Free Like It Happened Yesterday by Ravinder Singh

exam and twice for the application that Dad had to submit to the school committee. But I wasn’t sure where my classroomwas, so I made my way straight to the principal’s room. I’m quite sure I was probably one of the rare students who thought of meeting the principal in the very first hour of their very first day at school!
    He was a Sikh. I had seen him multiple times in the Sambalpur gurdwara. I used to wish him Sat Sri Akal whenever I came across him in the gurdwara.
    As I walked to his office, I was confused whether I should wish him, ‘Sat Sri Akal, Uncle’ or ‘Good morning, Sir.’ But I needn’t have worried. Thank God, the principal was not in his office yet. But his peon was on time. So I approached him and asked if he would escort me to my classroom. In his khaki uniform, he was basking on a stool outside the principal’s office.
    ‘Bhaiya, class tak chodd dogey?’ I asked him politely.
    He looked like a buffalo grazing in the fields to me—the same lazy, careless actions and the same complacent mood. He was also chewing something, completing the picture of a buffalo in my mind. He gave me a blank look, and then his head swung back to its earlier position. He had ignored me. How could I tolerate someone ignoring me! I threatened to report him to the principal, whom my father knew.
    A few minutes later, I was walking down the centre of the school complex, with the Buffalo Man carrying my bag and water bottle. He left me at the entrance of my new classroom. He didn’t talk, and only made a hand gesture towards it. I guess even that was too much for me to expect from him.
    The class had already started and, seeing me, all the students turned towards the door. Finding her students distracted, the class teacher also looked at the door and spotted me. Suddenly I felt embarrassed.
    The class teacher, the only person who had been talking so far in the class, fell silent. The students, who had been listening to the teacher, started talking among themselves.
    ‘Yes?’ the teacher asked me from a distance. She looked at me over her spectacles, which rested almost on the tip of her nose.
    ‘Aaaa! … Aa … Ma’am, I am Ravinder,’ I managed to say hesitantly.
    She quickly glanced at the attendance register and said, ‘Oh yes, Ravinder!’
    She walked up to me. ‘So you are late on your very first day in this school!’
    I was ashamed of myself. ‘Ma’am, I live in Burla. I didn’t know the way to the school,’ I defended myself.
    She smiled and said warmly, ‘Come in. I will mark you “present” in the attendance register. And now that you know the way, don’t be late again. All right?’
    ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ I said and happily stepped inside the class—but I stopped right there! Right in front of me were my new classmates, who had been exchanging whispers and smiles among themselves ever since I had arrived. After I had stepped in, those whispers and smiles had become louder.
    ‘Haww! Look at him,’ I heard from one corner of theclass, and the whispers spread till they had reached the other corner. I felt mortified. Reaching late had been a mistake! I became nervous. I felt as if my legs had turned to jelly and I could not move. If I could just get a seat, I would sit down quickly and this embarrassment would end. I looked around for one, but, in my nervousness, I couldn’t find any. I simply stood at the entrance with my schoolbag on my shoulders, a water bottle in my hand and my legs shaking.
    Then I suddenly overheard the word: ‘Half-pant!’ That was followed by a round of giggles on my right.
    And that’s when I realized the blunder. I looked at the boys in the first row, then in the second and then at everyone in totality. All of them wore full navy-blue pants!
    There was only one person who was in half-pants—me.
    I looked to my right. The girls had their legs covered demurely in salwars. The teacher wore a sari. So I was the only one brandishing my naked legs in the half-pants that