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Kritvik Bhatt

It was another chilly day. The sky on top of our school building was covered with clouds. Sun was nowhere to be seen—only a thick layer of clouds surrounded the sky.

The corridor of the school was filled with students in gray trousers, white shirts, and dark green coats upon them. It was the winter uniform of our school. Some walked randomly on the corridors with their friends and their lunchboxes in their hands, laughing and chatting as they chewed their food. Some were standing in front of the line of windows on the corridor, enjoying the sight.

Inside the classroom, lighted with bright tube lamps, there were a bunch of groups of students—all scattered all over the classroom. All of them were enjoying themselves and chilling. It was filled with inaudible murmurs.

In the middle of the classroom were the three of us—I at the front, with my chair tilted behind toward Sana, Sana behind me, and Kavya on our right row, with her chair too tilted toward us.

“Yeah, and you should watch anime too,” I told Kavya. “It’s gonna… help in the development of your mind.”

“Boy, TV shows don’t help in the development of your mind, do they?” Kavya asked after she narrowed her eyes.

“No doubt they do!”

“No, they don’t!”

“Huh?!” I turned to Sana. “Tell her, man!”

Sana was laughing at the dumb debate going on between the two of us as she chewed. She then turned to Kavya, and noticed her serious face.

“Why are you laughing, man?!”

“Girl, don’t laugh while chewing your food, please.”

“Y-Yweah yweah,” She said between her laughs with her mouth full of food. She then tilted her head down, covered her lips with her right fist, calmed herself, continued to chew food, and then gulped in. She then turned up at me again, looked into my serious eyes, and smiled again. “Like, how can you two even argue over such a dumb thing?”

“YOU THINK IT’S A DUMB THING?!” Both of us shouted at once.

“Don’t you know psychologically how important it is to watch good shows?”

“This guy is speaking some illogical psychology shit! You should be worried about this guy’s mental health right now!”

I then turned to Kavya. “What you see is what your perspective about the outside world becomes. So, if you see wholesome series, you’ll only see good in things, and if you see crime documentaries, you’ll think that there’s so many bad people around the world. So, it sure plays a part!”

“No! My mom can stay chill even after watching a thousand crime documentaries a day!”

“She’ll still say that be careful, you might get kidnapped, or stuff like that, if you notice! For some reason, genres too play a part. If you watch sci-fi or fantasy, you’d be open to science and creativity. If you watch mystery thrillers, you’d like to develop detective and clue-finding skills and stuff. If you like to see Indian TV soaps, you’d probably develop nothing except intellectual deficiencies!”

Kavya frowned and shouted back, “Shut up! All of what you just shouted off at me was pseudo-scientific unproven theories spread online by people who want to do nothing but scare you all and influence your choices, boy. Better look at the real research done by big universities or colleges or non-profit firms and then state the facts!”

“Oxford did it!”

“They never did it, bitch!” Kavya shouted back.

Both of us were frowning as we looked into each other’s eyes furiously.

Sana looked at both of us, shocked, as she gulped in her food. “Well, be quiet now, both of you. A-Ahahaha…” She laughed awkwardly.

I turned to my right at her, and then turned to my left. I saw that a bunch of girls were looking at the three of us as they laughed, standing at one edge of the classroom, beside the blackboard. I quietly turned rightward to Sana. “Are they laughing at us?”

“You see, it’s highly possible.”

I gulped in as I turned to my food on Sana’s desk. I took up a bite in my right hand, opened my mouth, and kept it in. I then concentrated on my food as I said, “Even you can discuss with us about the latest episodes of different anime then, Kavya.”

“Down’t wan to,” She said, chewing her food.

“Whoy?” Sana asked. She turned her head at her as she chewed her food.

Kavya gulped in. “I don’t like anime, girl. And I don’t wanna watch it only to get included in your discussions.” She then took another bite in.

Sana gulped in. “But they are really good. You might like one or two of them.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I spent as much time with Sana as possible. After knowing that there must be something going on in her personal life, this was the best I could do. Obviously, I did want to know and help her, but I didn’t want to ask her or remind her of that stuff, or even keep her in that awkward situation which that question of mine would bring with itself. I wanted her to enjoy being with me. I wanted to be someone who she could look upon to lighten her mood after a cold day. That… That was the guy I chose to be. That was what I wanted to be for her.”

