Jivika~

"Take out your first chapter, 'Life Processes'!"

This, was Suganthi ma'am. Our Biology and Chemistry teacher for the year. She was known as 'Mrs. Now'. Word goes around that she repeats the word 'now' at least six to seven times a minute. A senior who stays in my building, had asked me to count the frequency of her 'now's'.

But her monotonous voice was making me fall asleep, my head accidentally banging onto the desk every fifteen seconds. So counting her 'now's'  proved to be an impossible task.

"Okay children. Now. This is your class tenth. No fooling around now! You are giving your 'Boards' this year. Now, be serious! So, now! This chapter is long and we'll divide it into four parts. Now, the parts are nutrition, respiration, transportation and—"

"Suganthi ma'am, the principle has called you for discussing about the 'All India—"

"—Science quiz'? Good Lord! Was that meeting now?! I'll be there in five minutes Sunil! Just inform that lady!"

Barely lecturing for ten minutes, she grabbed her purse and rushed past the door. Now that it was a free period, we had approximately half an hour to ourselves. Dropping the class tenth NCERT science textbook in my bag, I take a one eighty degree flip to talk with our gang.

Tenth grade.

Time sure flies doesn't it?

And is it normal for a Science teacher to explain blood circulation in heart, by drawing that actual love-emoji heart? Answers I would never know. I stared at the question put next to the diagram:

Q. Draw a sectional view of the human heart and label on it – Aorta, Right ventricle and Pulmonary veins. List out their functions.

Who was she trying to fool? Everybody knew that CBSE never made up stupid questions like her.

Lavanya and Amaya were busy setting tiny bits of paper in Rhea's hair, designing the nest to perfection while the victim was engrossed with her S. Chand Physics book. Laysa was their audience, her features laced with amusement and pure delight.

No, no, don't worry! She was not studying. She was busy reading the journey of Lakhmir Singh and Manjit Kaur, the couple who wrote the ill-fated book. And all of a sudden when she looked up, the other three jumped backing together—acting all innocent. And this girl did not even realize what they had done to her hair, as she started ranting about her brother.

"Ved's browser history is worrying me! Bhai pata nahi chal raha ki yeh batau ki there is this thing called history, or teach him how to use incognito!"
[Dude, I don't know whether I should tell him that everything can be seen in history, or whether to teach him how to go incognito.]

Thank god I keep an eye on Ansh's Youtube history as well. Siblings are troublesome, all the time.

Kiara and Maahi got engaged in arguing whether the latter's IQ was less or not. Well, it was a one sided argument, with Maahi defending her IQ and Kiara laughing off, contradicting every point of hers.

"Maahi, last year when we were in ninth, you had trouble opening a lock! You tell, which ninth grader does not know how to pick a lock when they have the keys with them?"

"But Kiara yaar! The lock and key were tiny and—and—even my hands are so small! It was difficult!"

"Okay fine Baba! You might be book smart but IQ...nah! Remember you called a thirty centimeters scale a thirty inches one?"

Recalling that incident, my best friend—Kiara—doubled over with laughter.

"That was a slip of tongue!" the desperate reply was shot, followed by a groan. Her face was burning with embarrassment.

Kiara and me were rolling over the ground and that's how our victim surrendered, joining us in the laughter club. The other three stopped their act and looked at us, expecting an answer to why we were hysterical while Rhea was busy removing the decorations from her nest.

"Spill the tea ladiez !"

And that, was Laysa.

None of us replied, we were busy giggling as if the world were to end tomorrow. And that was how all seven of us started laughing like hyenas amidst the already reckless class. At least our weird loud laugh had brought silence to the room cause the others were trying to make out whether we were nuts or not.

All of us are sane. But when the seven of us come together, the addition of the prefix 'in' to the word 'sane' is inevitable. Seven different, crazy, lunatic personalities coming together and becoming the thickest of friends. None of us could have expected that.

Hell. Our class can still not believe it when we hang out together. For them its like, well, I don't know, I'll have to ask them what they think its like.

But while gaining the six of them, I might have lost a few others. For instance, my first friend. Of course, Amaan was still a friend. But being a friend, and being an only friend—it was completely different.

After I shifted to Delhi for a quite a while, he found a new friend in Parth. The two have been inseparable since then, or I've been told so. I relocated back to Mumbai in sixth grade. Almost all the kids were unfamiliar to me, I was the new girl. My friends, they are not him. But they are worth it. Except when they become crazy. That's when I disown them. But most of the times, I'm involved as well.

"Guys, pay attention!" whined Lavanya, only to get ignored once more.

"So does anyone have any plans for November twenty fifth?" asked Laysa, planning her birthday which had about six months to go. "Honey, November comes after six months, this is April," Kiara tried bringing some practical angle to the matter.

Once again, Lavanya's shriek ringed through the class, "All of you are ignoring me! ME! Don't you have better people to ignore?" giving us something new to laugh at. I was lucky to have all six of them at the same time. Yet, I drifted apart from many others while gaining them, unintentionally of course. My thoughts wandered as I recalled my first friend. Made me think of how everything had changed.

I hated it how on entering adolescence the teachers and all the adults kind of drew out these boundaries, this gender-curtain. The cupboards being divided for boys and girls, the seating arrangement—everything in fact.

Accidentally, my eyes drift towards the first desk on the row near the window, adjacent to ours.

That sight got me stop laughing. Instead, a small smile played around my lips despite how much I tried to resist it.

Parth had one of his arms around his best friend, Amaan, enveloping him completely. Whereas his other hand was engaged in poking Amaan's cheek, trying to test if the skinny frame had any fat at all.

While the latter was trying to get away from his grasp.

Can you feel the love?

I leaned in a bit closer, trying to hear what Parth was saying. Eavesdropping is not a crime, not legally at least.

"Look how skinny you are. Look. You don't even have a double chin!"

Parth was astonished and so was I. I watched the duo as Parth ran his fingers along the latter's chin, searching for a double chin. Such goals they were!

"Aww!"

Darn. That was meant for me. Not for them.

Two heads jerked up simultaneously.

However, only one of them had my attention.

I looked.

He looked.

We looked away.

And we looked back again.

~

Glossary:-

Boards: In India , board examinations refer to the public examinations that are conducted at the end of the 10th grade education, and at the end of the 12th grade education. The scores achieved in these exams are considered very important for getting into universities, professional courses or training programmes and other occupations.

NCERT: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is an organization of the Government of India. They publish textbooks.

S.Chand Book: A popular publishing company in India. Their books are used as reference materials.