The story of an obese high school student who falls victim to romantic circumstances.

 

Chapter 1: The Furnitures

The cost of electricity used by Amayti school reached a new high, keeping up with the increase in blazing heat of march. School had kicked start after a long tedious chain of examinations. Class rooms were now once again filled with both sweat and children.

2012 April

I was at the time a student of class 11th just after I had given my class tenth boards with a plastered foot and 30 kilos of weight over the weight I should’ve had.

Yes I was an obese child, and nothing could change that. I had stepped into my class room a month after every other student had and it was only a blessing that my birthday had already left the calendar on 16th of april , just a week ago.

Birthdays had a habit of turning ugly in my school, I will get back to it as soon as I discover myself on track. Okay back to my first day in class 11th .

All my class 10th mates had disappeared into the partition of sections of science and commerce, However in my section of commerce I had found my childhood friend. Sri was his name. A boy with whom I had shared my worse fight in class 9th also accompanied me to the section. Piyush.

I and Piyush the old rivals with the tides of time had become fine friends. Through me Sri and Piyush got acquainted and we became what we called ourselves ‘Supernatural’ cast and crew.

*Supernatural was a popular T.V show and we three were crazy fans of it.

I being Sam, Sri was Dean and Piyush was Cass , the human-angel (in simple words, we were geeks). People knew us differently, we were what they called the ‘The Furnitures’ always fixed on the last benches of the last row in the corner of the room.

It wasn’t that we were assigned those seats it was just that the window that accompanied our seats was nowhere to be found in the class room except at the corner, it , away from all the chatter and chaos of the class.

f we were lucky it threw us cold winds that fought hard battles against our sweaty foreheads. Also Piyush being a gigantic 6 ft 2 guy could spread his legs to anywhere he wanted to in this part of the class.

Our school life was going pretty smooth until one day we learned of the dark reality that wandered in corridors of class 11th (synonymous to us failing and receiving checked and crossed answer sheets with red ink all over it).

All students sat with either hands against foreheads or tears against eyes , while some simply circled around the maths teacher expecting grace marks to sail their ship however the mission seemed impossible. I simply sat writing one of my many poems and staring at my distressed friends. They had pure shine of disappointments on their faces just like many others but me.

“Screwed dude . I’m so dead.” Sri said while Piyush rose his voice

“7 on 30 is still better than 5 so shut up ! ” .

“Relax guys it’s just a test, you guys will ace the next one.” I said trying my best to sound comforting but Sri shot right at me.

“You got a damn 3” he said and shook his head in heavy disgust.

“You’re dumb” Piyush added .

” Hey you guys failed as well, all of us did . We’re on the same boat so shut up” I immediately said.

The truth about me was that I sucked bad at maths, and nothing could change that. I am one of those people that Aryabhatta must’ve feared of in his time. I was all for writing poems and stories but maths was the candy I’d have my braces on for.

“Shivam how much did you get?” Asked a girl oeven when she was aware of how much I hated maths. “3 I got 3″ I said agitated at her friendly and polite question.

” It’s okay.. I got 9. Relax ! ”

She smiled and walked away to her seat. This girl was Tulika and I had taken plenty of her advice the previous year regarding my former crush who was infamously known by my classmates as ’54’ ,

More on her later. Well for I was a fat kid it was a big deal that she talked to me.

“How am I gonna tell these marks to my parents?” Piyush said troubled.

“They don’t have to know !”

I grinned while Mr. Rajiv the maths teacher got up to leave but left a big thunder before us.

“Get the paper signed by your parents by tomorrow, y’all !” He grinned as a reply.

“Now they do” Sri answered my answer to Piyush’s question.

That day I received the first bundle of howls from my mom as she signed the paper.

Only the next day I took notice of my lack of common sense as I saw that other kids had signed the papers by themselves , every kid, except the ‘supernatural’ cast and crew.

” Dude my phone is gone now, dad won’t give it until I ace the next one” Sri cried as Piyush added “I’m doomed as well, or grounded would be the right word”.

” What did your mom say?” Sri asked me as I scribbled continuously in my register.

“I’ll tell you as soon as I finish this poem.” I said still staring at the half filled sheet.

Soon we saw a boy being tossed up and down by 6 of our class mates and after being up 4 time and down 3 times he was dropped in the dustbin.

It was his birthday and he was given the same treatment every birthday boy got in school on his special day. The funny part was that he stood up on his feet still smiling and holding his hips.

Chapter2: A half beating heart

Ria had joined my section soon before I had put my first foot inside the class . She was the new kid who was seen socialising  with every other student. My first thought of her was that she was a friendly person, other thoughts simply followed after a short while.

The day that I felt really stupid on seeing other kids smarting up by forging their parent’s signature on the maths answer sheet .

This was the day I had felt the existence of Ria for the first time in my life.

“Stand up Y’all ” said Mr. Rajiv as he entered the class expecting us to greet him good morning.

