The Circular, Recess Part-Three

Class 10 B was notorious for mischief. My school had a tradition of circulating information; the now late Mr. Anthony was the circular man who comes in with a bunch of circulars to be distributed in all the classes. He first reads them and a copy of the same note is then distributed to all the students in the class. And we, the students had our own traditions; it was customary of us to make the best use of our origami skills to make that piece of paper into a paper-rocket and then launch them almost immediately as soon we were left alone to be on our own. Treating an important piece of paper like waste gave us a lot of happiness, I think somewhere in our high school brains sat those subtle egos (besides the gross ego) and thus made us feel good for subtly mocking the powerful, like some kind of civil disobedience of not giving it importance, in some psychological level.

We always launched our rockets into the Nursery school next to ours, the Oakley Nursery School; like it was our favourite exploration grounds. We use to send our unmanned space-crafts into the Oakley in search of no mineral deposits or some extra-terrestrials, but I guess there are better things on earth to explore and spy on. Like...there were two good looking brothers living within the premises of Oakley they happened to be the sons of the Headmistress. One was Philip and the other, well, I don’t remember too well. Our math teach Mrs. Shanti had this hobby of calling out their names in the middle of the classes while we were busy working out problems. She gives us problems to solve in the class, and while we logic our brains to find a solution Mrs. Shanti bends over the window sill and calls for either, in a typical feminine posture, one arm almost akimbo but just hanging around the hip witouth touching it and the other on the window sill. And every time Poornima used to do Mrs. Shanti we had a rolling laughter. Doing some one and guessing who it was used to be one of our favourite games.

One fine day one such circular came and following the norms of our regular drill religiously shot our paper planes into Oakley, except Poornima. Well what Poornima did with it is now the history. Our very smart Poori (as all of us called her) followed the drill until making the plane and kept it safely inside her History record. And here is a lesson to learn, that certain drills have a purpose in its way it is and one shouldn’t doubt or question its ways, one should just do it; and if you don’t do it till the end to perfection the consequences may not be that pretty.

So the paper rocket kept in the record literally book marked the page in which she kept it in, opening the same page every time she opened the record note. As fate might have it the following period was a free period and we were expected to sit outside in the corridors and read. These corridors were grilled (like a balcony)and over looked the ground. During such free time we normally sit in a circle, choose one of our fattest books and keep it open in our laps and pretend to read but in reality play or gossip or giggle. And so we were doing the same that day too, but when the cosmos is conspiring against you it would take just a small thing or even things which you would enjoy on normal basis (like a gentle breeze) to spell catastrophe.

So we sat in circle and Poori opended her record, and hush came a gust of wind and blew the paper rocket away through the grills to the ground. Until this all was actually well for Poornima, only if she had not done the next thing she did. In excitement Poornima stood up to see the rocket landing in Sister Rosalie’s foot. And Sister Rosalie saw Poornima’s head peeping out of the balcony from the corridor. Sister Rosalie, as coincidence would have it (well, if you believe in coincidences), was our history teacher. From a history record, to the history teacher, to history; just too much history happening, I see. And that was the end of Poornima for that day! Poornima doesn’t buy trouble she earns it hahaha.

Sister Rosalie, confounded Poornima with best word the English language can offer. It was a long session between her and the teacher. We were eager for Poori’s victorious return, she came back looking blown off by a mighty cyclone, and all of us raged out laughing. The laughter of a life time: ladies and gentlemen, that was Poornima for you, one fun loving girl she was, the one and only.