Presentation

Kritvik Bhatt

“That was the day of the second examination. Science was done with, and that day, we were supposed to be giving the exam of English, when…”

Both Sana and I were walking through the corridor of the school, with little bags behind our backs. They were pink and blue, and just big enough to hold a register or two. I had my hands in my pocket, and Sana had her mask on.

The corridor was filled with school students—all walking in the same direction. On our right was the wall of glass, and on our left were the open doors of classrooms.

“Why do they have to conduct a seminar in the middle of the examinations, man?!” I irritably said.

“Yeah!” She agreed, walking on my left. “Like, who does this?!”

“Yeah, man. No doubt, they are dumb.”

She turned to the front. “Yeah yeah. Anyway, did you revise for the exam?”

“Sure I did.”

“Like it wasn’t obvious,” She narrowed her eyes.

“Don’t worry, we can cheat,” I smiled as I turned to her. “Our roll numbers are close.”

“That’s the problem, K!” She said. “You see, you sit at the front desk, and I sit on the second-last desk!”

“Y-Yeah, I forgot,” I slipped out my tongue.

“If my roll number were a little bigger, we’d be sitting beside each other.”

“Yeah.”

She turned at me. Both of us turned left with the others and started to descend down the stairway with white-painted walls on both the sides and no windows. It was still lit up, for some reason.

“Anyway, how many marks do you really expect?”

Uhm… about sixty-five?”

“Percent?”

“No! Marks! Sixty-five out of eighty!”

“That’s sad,” She turned her head to the front.

“No doubt it is, but for you,” I smiled as I turned my head to the front.

“Yeah yeah.”

We all turned to the left, then, and started to walk on a corridor with open walls on our right. On our left were the classrooms of the pre-primary wing, with kids as small as our knees walking here and there among us. I looked at one kid about three to four steps away from us, in a red sweatshirt and blue denim-like pants. He turned his head here and there, his arms flung open on both the sides. He then turned to his right and started to walk inside one of the classrooms. We walked from behind him as I looked at his back walking inside the class filled with other kids wearing vibrant colors around bright pink classrooms.

“Stop stalking kids,” Sana said from my left.

I turned to her and said, “Kids are funny.”

“Yeah yeah,” She had her head to the front. “But still, they are not sexually appealing, at least not for me.”

“Huh?!” My eyes frowned.

She smiled as she turned at me. “Well, your eyes were horny.”

“No, they were not!”

“Yeah yeah, ignorance is bliss.”

I turned to the front and sighed out. “Huff.”

She chuckled.

***

We both walked inside the auditorium. On our left was the wall, on the front were the stairs leading downward, and the auditorium was filled with red seats spread all over the auditorium. The blinds on both the sides were off, which turned the place darker, with only some of the sunshine creeping in through the blinds. The students all were walking up and down and right and left, and the place was filled with their chatter. Some had seated themselves, some were calling others from behind, some were silently studying, and some were just looking here and there, alone.

“Let’s find Kavya first,” Sana said, her eyes rolling all around the place. Students from behind us were walking here and there in front of us, for some reason, as we were looking all around for her.

“Maybe she’s still not here yet.”

“Yeah.” We both then turned to each other. “Well, let’s save a seat for her, K.”

We turned to the front and started to walk in. The stairway besides the seating was narrow, only wide enough for two of us to stand together. We both had our heads to our right as we walked inside, along with some guys behind the two of us.

“Hey, here,” I said as I pulled her arm with my left hand and entered inside one of the rows. As we both were going through some of the guys already sitting at the edge, I turned my head to the front and looked at the stage. It had a white screen behind it. I then turned my head up, and looked at a projector hanging just on top of us pointing toward the stage. I then turned to the left edge of the auditorium, and noticed a number of female teachers standing in a group, all discussing something. “It’s serious, maybe,” I thought. We both then stopped and sat, our eyes fixed at the stage.

“Well, do you know what it’s gonna be about?”

“Not really, man. But it seems serious, no doubt.”

“Each seminar is like this, K,” She narrowed her eyes and turned to me.

I turned to her and smiled. “I-I didn’t know. My previous school didn’t have an auditorium, for some reason.”

She smiled. “Well, poverty gets the better of us.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yeah.”

“But you see,” she turned her head to the front, “I too feel that it’s something serious, because they don’t really hold such seminars in the middle of exams.”

“Yeah,” My eyes and tone turned serious as I turned to the stage. I could also see different haircuts—some with standing hair, some with curly hair, and some with long hair. Some students here and there in front of us were still standing and walking here and there, but most of them had settled. Behind us, for some reason, was still shifting and stuff going on as more and more students walked in.

The sounds of walking and talking filled the whole area as the two of us sat silently. Sana suddenly turned to her bag on her lap, opened its zip, took out a little book, kept it on top of her open horizontal bag, and started to flip pages from it. “Well, I should revise some things during this seminar.”

“After this is a break.” I turned to her.

“I should revise during the break too, you see,” She said, finishing her search and reading from a page.

“Okay, man.” I turned to the front again.