And then we’all greeted the teacher a monotonous  ‘Good Morning’ and sat back on our seats. He then rather starting with the regular course of torture announced his order for the maths answer sheets to be shown , he wanted to see the signatures.

He started checking from the last row to the first row. And yes embarrassment showed full colours on our faces.

“Man I got half an our lecture yesterday because of this in my tuition.. The tuition teacher called my dad.”

“Who passed this test anyway?”

“The new girl, Ria. She comes in my tuition, damn bright she must be” Sri answered my question.

“Who’s she.” Piyush demanded with eager curiosity.

“The one in the second row.” Sri said , and I had seen her for the first time. She was a pretty girl with a sweet smile.

I quickly drew my attention away from her because I didn’t want to freak her out. Who likes a staring fat kid anyway ?

I had just fallen out of the web of liking ’54’ , I didn’t want to get back to that pain and embarrassment. So that’s the first time I saw her and consoled my half beating heart immediately.

As April proceeded and May followed I saw her become friends with Yashika (who herself was a very friendly person) Viren (a comic guy) , Saurabh ( who used to be a close friend of mine in class 6th 7 and 8th) and their whole group.

People had no name for their group, because cool groups just didn’t need any names.

In the next few tests we had realised that failing was unavoidable and passing impossible because I had passed 3 out of 5 subjects, Piyush had passed 4 and Sri was stuck with 3 as well, but we had learnt to handle our failure as well as we dealt with our victory. Unfortunately it wasn’t really a thing of pride but just sheer shame.

At our time of pain, Ria was in her time of joy with passing almost every subject. I didn’t know anything about her more than the fact that she was an intelligent and beautiful girl.

The number of tests she passed in the first cycle of tests are till date estimated to be beyond a human’s endurance level .

As the first cycle of tests ended striking the last day of school followed by one and a half month of summer vacations, I and Sri started making plans for watching forthcoming movies.

Unfortunately Piyush lived far away from us so couldn’t be included in our plans however the plans looked really bright because these were the last vacations that we were left with before , the next year . That would be the ‘Judgement Year’ and would decide our future.

“Sayonara !” I said to my mates and took off to my assigned bus .. Running through the cheering voices ,Past the pockets being ripped apart, amid the splashes of celebrating noises I walked leaving behind my half beating heart.

Chapter 3 : The red cheeked boy

May 20th – July 1

The summer vacations had just begun and I still didn’t know anything about Ria nor did I like her yet or maybe I just wasn’t aware of it.

Being an obese and introvert kid, I had a lazy idea of summer vacation that included movies , food, poems and maybe a trip to some where abroad only if my parents cared to offer because I was just too lazy to ask for one.

People often mistook me for a fulfilled person who didn’t have any desire to buy new clothes every month. Who didn’t have a taste to travel or go to malls if not for movies. Who never ate from lunch boxes of other people or a person who didn’t want to buy waterguns for ‘Holi’ (an indian festival) or crackers for ‘Diwali'( what are you, An american. Diwali is also an indian festival dummy). But in reality I was just too lazy and had that simple reason for everything.

I didn’t like to spend on new clothes because I was a fat kid and no cloth could make me look any better. I didn’t like to travel or go to malls because I was introvert, exposure to more people was nothing but a follow up of awkward silence for me while someone wanted to have a conversation.

I didn’t eat from other people’s lunch boxes because I had a sensitive stomach , the last time I had eaten from someone else’s lunch I finished up drilling vomits right through the toilet seat for the coming 8 hours.

As for ‘Holi’ and ‘Diwali’ celebrations, I always have plans to eat a great deal of sweets and watch a movie at home, so what good could crackers or a water gun do.

Getting back to the vacations, I spent most of the days watching movies with Sri as he came over to my house for some days and I at times the same at his place.

We both were up for movies and food, but here is the most irritating thing, we both ate the same, he would eat even more than me but I was the one carrying extra 30 kilos while he was the one with outshone bones and a skinny exterior.

Soham my best friend from class 10th had been invited by me to my house for a night-out( slumber party) in company with Sri. Our plan was to watch movies for the whole night , play on my new console and then the next morning end the day with a hearty breakfast.

That night Soham had told me about his chat with the girl he liked and how it had ended awfully, with him being open about his feelings and her closing the doors on him.

He was depressed that day and Sri tried his best not to get in a fight with him like he had gotten many times before. The night proceeded really well, but it’s funny how depression takes a toll on your mind , it makes your brain do stuff that you wouldn’t do otherwise.

Just like that Soham slept instead of being up and watching movies with us. His mind was tired with all the thinking it had done based on his sorrow.

We let him sleep given his situation , or we would have been banging drums over his head. The next morning was really painful for him yet unfortunately seemed amusing to me and Sri.

We three sat on my dining table ready for breakfast while my mom served for us that day.

