The incident I’m describing is from my school days. It was the winter of January
It was an icy cold night of February in Delhi. I was crying in the corner of my room as my mother was shouting on me. It wasn’t my mom shouting mom which made me cry, it was the reason for which she was shouting at me. I had lost my tuition bag and my Science and English textbooks along with it. I felt as if my whole world had fallen. I had no idea what to do. I year end examination were due in 15 days. I thought, I’d take one of my friend’s notebooks and copy the notes. But that didn’t seem as a feasible idea. I can’t ask my school friends for notebooks, where the hell would they study from? I can’t ask for my tuition mates for help as they had their exams lined up in a couple of weeks too. Copying notes from one to other textbook wasn’t going to be an easy job too. It would at least take 3 days of time. Then, I talked to chachi (Aunt), who used to live with us (we were kind of joint family), to copy one subject’s note for me, as she had the best handwriting in my family.
But still, I didn’t have the notes to copy from. I knew every hour I was loosing was precious and had to come up with a solution really soon. I know, this was the time to test my friends but I didn’t want to do it. I was scared of the fact that what will happen if they don’t help? This would certainly create some issues between me and my friends. Though, I completely understand that gives your notebooks to someone else, when your exams are hanging on your head, wasn’t only their own decision. I knew many of my friends mothers wouldn’t allow them to do that. No body wants their kid of suffer because of some other dumb ass, irresponsible kid.
Well, yea, you guessed it correctly. I thought about it more than I did. I made up my mind that my friends won’t help me without even asking them for help. And, yes, I’m still as confused as that kid was in 8th standard.
The day after, I’d lost my bag; I was sitting in my room and getting frustrated. Cursing my fate, abusing god and whomsoever, I could blame it on. Then, somebody knocked on the door. I opened it and there she was. Yea, even I was surprised. I hadn’t seen her since 5th standard, when I changed school. Even though, she livid a couple of blocks away from my place, we kind of drifted apart after I moved to new school. We were good friends but ‘school’ good friends. Even during my earlier school life, there were rare chances I went to her home or she came to mine.
I couldn’t believe her sitting in front of me. But, to top that, I couldn’t believe what she did for me. She brought her Science and English notebooks and not for me to copy from them. She gave the notebooks to me. Even though, we studied in different school but our schools were CBSE affiliated, thus, were following the same syllabus.
Me: - I’ll copy them and return ASAP
Her: - No need to copy. Return them after your exams are over
Me: - But, what about your exams?
Her: - Don’t you remember? We have exams in mid April in this school.
I don’t know and still can’t figure it out that if she was best friend. But, on that day, for me she was a godsend. I used to be good at studies but thanks to her, I stood second in my class that year. But, things went normal again. I didn’t see much of her again, other than the few moments of me passing by her on the road and her passing the smile. The last time I heard about her was when she was getting married.
