Mina sighed happily, looking at her new gleaming fountain pen. For the umpteenth time, she turned it upside down, and saw the ink flowing and collecting at the other end of the ink barrel. She opened her new pencil case and placed it carefully inside, away from the two pencils, eraser (pencil and ink), sharpener and ruler. As she excitedly looked forward to her first day in school of writing with a pen, her mother fervently prayed to God for all to go well.
Decked in a dashing white uniform, neatly braided hair, and new white canvas shoes, Mina kissed her mom goodbye and got into the school van.
When Mina reached school, she ran to meet her friends, all of whom were showing off their fountain pens to each other. Her pen elicited a ‘Oooh’ from her friends, who obviously found it impressive – it had a transparent body, was lavender in colour, and had a silver nib, while all of theirs’ had golden nibs.
Well, everyone seemed to realise it was a big day for the class III students of the school. Class V akkas and annas wished them good luck, while class IV ‘Seniors’ had a smug What’s-the-big-deal look. Teachers let the students clap for each other at the beginning of each lesson, and all students were extremely eager to write something even on the first day of school. Some students even insisted on writing the bio-data themselves, and ended up getting scolded for doing so. Mina was a well-behaved girl throughout, and secretly giggled with joy every time the nib smoothly flowed on the lined notebook paper.
Well, all did go fine till 2 pm in the afternoon, during the Social Studies class. The SST Ma’am had obliged to dictate something to them so that they could all write with their fountain pens, and was explaining the beginnings of the Mughal Empire by the side. At the end of the hour, just before the P.T. class began, Mina realised something cold on her left shoulder.
She looked, and to her utmost horror, found a large ink blotch on her left sleeve, a big, blue, ugly stain. As she came back to her senses after staring it for almost half a minute in unbearable agony thinking of what her mother would say, she turned back to see what was causing the stain, which was still spreading.
Somu had dozed off!!! The idiot had left his pen open in his right hand, which was stretched across his desk and reached Mina’s shirt sleeve.
‘Idiot!’ yelled Mina.
The whole class looked at her, shocked. SST Ma’am interrupted.
‘Mina, that’s a bad thing to say! Say sorry at once!’ she said.
‘I won’t! I won’t, I won’t!’ screamed Mina, in a blind rage of tears. ‘Look what he has done to my shirt!’
Somu was still sleeping, oblivious to the happenings. Vatsav, who was sitting next to him, nudged him awake. ‘Dei, get up da, ma’am is going to scold you!’
Somu woke up finally, dazed. Even before he could say anything, a fist came flying at his face from front.
He gasped. So did the whole class.
Mina had hit him – big mistake.
For when Somu woke up, he was terribly angry. Huge for his age, hitting him wasn’t something anyone would really want to do. Mina’s rage seemed to have confounded her senses as well.
When Somu stood up, though, Mina didn’t cower. She was completely ready to continue the fight. Just as she was about to grab him by his collar, the teacher interrupted.
‘Enough is enough! I shall not tolerate such behaviour in my class. Mina, get out of the class and stand there!’
Right then, the class bell rang. The whole class, as though the bell was the gong that woke them up, shook themselves off the whole episode and ran out to the grounds to play. SST Ma’am made sure Mina didn’t punch Somu on the way to the grounds, and even went and reported the incident to the PT Teacher.
It so happened that the PT Teacher like Mina more than Somu. Being the kind hearted woman she was, she let them play too, even though SST Ma’am had vehemently told her it wasn’t a good idea.
Oh, if only she knew. Within minutes of start of the class, Somu came and pulled Mina’s plaits in revenge. Mina ran forward and kicked him hard in his shin. In another two minutes, the two were on the ground, pulling each other’s hair, and kicking and punching, screaming all the while. It took the good natured PT Teacher almost five minutes to realise a commotion was going on – she was thinking a game was going on when a circle had formed in a corner of the ground with the children screaming ‘Go, go, go!’
She came running when she realised it was a fight, and dragged the two warring kids apart. Both were hurt and bleeding – Somu in his legs and elbows, Mina in her ankles, elbows and palms. By the time they got their first aid dressing, the bell rang and it was time for them to go home. The Head Mistress’ yelling was reserved for the next day.
When Mina reached home that evening, her mother nearly fainted of shock. The uniform didn’t just have the blue stain from the fountain pen on its left sleeve, a part of the right sleeve was torn, the shirt and skirt were brown from rolling in mud.
The next day, the Head Mistress issued a note to all parents advising them not to give their children pens to write with until the school management decided it was time to do so.