So this is how it happened, my mom was taking out a few glass plates for us from the drawer a little above her head .

She couldn’t see the glass cups kept above the plates so as she pulled down the plates the two cups came down crashing on the floor and broke into smallest of pieces that flew all around.

The crashing noise nearly shook us off the chairs . I went to my mom to see if she was fine.

“Wow, is aunty okay..” Soham said still sitting staring at Sri who came to me to help me clean up the mess.

” Sorry, my mind was elsewhere .. ” my mom said more to herself than us. And then I looked at Soham, his cheek was madly bleeding.

“Shit!” I said while I ran to him.

“What?” Soham had no idea that a piece of the cup had struck him.

Sri and I just started laughing while my mom  aided Soham and gave him a bandage. I don’t know whether it was Soham’s ignorance that made us laugh or our sadism. But it was kind of funny and till day we laugh at that memory .

The next few days of vacations I spent with my family in Bangkok and Pattya. Still Bangkok wasn’t as awesome as the day Soham had bled his cheek out.

Chapter 4: A Deceitful heart

Summer vacations had come to an end and had been quite as amusing as I had pictured in my mind.

Conversations that broke between Piyush , me and Sri broadly covered movies, music and Rajiv sir being our class teacher. It wasn’t that we didn’t like Rajiv sir but he hadn’t just made the best possible first impression on our class.

With him using broken words of English while teaching , annoyed the ‘tan theeta’ out of us kids as we laughed at him speak than we wrote of what he taught.

Not to forget the infamous ‘sign the test ‘ incident had put the devil’s tail behind him in our minds. However he was polite, understanding and reluctant so we accepted him whole heartedly. Or maybe we were just too lazy to protest.

Classes began and came back to the same regularity they had before vacations.

” Hey! Mrs. Sri is coming .” Piyush said and giggled as Ria was seen walking towards us. I accompanied the little laughter.

And then she (unaware of our link-up game) spoke to Sri

“What time has ma’am called us today.” She inquired in her low slow yet racing voice.

“Tuition? 5 to 5:30. ” , Sri answered.

” Okay. ” She said “Thanks.”

“Mohsin has joined the tuition as well.. Earlier he said he won’t need a tuition but…” Sri said.

“Ya. ” She laughed. ” I had predicted correctly …”. Saying this she smiled and got back to her group.

Sri was awarded with Mine and Piyush’s weird expressions that led him to blush.

“Wow Sri , looking good today !” ,

This is what we chanted whenever Ria passed by him or stopped by to ask something. This further embarrassed the little guy and we laughed at his pink cheeked face.

It was all fun and cheer until one day when Ria and Yashika sat two seats behind us three.

They had become finest friends and were wild talkers. They were all about jokes and pranks specially Yashika, she was just what we could call a party animal. But even when their wasn’t a party going on she would try to start one. And this time she started the party in my heart by saying something that might be just a simple sentence for her but was nothing less than a life or death sentence for me.

We were just writing on our registers as our economics teacher wrote on the black board with her back faced at us giving the party animal full opportunity to fool around while Ria simply followed her lead.

“Hey Sri what have you brought for lunch?” Yashika asked in her well pitched voice that would contact us but not hint anything to the economics teacher who had a habit to expand her words as she spoke.

Sri replied with a few weird  hand gestures and lip movement that he hadn’t brought lunch instead  he had brought money.

“And Piyush what have you got?” Asked Ria.

“Chapatis and curry.” Was his reply.

I being on the last seat was disturbed in the end.

” Hey Shivam.” Yashika called for me.

I turned back at her and Ria to give my full attention to them, the economics period wasn’t fun anyway.

“She likes you..”

Yashika said pointing at Ria who simply smiled. They both giggled and I on understanding the joke said out loud,

“Thanks homies.”

Blushing i turned back to my work. I heard giggles both from my friends and two of them sitting behind me. It’s funny how the smallest of jokes can be perceived so differently by the deceiving heart and turned into hard feelings. However , in my case the process was really slow.

At that very moment I had ignored my heart’s voices and told myself..

“No body can like you shivam .. Pay no heed to them.” But the heart is said to be stronger than mind yet weak when situation demands utmost courage. That year my heart outspoke my mind.

“Okayyy children.” The economics teacher turned back at us. “Have you done the woaark?”

“Yes ma’am” said everyone in a chorus .

“Veaary good! ” She smiled at us all.

It took me many days to completely fall for Ria and I will get to it later. For now I was busy drifting my mind away from the deceitful heart.

Upcoming was Piyush’s birthday on 16th of July , he was to turn 16. He decided to celebrate it with Close friends. And so I Sri and Brenden were summoned to the mall where he treated us with two movies, back to back. I gifted him a book of the tv series ‘ supernatural’ and Sri gave him a two DVDs movie set.

I remember it being an awesome day , well still not as awesome as the day Soham’s cheek bled madly.