The most feared moment..

4. The most feared moment...

10th class...

there was a row to the right of the class directly facing the window beside the board... It was ours...

Ajinkya and Rahul in the first..
Ramu and Tarun in the second...
Nili and ?? in the third.. Uday and Vijju were seated behind them while uppi and I shared the last bench... It was the best seating arrangement possible... these pairs had been formed over the previous couple of years (the first bench was new to school...)... not that we didn't like the others but we had that extra bit of it for our partner...

I should admit that I was a bit jealous of Uday... he had pulled Vijay towards him... he had pulled the Vijay with whom I spent every moment of school till then... (vijju and me had been classmates since LKG...).. uday and vijju were so much attached to each other that they would not play any sport if they were in opposite teams... well the distance between our places was less than a feet but it mattered...

Even Uday meant a lot to me... we had done wonders in the 3yrs of our friendship (though we were in the same class for 4yrs..) in fact I and Vijju moved to SM because Uday was in SM, and for that I had to give up SV... I had been in SV for 11yrs.. some special liking for it..

we all had big plans for the new year... GEOMAP, Inter-House, Class Football, other team events...

we all had this habit of teasing some guy or the other... all of us would unite to tease one... Nili was the most frequent sufferer... he never replied back... one day it became a bit too much... everyone could see the change in his face, most of us stopped.. but uday went on, vijju had become a bit concerned over the whole issue... he asked to uday to stop at once... in fact it was quite loud... but uday had got carried away... this resulted in a heated argument... the only thing others could do was watch, hoping things will settle, they were the closest of friends.. no one ever expected this...

around the same time, we heard the school bell... there was silence, shock... Vijju left off without a word... then Uday came up to me and shouted, "it is over ra... no GEOMAP this year" and then he left... I couldn't utter a word... where did it start and where did it go... everyday Vijju, purri, uppi and I went home together, but that day Vijju went alone... Uppi and I went together that day... both knew what was running in our minds but we couldn't talk to each other... near Uppi's house, on the road Uppi finally came up with a few words, "everything will be alright, I am sure you will get a call from both of them, by the time you go home"... Tears were ready to roll down... I somehow managed to hide them from Uppi...

After I reached home, I went straight to the bathroom... sat down weeping... many things seemed to run in front of me... the COKE tin we shared, our runs on the roads of Osmania University, the wonderful SHADNAGAR trip, our celebrations after we won GEOMAP the previous year, the LAYS packet uday used to buy every time we went out... I thought it was all over... after about 15 min my mother asked me "what are you doing for so long?? theres not even a sound..."

After I went out, I heard the phone ringing... I prayed to every GOD that it should be Uday and it was... he was sorry for what had happened.. he had talked to Vijju and everything was fine... I was relieved!!!

and then everything went back to normal... in fact we had a small laugh over all this the next day... but it was the most feared moment of my life... many things happened after that, but this was the worst...

Well, Uday was right... fights strengthen friendship... and this story should be a memory not something you would feel bad about every time you thought of it...

today I can bet you wouldn't see a better trio than ours... you wouldn't find any in future...