***

Aaryan Khanna

“Aaryan, did you tell your parents about the results?”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“What did they say?”

I was in front of an old man with half of his head bald. He sat on the teachers’ desk at the center of the front of the class, right in front of the blackboard. The rest of my classmates were behind my back, the atmosphere filled with their chatter.

Ya see, the light on the right far corner of the room—on the right of me—was flickering a little continuously. The other shitty tube-lights too were turned on.

“T-They were not happy with the results, sir.”

The teacher in a thick woolen brown sweater upon his white shirt, black trousers, black socks, and brown formal slippers turned his head down and took off his spectacles. He then took out his hanky from his right pocket and rubbed it upon the lenses. “Obviously they won’t be happy with such results, Aaryan. Even I’m not happy.” He then moved the hanky in from where he brought it in, and wore his spectacles again. He then looked into my dejected guilty eyes. “I teach you Hindi, and even I was shocked about your result in math. You know, it’s not common for kids in our school to fail.”

“Y-Yes, sir,” I said, my head tilted down, and my arms crossed behind my back.

“So, start studying from now on, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When is the retest?”

I turned my eyes to him. “A week later.”

“So start preparing for it from today, okay? I’m sure you can pass it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t get in trouble.”

“Yes, sir.” I turned to my left and started to walk inside the alleys of the wooden desks.

After leaving a couple of desks, I was just some steps away from the back wall when I turned to my right and sat on the desk. The teacher stood up from his desk and announced, “Okay, students, where were we yesterday?”

“We just started the third chapter yesterday, sir,” One asshole shouted to him.

All of the chatter quickly faded away.

“Yeah, the third chapter.” He turned to his back at the board and started to scribble something with his chalk. “Yesterday, we studied how Rohan and his friends were discussing the prank they were going to play on the teacher, right? Open your books to page seven, and we shall read further.”

“Pal, what if… I fail the retest too?” I thought, my eyes completely neutral as they glared at the board. “What if… I can’t pass tenth?”

I remembered the image of my mother working in the kitchen.

“She’d fucking kill herself, pal!”

I then closed my eyes. “No, don’t think about all this shit! Now’s not the time for this!” But, as I closed my eyes, I thought, “I… won’t be able to get a good college after school… and…”

“I need a fucking good job to live a happy life and keep my family happy. This is not America, this is India. We gotta struggle a fuck lot to get paid rich. And… we gotta study shit ton to make ends meet, and work shit hard to live decently. That’s just how my country works, and that’s just how we gotta survive in this world. And that’s why my mom always tells me to fucking keep on studying, only so that I can eat peacefully later in my life.”

“I gotta pass this exam… No matter what.”

***

Kritvik Bhatt

Both Sana and I were chatting with each other as we walked on the silent empty street as usual on our way home. I had my head to my left at her, and she had her eyes on me. We both had a little smile on our faces as we talked and walked.

“And then, Vikram really did kick his butt after they won the fight! Like, literally kicked his butt!” She laughed. “Ahahaha!”

“Huh?! Really?” I asked. “Damn, man! Ahahaha…”

“You see, he’s like the strongest in this area, so he is kinda like the protagonist of that classic delinquent drama comedy, remember?”

“‘Pant Up’?” I asked.

“Yeah yeah.”

My eyes suddenly opened wide. “Now that you keep it that way…”

“Right? You got it?”

“Ahahahahaha!”

“Ahajahshsjajha!”

Both of us were laughing and chatting as we walked on the street surrounded by wide white and brown apartments on both the sides. The clouds still covered the sky on top of our heads. The apartments stood high, just beneath those clouds.

We both crossed the intersection as we talked, and then the figures of both of us stopped.

“Yeah, let’s talk later, man!” I said as I looked at her on my left and waved at her.

“Bye bye!” Sana waved back with a smile. She then turned her half-covered face to her left and started to walk away.

I stood at the intersection, looking at her back walking away on my left, and then I turned to the front and started to walk in. I turned my head downward. “Man, things must be fine now, maybe. She seems alright nowadays,” I thought.

“For some reason, she was always on my mind after that day. I mean, about a week or two have gone by, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was… on my mind… all the time. What… is this feeling… called?”