Character 4 An 8th Std Kid: Vineet

Character 4

An 8^th Std Kid: Vineet

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“Vineet?”

“Present teacher.”

“Sanjay?”

(The same voice says) “Present teacher.”

“Get out Vineet. Get out I say. Sanjay’s mom had called up in the morning and told me that Sanjay would not be able to come to school today. I just wanted to catch you red-handed. Keep your lesson diary here and get out of the class. Now!”

The above thing happens with me almost every day. Still I am not going to change. Vineet has never changed. Vineet will never change. By the way, I am Vineet.

My above introduction must have given you the impression that I am the naughtiest boy in the class, the most-wanted (among girls) kind of a guy! Isn’t it?  You know what, you are right if you thought so. By the way, I study in one the top-most co-ed schools in Mumbai.

By the way, apart from teachers, there are lot many things that bug me. The number of books that we have to carry to school every day is too much for an 8^th grade kid like me. I mean, for six lectures, we have to carry around fifteen books – class work, home work, this work, that work …crap! And hey, how can I forget the stupid lesson diaries. I wonder who on earth thought of having lesson diaries in school. These yellow colored crappy small books are nothing but an extra pain in our lives! The fact that we are supposed to fill it religiously is totally uncalled for. Just to give you an example of what crap I have to fill:

7.30 to 8.30 – English – we were taught “Shakespeare’s Hamlet.”

9.00 to 10.00 – History – The homework was checked and teacher taught us “Tipu Sultan’s reign.”

10.00 to 11.00 – Geography – a surprise test was taken and then we were taught “the seas in India.”

11.15 to 12.15 – Biology – a surprise test was taken and then we were taught “the animal kingdom”

From the above timetable, I feel that we are doing crap work of filling diaries which will serve no purpose. I mean, who on earth is concerned as to which test was taken by whom and when and blah blah blah!

There are a few things that I really love and many things that I really hate. I will tell you about what I hate after I tell you what motivates me to come to school.

No prize for guessing what makes me come to school everyday. Girls! Yes, there is this girl named Rhea. OMG! She is so damn sweet and hot! I am sure that her boyfriend is going to suffer from diabetes. I mean, she is that sweet! The way she ties her hair makes her so sweet! When she smiles, she gets dimples on her cheeks just like Preity Zinta! Ohhhhhhhh… I can’t stop drooling over her! Actually, she joined our class just a year ago. She is from USA. Her father got transferred here and so she had to leave her schooling there and get enrolled in my school. And there has not been even one single day when I have not tried to impress her. In fact, she is the primary reason why my grades have improved a lot as compared to last year’s. I guess girls such as Rhea like intelligent and smart boys and that is the reason why I have suddenly become very serious about my studies. I have, somehow, come to know that she likes guys with nice sense of humour. Actually, there is this fat girl called Rashmi who is her best friend. I have befriended Rashmi to know about the likes and dislikes of Rhea! Frankly speaking, Rashmi likes me very much. I know that. Rashmi keeps telling me about what she eats in the morning, afternoon, evening and night. She once told me that I look like Aamir Khan and that she loves Aamir Khan a lot! This clearly shows that she is totally onto me! But I like Rhea. So I don’t give much importance to Rashmi when Rhea is around. 

Whenever any teacher asks anyone to come in front of the class and read a chapter, I am the first one to raise my hand. There are 2 reasons why I do that – firstly, I have heard that girls like boys who take initiative. Secondly, I get to see Rhea more clearly as she sits just on the second bench. OMG! Her sight makes me forget lines from the text book that I read from. The rest of the times, I keep praying to God to let Rhea raise her hand and then make her come in front of the class to read out a chapter so that I keep looking at the beauty! I am sure that God must have used up all His ‘Summer holidays + Diwali Holidays + Christmas Holidays’ to make a beautiful creation called ‘Rhea’!