I passed my time by glaring into her book, and then turning to the stage, and then looking at the teachers on our left—all of whom were in dark colored sarees—and then turning to our right at the other half, with a stairway in between the two sections, and then turned backward, looking at a bunch of boys and some other guys behind them, and then looking at the back-most ones laughing and giggling, and then turning to the front again. I continued to randomly look at things here and there such as the windows and stuff, for some reason. I then turned my head downward, looked at my bag and legs.

“Good morning, kids,” A woman’s voice suddenly echoed through a speaker or some other stuff, for some reason, and I turned my head to the front. All of the heads now were on the left corner of the room. The chatter had suddenly stopped. The teacher in navy blue saree and glasses was on the podium, looking at us. “Today, you all might not know why we are here, right? So, any guesses?”

The white screen on the stage displayed Windows XP opening up, with the usual black screen and the logo on top of it.

The auditorium remained silent, staring at her. Some low whispers spread throughout the auditorium, and then a girl behind suddenly raised her hand and shouted, “Global warming?”

The teacher turned her head to her and smiled. “Good idea for the next one, but not today.”

Another boy from the far right corner raised his hand and shouted, “Road accidents?”

“What?” The teacher turned to her left at him and asked.

The boy’s voice was a little weak. He tried again. “Road accidents. Road accidents.”

The other ones around him then shouted louder in unison, “Road accidents!”

“Ah, no. Not road accidents,” The teacher announced on the podium. She then turned to the rest and said, “You might not be able to guess it, kids. So we’re gonna speak it out ourselves.”

On the projection of the screen, someone clicked on a presentation file on the top right corner of the blue wallpaper with Window’s logo on it. It opened up quickly, and with some graphics of a black silhouette stick figure of someone smoking, there was the title of… vaping.

***

Aaryan Khanna

“Yeah, man. I feel sorry for ya.”

Sooraj was sitting beside me. Both of us were beside a door in between the white colored corridor filled with a couple of employees walking here and there. On the metallic plate on the dark brown door said ‘Principal’s Office’. I stood beside the door, my head tilted down, like I was there for a fucking punishment. Sooraj stood in front of me, ya see, his hands inside his pockets and his head tilted down too.

A man in white and black shirt-pant pulled the door, walked out, and turned to his left, walking away from right in front of the two of us. Sooraj then turned his head up, moved his right hand out of his pocket, and patted my shoulder. “Everything will be fine, man. Legit fuck him up.”

I nodded, my head still tilted down, as I turned to my right and started to walk toward the door. I slowly pushed the door open and walked in.

Sooraj glared at me with his sorry eyes as he saw the door closing with a creak.

***

Kritvik Bhatt

“Now, first of all, let me ask you a question,” The sound of the teacher echoed. “Why do you think kids vape? Kids your age, I mean. Why do you think they vape?”

The auditorium was silently glaring at her for a couple of seconds. Then, one girl shouted, “To look cool?”

She nodded. “Yes. And?”

Everyone was silent again.

The teacher scanned the room from her front to left, accessing the faces of the children. “To look cool. Yeah. But, there’s one more reason. And that’s the biggest factor which drags the kids toward this addiction. Think about it.”

“Stress of studies?” A guy shouted.

She nodded. “Maybe yeah. Mental health can be a good reason. But that’s not what I’m looking for.”

She again turned to her left, and then at the front again.

“… Peer pressure.”

***

Aaryan Khanna

The principal sir, a man in fifties, sat in front of me. His hair was partly white, and some part of his forehead seemed bald. His mustache too was partly white. He sat on the other side of the table, on a fucking leather black big chair. On the table were some files on his right and left, a stand for pens and other shit, and on the middle was the metallic plate with the words in thick black ‘Mahesh Kumar’, with ‘Principal’ beneath it in a thinner font.

“So, Aaryan Khanna, why do you think we’ve called you here?”

I had my head tilted down as I sat on the seat in front of his table.

***

Kritvik Bhatt

“Sure, kids vape to look cool, but the thing that drags them into this addiction is peer pressure. It… spreads. Like COVID.” She smiles. “And it targets the youth of our country, as you all can see, kids.” She then turned to the left. “Now, all of you might think that it’s useless, but… let me tell you, kids. In a neighboring school, a case has spread in the city that a kid of class tenth was caught selling vapes inside the school.”

Everyone was silent… in awe.

“Unbelievable, right? All of this was going on right under the nose of the adults.” She turned to the front. “And they must have made friends, must have told them about vaping, and then, as friends, those innocent ones never disagreed, because they too think that it’s cool and it’s not so wrong.” She was smiling. She took a pause and turned to the front, and then continued, “Just like this, more and more kids are getting into vaping each passing day. And that’s why we are conducting this seminar. So that if you all meet someone like that, today or in the future, you know why you should not pay heed to their words.” She then turned to the projection behind her back. “So, first of all, let’s talk about what it’s made up of, and what substances it contains.”

***

Aaryan Khanna

“We’ll proceed with this case slowly, okay, Aaryan? So, as to begin, I’d like to meet your parents tomorrow at eight in the morning. Okay?”