ were changing… n it was becoming impossible for us to keep in-pace with them. There wasn’t a single girl in the class who was comfortable with ‘the other gender’ that time. These boys were really growing up n on-course were becoming pretty indecent. Am kindda searching for a comparatively decent incident to put in here… u c considering my reputation, I don’t think it will be wise to high-light a lot of incidents…

I had this habit of putting up a proverb on the black board every morning. It was such an usual day when I choose to write the proverb ‘face is the index of mind’… unfortunate decision… but I wrote that. It was then when Pramod read it n asked me to “replace ‘a’ by ‘u’ n ‘e’ by ‘k’”. The duffer as I was, asked him to explain me the meaning. There came Ashok for my rescue… most probably as a gratitude for my tying him rakhi since 6th class… he asked me not to listen to Pramod n to write whatever I want to. But like a stubborn, I was stuck to know the meaning, proving the proverb “ignorance is divine” wrong!!! When I was clear that they r not gonna explain, I went straight to my English teacher to know the meaning… incidentally she was my class teacher. Her reaction n expression would have made a pic… if only I had a camera with me… she said “Shruti, it’s a bad word!” n I turned pale… I seriously didn’t had a hint that it could be a ‘bad-word’. Poor Pramod, my class teacher sent a word to his parents… coz of my dufferness…!!!

Another one… our English teacher once asked us to dramatize a chapter in our text. Since there wasn’t much ‘friendship’ between boys n girls in the class, the boys of my class decided to perform one first. They decided on the chapter “Woman in platform no.6” .. something like that… In the script, the lady was wearing a white sari. Pramod was characterized as that lady n he got his father’s dhoti to put on as a sari… there was a scene in the text where this lady lends money to someone… when that scene came in the play, Pramod slipped his hands inside the sari under the left shoulder to take out his purse… n there went a LOUD “hoooooooooooooo” from the girls side n my teacher just dropped her face down. Krishna was quick to say “shirt ka pocket vaheen hai”… err!!! Whatever!! Disgusting!!! A later though made us thank god that he didn’t keep his purse in his pant pocket n put his hands under the saree to get the money!!

This was nothing, there used to be some incident or other every second day… n these things spread like forest fire!! Every girl had something or the other to narrate n these boys seemed so insensitive those days!! There was a time when I insisted my parents to change my school coz I though I simply cant pull on with this class… but then the situation was not better in any other school… I know coz of the same discussions in tuitions n as a shock I came to know that girl’s schools weren’t any better… it was then when I thought maybe it wasn’t the gender, but the age…! I remember once when it was really “TOO” much for us to tolerate, one day Rajini stood up in the class and in-front of everyone complained to her class teacher. Kudos to her courage!!! We all congratulated her for her act. That was indeed brave! Poor boys… maybe for the first time, they felt sorry.

Thanks to the out-station trip we went to in 11th class, the class united as one. These boys behaved very responsibly n the gender barrier was reducing… I took more time as compared to my other friends. I took one more year to actually befriend them n Ajay was most probably the first boy with whom I spend a lot of time… during nainetal trip… without getting irritated! Trip reminded me of a hilarious incident… we were just roaming about in the Mt.Abu markets when most of us got tired n headed for our bus. Suddenly from somewhere Krishna came shouting “uda liya… uda liya…” proudly showing off the keychain he had invisibleised (stolen)… as if its his oscar lady… hee hee… when from suddenly nowhere came this hefty uncle to catch hold of his ears… lol…. Poor thing he had to go n return it n even say sorry!!! Lol… we were all rolling down in the bus not able to control the laughter…!!!

The last year in school was seriously amazing with all of us understanding what the word “class” means… we all started asking for free periods together… each birthday was a celebration… the other gender wasn’t a foe but was a friend! Proverbs written on the black board were still changing say for example “united we stand, divided we fall” changed to “united we pass, divided we fail, dono nahi toh compartment” hee.. hee… no wonder farewell was with such a heavy heart!! If they were the same as they were in 9th class, farewell would have been a celebration, but all of us felt bad during the farewell n wished we had spend more time with each other!!

Almost all of those up there in the picture will most probably start working by the year end…. Its gonna be a fancy watching these “Cool Dudes” working as professionals… n if I let my imaginative horses fly, it will be fancier to see them parenting a little angel ;)

Good Luck Guys!!!!