By the way, in the whole class, there is this guy called Nikhil whom I hate like anything. I always find him very irritating. He does a lot of showoff of money. Not only this, since he is very fluent in English, whenever he is around Rhea, he keeps blabbering in English as if speaking in Hindi is for idiots! Last week he did such a thing that he was going to get the worst out of me. I had written a love letter to Rhea and I was asking a few friends to just pass it on to Rhea. I sit on the 6^th bench of the 3^rd row and Rhea sits on the 2^nd bench of the 4^th row. I gave the love letter to Nilesh and asked him to give to Prakash and then to Rajeev and then to Rashmi and finally to Rhea. But Nikhil snatched the love letter from Rajeev’s hand and told the teacher that Rajeev was trying to pass a joke to Rashmi. Rajeev got tense and revealed the truth. I was in a soup then! Mathews miss, who is always angry at me, called me in front of the whole class and made me read out the love letter that I had written for Rhea. For the first time in life, I was embarrassed; more so because Rhea was getting embarrassed. I cried for the first time in my academic life. Mathews miss shouted at me and I started reading the love letter:

Dear Rhea,

It has been a year that you have been in our class. Believe me, you are the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen in my life. You are very very very sweet. I am sure that your pillow must surely be heavily infested by ants because of your sweetness. You are like a bundle of jaggery which attracts one and all. When you blush at my silly attempts to make you happy, I can’t tell you how happy I become. I know you must be wondering, sometimes, as to why I keep trying to impress you. The answer is simple. I like you very much. The way you brush your hair aside and keep it properly on your left ear. OMG! I don’t have words to tell you how Ghayal I become. I feel like staring at you till the time someone comes and slaps me. I don’t have any doubts that your boyfriend will always be a diabetic patient because you are so so so so sweet. I want to be that diabetic patient. Don’t worry, I will always carry a bottle of insulin with me! I assure you that I will keep you happy all your life with all the small small things that I can do for you. I will sing and dance and do whatever makes you smile. Agar tuje chaiye to aasmaan se taare tod ke laake dunga tuje….lekin tu uska karegi kya? Hahahaha… I know you must be smiling now...give me a chance to be your diabetic BF and I will make sure that I will keep you happy till the time you live or I live…frankly speaking, I doubt whether I will be able to live without you, Rhea… please let me know whether you like me.

Yours truly,

Diabetic patient- Vineet!

After I finished reading the love letter, I looked at Rhea. I was stunned to see her smile at me. I smiled back at her. You should have seen Nikhil’s face at that moment. It was like the biggest defeat for him! You wouldn’t be surprised to know that I was told to stand outside the principal’s office the whole day for beating Nikhil black and blue. I have never beaten anyone that bad! Rhea aur mere beech mein jo aayega, wo mitti mein mil jaayega! Don’t mess with Vineet! Vineet yaaro ka yaar hai aur dushmano ke liye Yumraaj! No prize for guessing that I am a Sallu fan!

In the recess, while playing football in the class, I try to bully others to prove that I am a brave boy. After all, I ama Karate champ! Every time I make an attempt to impress Rhea, I try to judge whether that trick worked on her or not. Most of the times, YES, my tricks work! She smiles and looks at me from the corner of her left eye. And then she brushes her hair over her left ear.OMG! I can’t stop being happy. I am sure that she knows that I like her very much. After all, even girls have hearts… don’t they? Till now, all the attempts to impress her are enough for her to know that I do like her very much. Is God listening to me?

The secondary reason why I go to school is that I get to play pranks. Pranks like – making noises of cat and dog while the lecture is going on, untying the laces of Vikram’s shoes – the fatty and fattu, browsing through those type of magazines, playing X and O, playing Flame to find out the match with the girls in our class, sleeping in the class and giving excuses such as “sorry teacher, not feeling well”, improving my sketching skills by trying to sketch funny faces of our teachers, repeating teachers’ words, eating others’ tiffins while the lecture is going on, playing football with a chippi instead of a football, playing cricket in the classroom to impress my dear Rhea, misusing my powers as a monitor of the class, etc.

By the way, as you now know that I am a karate champion, let me share with you one more incident of my life because of which my friends call me the Kung-Fu master! Till last year, I had just heard stories of SUCH STUFF. I have a habit of studying late in the night. I have my dinner at 8.00 PM and then I go to sleep till 10.00 PM. And then from 10.00 PM to 1.30 AM, I study. Last month, I happened to switch on the TV at 1.00 AM. By mistake or fortunately (I don’t know) I happened to switch on the Cable Movie channel. And whaooo…! I just couldn’t believe what I saw.  From 6^th to 7^th grade I had just heard about it. And now I was seeing it on TV! That day I came to know the actual meanings of many bad words that we used to heap on each other. Believe me, from that day on, I studied really hard at night!

