Thursday, December 03, 2009

Politics.

Third standard.
The class was under the dictatorship of Amreena. She was fair and pretty and always had a gang of girls walking behind her.

She decided what games to play during the lunch break.
If you were her friend, you were part of the "cool" crowd.
People would share their snacks with you if Amreena said they should.
When the teacher asked you to mind the class, you were not allowed to report Amreena or her friends. Common laws never applied to her.

If you did anything Amreena said you shouldn't, you were treated like an outcast and not allowed to play with the rest of the class.
It was a very bad idea to get on her bad side because Amreena was merciless. If she didn't like you, she wouldn't let you play with the rest of the class during lunch break.

I once called Amreena an Idiot.
I always sat alone during the lunch break.

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The girls in my class were divided into two gangs when I was in the fourth standard. One was the gang of good looking girls and other was the gang of err... good girls.

The good looking girls never let me play with them because...err, I guess they never thought I was good looking enough? I don't really know. But they never let me play "Running Catching" with them.
I didn't greatly enjoy hanging out with the good girls because they were a little boring and spent a lot of time plotting against the good looking ones.

So I hung out with the boys after school because they didn't mind that I wanted to play with them. Not only did they not discriminate against me, they taught me a lot of "boy" games which I would have otherwise never learned. I was a pro at hand cricket, I knew all the characters in Dragon Ball Z and I was good at leg cricket.
I was taught how to make my tongue bleed.
I didn't have to slap a guy just because I was a girl; A good punch on the face was always appreciated.
Noone cared if I jumped over a fence.
I was never yelled at for fighting with a bunch of rowdy boys from another class because they stole all the chart paper from our class.
I was treated like an equal.
I miss that.

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Fourth standard. Social Sciences class.
Elizabeth mam was my favourite teacher because she was pretty, she was nice, she was so smart and she always liked me.

We were discussing religion in class and how people discriminate against others on the basis of religion. I told her that I agreed with her. I told her about how two girls in my class said they didn't like me because I'm a Christian. Their argument was that the British were Christians and that all Christians in our country were, therefore, British supporters.
They told me that I should be ashamed of myself.
They said they didn't want to be friends with a traitor like me.

I got cornered by the two girls after class. They threatened to make sure I never had any friends left if I ever spoke up in class about such things again.
To make sure I got the point, they made my best friend stop talking to me.
My best friend was a christian.

9 comments:

Aditi said...

It never ends- you move on to college it is there; same with work and within families too- no wonder we are a nation obsessed with politics- we are initiated into from adolescence.

Nice writing, simple but thought provoking.
The Queen of corks has come a long way :P

Maggotess said...

Good one! Specially the Amreena part!! ;)

Abhishek said...

Incomplete

Raveena said...

@ Abishek - It always is.

Anonymous said...

Ah, politics. Honestly, one of the ugliest things in the world. And the most prevailing, ironically.

Don't let it get to you. They're here to fight you. Fight them back with your own set of politics. Who said we'll play fair? :)

Aragorn said...

Hey....leave the others....the Christian thing was too good....You surpass yourself all the time, how do you manage that?

And the comment "It always is" is so great!

Gastro Mallu said...

:)

Sam said...

did i mention i REALLY like your blog?

Raveena said...

Sam - I think you did that. I think you also made me smile too much! :)