Tried my hand at a short story…Here we go..
Karan was immensely concentrating on the task at hand. His eyeballs were focused, his fingers were still, body stooped forward and ready to charge. He was all set for the next attempt. His mission was to maneuver his science textbook to spin on a vertical axis, with his index finger as the hub. The first, second and third attempts had been big letdowns, because he couldn’t even balance the book. It kept toppling over and over again. The fourth one seemed ok and the fifth was even better and now he was going strong on the sixth, determined to get it right this time. For a nine year-old kid, his determination and commitment were amazing.
Right since he had visited Ramu Anna’s house during his summer vacation, Karan had got hooked on to this notebook stunt. Ramu, Karan’s cousin was extremely good at ‘sleight of the hand’ kind of tricks. As a matter of fact, his hands never were still and he always kept spinning, swinging or twirling something or the other with both his hands. In one such occasion, Karan had caught him spinning a book with just his index finger. He had done it in ease and in absolute style. ”Wow! That’s so cool. I want to learn it too. It would be really good to show it off to my friends Badri and Sudha. They will simply be aahstruck!”, he thought. At that moment he resolved to learn the knack of the Book spin and show it off to his friends.
Immediately his juvenile mind started reasoning with the target at hand. If he were to learn it, he concluded that he just had two solutions, 1) The quicker way-learn from Ramu Anna 2) Practice and learn all by himself. Out of the two, the first option seemed to hurt his ego(Ego can start from an early age , u know ), so he settled for the second option and decided to practice everyday. Since he was very bad with English, he initially thought he could carry out his practice during his English classes. But then in the end he ruled this out because Ms Treesa, his English teacher, was so very sweet in pite of his poor english scores. Next on his list was science . Although Karan liked biology, the manner in which his teacher Ms. Raheja taught the subject, made most of his classmates to eventually detest the subject. She could make even the most interesting concepts sound so prosaic. To make matters worse, she also happened to be a very stern disciplinarian. And hence, Karan’s next unanimous choice for practice was science class.
His strategy for not getting caught was very simple and ingenious. Every science class he would sit behind big Bubli and perform his book spins. She was so huge that nobody could see past her. Not even the razor-sharp eyes of Ms Raheja. Unfortunately for him, many others in his class were using this novel approach for their own motives and he would be contending with veteran pranksters like, Munna, Arjun, Shiva & Pallavi for the coveted seat. He had to be alert every time. ”God! It will be tough. But then mom said good things will happen to good people.(she had actually meant pupil ) So I have a chance.” , he thought.
All set for the operation, he had been successful in dodging Ms Raheja for the past five days. Five days meant five classes, which was equal to 45 x 5 = 225 minutes of practice. So far so good. But then today had been an unlucky day. At 11:30 A.M, when the science class was about to commence, he went and sat behind Bubli. In about two minutes, Arjun and Shiva came to his seat and demanded him to get up. When Karan refused, together ,both of them knocked him off and occupied their seat.Although Karan felt a sense of revenge rising from beneath, he regained his composure immediately. ”Hey ! Idiots! just wait till you see what I have to show. Just wait for a few more weeks. I will be the hero.”, he resolved. He then moved to another relatively safe position and resumed his practice. He had already completed five attempts and was going strong on the sixth attempt. Just as he picked his textbook for the sixth round, the keen eyes of Ms.Raheja settled on him. He was caught red-handed. “Karan! Karan! This is absolutely atrocious! What are you up to? How can you involve yourself in such useless antics? Are you some kind of a juggler? I thought you were a sensible kid. My god! Its appalling! Now, get out of my class with your pen and notebook. You will listen from outside and answer my questions in the end. Ok? Out you go!”, she berated at the top her voice.
Karan was more surprised and puzzled than angry at what she had said. “Bubli why weren’t you there to save me? Anyways, What did Ms Raheja mean by atrocious, appalling, antics, juggler? How can she remember so many words? She is not even an English teacher. Huh! Whatever. But then she described my book spin activity as useless! How could that be? How can such a fabulous and heroic thing be termed as useless? , Maybe she doesn’t know anything. She is the onw who is atrocious, appalling, antics, juggler. Not me.” he concluded.
For the next half hour he had no alternative but to listen to Ms Atrocious. She was teaching something about Darwin’s theory. ”For any organism in this world, including human beings, three basic things are required to survive in this world. Food, shelter and sleep. Without these nobody can survive. Now I’ll delve deep into one of Darwin’s postulates – ‘survival of the fittest’”, she said. That was the last Karan heard of her. He then drifted into his own world only to be brought back at the sound of the lunch bell. Luckily for him, Ms Raheja forgot all about asking questions and just went her own way.” Probably she was hungry. Good for me.”, he thought.
Later, he goobled down his lunch and dashed to the playground with Badri to play football. Badri was also the same age as Karan but belonged to a different section. So on their way to the ground, Karan started narrating the day’s incidents to him. “Badri, you know what? Ms. Raheja said that without food, shelter and sleep, nobody could exist in this world. But then she is totally wrong. When my father goes inside his study with his laptop, sometimes he never sleeps or eats for 2-3 days. Even if my mom offers him food, he simply yells at her and asks her not to disturb him. Ms. Raheja is not aware even of such simple things. She is atrocious and just fit to teach useless antics. My god! She is so appalling juggler! Don’t you think?” , he blurted.
“Yes Karan. You are right! She is so atrocious and knows nothing”, Badri replied. But then Badri was actually thinking, ”What did he mean by all that? Atrocious, antics…lot more right? Where did he learn so much English? Wow…he is so great”, he thought.Apparently,Karan’s objective to show off in front of Badri had finally materialized. Maybe not for what he had planned.