Last month, on one fateful night, I was silently watching TV at 12.20 AM. Actually, that evening one of my friends had told me that the Cablewallah was going to put the best stuff he had ever put on Cable Movie channel at 1.00 AM! The clock struck 12.30 AM. I switched on the Cable Movie Channel. Some stupid Hindi movie was just about to end. And I knew that the Cablewallah would put on the movie that we friends (in our respective homes) were waiting for. I was direly waiting for something very interesting and then suddenly my mumma woke up to drink a glass of water. Boy oh boy! I was so stunned that I didn’t realize how to change the channel. In such a hurry, I pressed a few keys like “color” / ”contrast” / ”brightness” which did not help in changing the channel. And then the very next moment my mumma was standing behind me. Fortunately I had kept the Volume at Zero. I stood entirely in front of the TV. Till today I would like to believe that mumma wasn’t able to comprehend what was being played on the TV. I should tell you one thing that my mumma had succeeded in comprehending the ‘real picture’. But she pretended to have not understood what was going on and then asked me what was going on. I said “Nothing mumma, I was just watching a Kung-Fu movie”!

She put on a very sleepy face and then went to the bedroom. That was the most embarrassing moment of my life. Then I thought - now that I have been caught red-handed, let me watch for some more time. Ab izzat gayi hi hai to aur thoda besharam hoke dekh leta hun…! I was glued to TV for fifteen more minutes and then the scene (for which I had taken such a big risk) came. Boy oh boy! It was worth all the embarrassment!

Next day I narrated the incident to my friends. From that day on, I was nicknamed - “the kung-fu master”!

I sometimes wish I had a Genie who would listen to my wishes. The first wish would be to change the education system. I mean, sometimes I wonder how is everything that we learn so important in life.

I am good in studies. Good in Karate. Ok in elocution. Ok in drawing. But still, the thing that really bothers me till now is COMPARISONS. I wonder when comparisons will stop. I mean, why is it that one has to be compared to peers, or seniors, or juniors? As kids, we are compared to the toppers in the class. We are always told to emulate someone...when I was in 3^rd grade, I was told by my mom to be like Arun Yadav. Why? Just because that parrot would cram all the books and score 96 %. I am ready to bet my bicycle on the fact that he is not clear with his concepts. But still, because he is the topper, I am told to be like him. This is not all. In the field of sports, I am told to be like Vijay who is good in cricket and football. I am a karate champ. I have won 3 state level karate championships. But my parents don’t take that achievement of mine seriously. They say “what is so difficult in fighting with someone? Karate is just kicks and punches. Anybody can do that. Try to be like Vijay and then tell us that you are ‘something”.

If you thought that this is all, then wait. There is more to it. In the field of arts – painting, drawing, singing and elocution, I am given example of Sanjana. I mean, I am tired of hearing such comparisons. Why can’t I be just ME? Why can’t I be just Vineet? Someone please tell my parents! I hate comparisons. If they don’t stop comparing me with potatoes, apples and oranges, I will crumble under pressure and do something that my parents will repent forever! One day I was so frustrated with this “Comparison-syndrome” that I had a talk with one of our teachers and he said that ‘Even adulthood isn’t exempted from this "Comparison-syndrome". When you get selected in a company, you will be compared even to the remotest friend who works in a better firm. BETTER in this case would mean - more money and higher ranking of the company in the Business World or some magazine... people don’t take the type of work or the environment or the responsibility into consideration! Your salary and ranking of the company is what matters to the people who suffer from by the "Comparison-syndrome".’

I sometimes wonder when people will stop comparing! Why don’t parents realize that every kid in this world is different? I feel that people should follow the "Appreciate the potential. Don’t force anyone to emulate someone else" policy.

One should be motivated. Not be compared.

One should be shown a rosy picture to pep up and achieve that thing. Not be compared.

One should be told about the positive effects of doing a particular thing. Not be compared.

All in all, stop fucking comparing. Tell the child to score 100/100 and not try to be some "Arun" who scores 95!

I know that now you must be feeling that I am too mature for my age. It’s just that I am a big fan of Robin Sharma’s.