Failing

When I was about thirteen, a girl from the class above mine, flunked and came to sit in the bench behind me. She shared the bench with another girl who had flunked along with her. The teacher had made them sit together so that they could share their shame as well. But they didn't get along well at all. Almost immediately I started becoming friends with her. There was this innane frankness about her. And happiness. She was always giggling, chatting, laughing. Even as a kid that young, I remember being sad, afraid, angry. So our opposites attracted, perhaps.

She used to get idlis and curried peas in her lunch box. Everyday we began sharing lunch. We went to the water filter together to fill our bottles. We sat with each other in PT class. We talked, almost constantly. I had made a new friend. 

I used to be good at studies, I was almost about topping the class then. So it was an odd match. Even when my friend was repeating my class, she kept scoring badly in tests. Not that it hampered her joy. There was this certain effervescence about her that was inerasable. 

Since she was the weakest in math, her dad found her a tuition teacher who came to her house two days a week. I joined for the class too, along with a few other kids from the neighborhood. I now think I went solely because one of the senior boys was a neighbour of hers, and he I had a pretty bad crush on. But that's another story.

Our math teacher was excellent. He totally was a game changer for me because he made me like math. He caught me sleeping with my eyes open a few times and made fun of me adorably. But with my friend, he was more strict because he had promised her father he wouldn't let her fail again.

Her father was a businessman. Their apartment was big and flashy. My friend wore fancy clothes and was dropped off at school in a gigantic car. Often after the tuition I would stay back at her house and watch TV or just chat. And be treated with delicacies.

I told her everything that was on my mind. But she hardly ever shared anything. I imagined she had nothing going on in her head. So I let it be that way. Soon we passed out of school and parted ways. We wouldn't see each other for a long time. Because we had nothing in common anymore.

I started the gruelling journey of preparing for college entrance examinations. She casually meandered through 10+2 in a different school. I heard from somebody that she burnt her hands when a pan of hot maggi titled and fell off the stove. I didn't call her then, because I was just being me. Somehow that would be the last memory of her I would keep.

We weren't even friends on facebook. Wonder how that happened.

Then one day, when I was about eighteen or so, I heard she fell in love and eloped. With an older guy. That sounded so chain-breakingly liberating at that point in time, to me. I didn't even have a boyfriend. I was just fat and studious. 

More years went by, life really dumbed me down. That happens. A person I worked with invited me to his kid's first birthday. I happily obliged. At that party, I was lounging with a plate full of buffet Chinese food, when I saw a beautiful ten year old girl running around in a princess frock. Her mother loudly warned her to be more careful. It was my effervescent friend from school.

I was besides myself with joy to see her. She looked exactly the same except chubbier. Her daughter was only a younger version of her. She held a little baby boy in her arms. Her husband was a relative of my colleague's. We talked even though we didn't have much to talk about. Even though there was nothing to say, there was so much. I welled up inside. And yet, she was just smiling, giggling, like not a day had passed and she would pop open her lunch box and idlis would emerge.