Suspension

After that fight with Indrajith, I thought it was officially the end of my friendship with him, but next day as I entered the classroom, he greeted me as if nothing had happened between us and said “come let’s take a leak”, we walked towards the toilet. He apologized and said he didn’t mean what he had commented the previous day. I accepted his apology, after finishing our work in the rest room, as we still had about 20 minutes before prayers we went to play catch in the playground, Darshan was waiting for me in the pavilion, Indrajith apologized even to him, surprisingly he accepted without creating any fuss and Raghunath was sitting with Sashwat and Vaidehi.

We started playing catches, Darshan, while living up to his reputation of being a accurate thrower and a notorious quarrel monger, threw the ball aiming at Sashwat, unsurprisingly it hit Sashwat’s face real hard, his white face turned red. I exclaimed “holy fuck!!”, but Darshan was laughing uncontrollably, Vaidehi came fuming towards him shouting how dare he do such a thing and other bullshit. I was shocked beyond measure but could not tolerate a outsider shouting at my friend, I argued hitting Sashwat was acceptable, but was unable to substantiate my argument with a supportive reason.

Vaidehi was offended, obviously any girl would have been, she complained directly to our headmaster, which she shouldn’t have as the conflict could have been solved by our class teacher. As usual our headmaster enquired and Raghunath squealed on us. The intensity of the situation was huge, as per the ” standard procedure ” our parents were called to school and after all usual rustication drama, with intervention from our class teacher Darshan, Indrajith and I were suspended for a week. Later that day at home, I was in sombre mood and started weeping silently, my brother noticed me and took me to a BDA shopping complex near our home, which was his usual hangout with his friends, there he cheered me up with humour and soda. He told me to take pride in the suspension as that will remain a fond memory in the years to come.