Back to school again....

Every time I think of this incident, I cannot stop laughing out aloud. There was a boy called Raghu in my class who had this huge droopy brown eyes. He didnt care much for the class activities, always giving the impression that he was somewhere far away...We never bothered him and he wasnt interested in us.

What happened that year was Seema and me , we were seated next to the huge window and Raghu sat in the next row, one bench behind. One day, Seema happened to notice Raghu gazing lazily at us. She nudged me and asked me to see what Raghu was upto. Very furtively, from below my lashes I spied on him, she was right!! he was indeed staring at us, his huge eyes half shut but focussed.

Frankly I wasnt thinking of reacting, but Seema had other plans. As soon as the period got over she turned around and demanded ' Raghu, are you mad or what, staring at us like that' ~!!. Raghu woke up with a shudder, looked at Seema piercingly, like he was seeing some alien. I was looking at his eyes, surprised they could pierce, when he boomed in his boomeranging voice..'' Who would look at you monkeys, ( no affectionate monkey calling was this, this was the original monkey in all its glamour) I was looking out the window''. The whole class burst out laughing, Seema went purple, she was a dark kid and I went coffee, I am a brown one. Ever since, I am never too sure, even if someone was to stand right before me and look at me, I would simply think he was looking through me.

The incident also showed another side of Raghu to us. Next day he came loaded with chocolates, that too my favourite- Five stars. It was very nice of him to apologize through chocolates. We accepted graciously and extended our hand of friendship and gave him permission to stare outside our window for as long as he wished to. Frankly, I was silently hoping he would call me monkey the next week too, as long as the apologies followed in this form.