Free Like It Happened Yesterday by Ravinder Singh Page A

barely reached down my thighs!
    Not only was I the only boy who had offered a detailed view of his legs in the full public gaze of the class, but I guessed I was also the only one in the entire school to do so—because, in that moment of nervousness, I realized that even the Buffalo Man was wearing full pants!
    Oh God! What do I do now?
I thought to myself. A sense of heavy shame bore down my back.
    In my mind, even the half-pants I was wearing had fallen off. All of a sudden, I felt vulnerable to these people whom I had never known.
    I wished to undo that moment. I wished to run back and out of the school. I wished to board the first bus back to Burla. I wished to hide myself in my bed at home.
    But if wishes were horses …
    In my previous school, it was all right to wear half-pants. I wasn’t aware that an upgrade in schools had to come along with an upgrade of my pants as well. I had become the butt of many a joke for the entire class on Day One itself.
    ‘There! Go there and sit next to Sushil,’ the teacher pointed towards a vacant seat in the last row, the rest of which was occupied by girls.
    It was my ill fate that, out of all the seats in the class, I was asked to go sit in the one for which I had to walk down the aisle dominated by girls. How badly did I want a seat on the other side of the classroom, where most of the boys were seated! I looked for one but, again, found none of them empty.
    ‘What happened?’ the class teacher asked.
    ‘No, Ma’am, nothing,’ I replied and looked at the seat that she had pointed me to.
    I filled my lungs with a deep breath, and took my first steps to embrace whatever was left of my public humiliation. I walked through the territory of giggling female faces—curious eyes scanning my hairy thighs. I avoided any sort of eye contact. I wanted to look more confident, as if I didn’t know what they were talking about. But my body language was not in sync with my mind and, all that while, my handsreached down to pull my half-pants down to my knees, hiding as much of myself as possible. I walked like a lame duck in a pond of female crocodiles. As I progressed along my path, I felt all heads turn towards me.
    I heaved a sigh of relief when I finally reached the desk at which I was supposed to sit.
    Sushil picked up his notebook from my side of the table. I gave him a smile. He continued to smile. I pulled out my handkerchief from my pocket and wiped the sweat from my forehead.
    The class continued to stare at me till the class teacher announced, ‘All right, class, so where were we?’
    Ma’am resumed the lesson. The heads turned back to their respective books, and only intermittently did they get back to me. I sat with my schoolbag on my lap, so that it would cover my thighs. I didn’t want the period to end. I didn’t want the boys and girls to discuss me in the open and aloud when the teacher was gone.
    But then, that period ended. The teacher left. And I became the talk of the school.
    I didn’t go to school for the next two days.
    That was the time that the tailor in Burla had taken to sew my new navy-blue full pants.



10

The Power of Chapter 10
    More than half of the curriculum of Class IX had been covered. Winter had set in nicely. The red-coloured school sweaters were out of the trunks and on us, brightening the otherwise bland navy-blue-and-white colour combination of the school uniform. The ones that had been pulled out of the trunk very recently, and not yet put out in the sun, smelled of naphthalene balls.
    To get out of bed early in the morning had become challenging. And this challenge had led to a significant drop in the school’s attendance. Every day there were a few students who would skip class—if not for the entire day, then definitely the first period. This kind of absence from the class required the student to submit a leave or a late-coming application. Interestingly, none of the leaveapplications would mention the real reason, i.e., the student