A sweet ragging of 3rd standard

Yesterday i was creating a resume, yeh obviously looking for new opportunities. As usual i wrote “pursuing a challenging position that requires excellent technical, problem solving and other skills wherein my expertise can be effectively utilized to contribute towards the growth and profitability of an organization…etc”. And I wrote all the blah blah blah. At last I reached the last page where I’ve to fill up the personal details. There was this column “MARITAL STATUS”. Holy Christ!!!

Is this strictly required, because if i have to really fill this then I have to be truthful to myself.

Ask me why?

My answer is, “because i am married, i had to marry a girl in my 3rd standard in a particular situation ”. I know now you are gonna keep your finger across your nose and rise your eyebrows at me whispering this, ‘child marriage’. Oh man, the situation was like that. I had to do that, actually they made me do it.

Now listen, its story time. Set your ears and eyes.

Lets fly few years back…………
Due to some family problems at my dad’s house we moved to mom’s village. That’s the place where i have seen all the beauty of a village. A typical poetic Kerala village of very normal people. All kind of people lived there. The good, the bad and the ugly. 10 years i lived there. There i met the people of my life and i grew up knowing all the sweetness and bitterness of life.

Now back to the story. After vacation my parents were planning about my schooling at new place, 3rd standard. I still remember the first day i went to the school holding my grandparents hands. I was walking in the central and asking them so many questions. And they replied truth and sometime made me ok with lies which you can say only to kids. I was totally scared about the new school and its environment. To say frankly, i was a shy kind of kid in childhood. No girlfriends, not talkative and scared about all new. After a 15 minutes walk we reached the school. I started shivering in my trousers and well pressed shirt. The gate was tired like an old grandpa and it cried whenever a breeze come. The gate takes us to a playground, a normal cricket pitch which can satisfy a 3rd standard guy’s 6 or 4. We crossed the ground and stepped into a small but beautiful garden. There were no kids around as it was already 10’o clock. It was a small school which teaches till 4th standard. More i noticed was the gooseberry trees around the school. Also i noticed a small well in the centre of the garden. I started dreaming of eating the gooseberries and drinking water from that small well. Wow..! How many trees are there? I started counting, but before i could complete we reached an office. And I started observing the office, i guessed that it must be headmaster’s. There was a small table and 2 chairs on our end 1 on the other side of the table. And there were charts pasted on the wall and a shelf full of books. I really wanted to check them. But i forgot it when I saw the man sitting on the chair next to the table. It was Sukumaran master, the greatest teacher I’ve ever had in my school life. He was the one who helped to wipe out my shyness, who inspired me to read books and face the world. Yeh so he was sitting there. I looked at him with maximum curiosity in my eyes. The most attraction was his shining bald head. He wore a white full sleeve cotton shirt and dhotis. He smiled at me and I smiled at him. My mom and siblings studied there only, so he knew our family well. Then my grandparents discussed with him and I joined in that school. And I was agreed to come to the school from the very next day onwards.

And there started all these. Everything was new to me. The way to school, friends, teachers, the playground, my place on the bench..! Everything was cent percent new. Again the ‘shy boy’ in me started working. I tried to not talk much with other kids and always acted like i am reading something. But i couldn’t control my eyes from the gooseberry trees. I can go, throw a stone and get the fruits. But i was afraid to go in front of these new people. There was these 2 guys, Arun and Vishnu who showed so much of kindness on me always. They gave me gooseberries and allowed me to play with them. One week went like that. The next week I experienced what is ragging. Here i have to introduce few other people who were a gang and later i become one of them. They are Pradeep, Ramya, Sumi..others name i don’t remember. And there was this girl also. I am not gonna tell her name but i can describe her. A white girl with golden spring hair and light blue eyes. Oh i forgot, she wore specs. She was also like me, never spoke much or do company with others. We never communicated but personally i considered her as my friend. But this day everything gotta change. I was simply sitting on my bench and watching the gooseberries after lunch. And I saw this gang approaching me with terror in their eyes. My sixth sense told me that something is gonna happen and I am gonna be used in that. Before i could think of escaping they came near and said “hey kiddo, what are you watching at? Oh the gooseberries? You love them huh? Ok, will give you few. Now come with us and lets have some fun”. I started shivering when they were taking me to the last bench. And she was sitting there, the golden curly hair girl with specs. Her blue eyes clearly told me that she is also totally scared and trapped like me. They asked me to sit near to her. Now i got an outline of what’s gonna happen. I tried to escape but what a lean and shy boy can do. I had to sit there. They collected all the necklaces from the class and asked us to change each other. It was a marriage!!! They are asking me to marry her. I started to cry “I cant marry her, my mom will kill me”. She was also crying. When master came they all ran out. I guess they really enjoyed our show, because later many times they did the same ragging. And I had to marry her a lot of time. But slowly some romance grown in me I doubt, i started enjoying this programme and stopped crying. I started coming happily and sat near to her with smiley. I started going to the marriage functions and learned how the groom is performing. But bad luck to say, the gang stopped these all of a sudden. And i become a widower..;)

NB: 4 years back. I visited the village and I was sitting with my friends in the bus stop. A bus came and stopped nearby. Just looked into the bus and my eyes stucked at something. I saw two light blue eyes inside the specs looking at me. Her golden spring hair has grown with her. We didn’t smile or talk. But those eyes were on me till the bus move.