Friday, December 02, 2005

The Yellow Rubber Band

"Pooja, get those yellow rubber bands, the ones that Maya Aunty got from US." Six year old Pooja looked askance at her mom. The band in question was bright yellow and shaped like a big sun flower. "But amma...” she hesitated. “That band is perfectly good and will go with your frock" Pooja looked at her dress, it was white with the tiniest of yellow dots on it. "But amma ..." she wheedled again. "Oh kids these days! You can dress the way you want to and throw your tantrums when you are older, listen to me now. Maya will feel so bad if she knows you hardly use the band. And what's wrong with it? It nice, bright and colorful", her mom started her tirade. She looked at her father for support, but he gave her a you-know-i-like-to-help-you-but-in-such-matters-your-mom-rules shrug and hid behind the paper. She considered crying, but there was the question of the empty cookie jar and missing pieces in the new Lego set which were yet to be discovered and she figured she would need the tears then.

Pooja got ready for school with a thoughtful attitude. “Pooja wear your raincoat, it is drizzling outside.” She smiled, the rain coat’s hood would save her from trouble at least in the school bus. But there was still the question of a full day at school to be endured and Sanjay too. Sanjay was the class bully and he gave everyone a hard time for no reason at all. And here she was, wearing a yellow rubber band – it was like waving a red flag at an angry bull.

“Hey Pooja wanna play Color Color?” Pooja froze at Sanjay’s sneer. Her hand instinctively went to her hair. “Hey Pooja has two different colored socks on.” Pooja looked down; she was wearing blue with green stripes on leg and green with blue stripes on the other. With one hand on her hair, she tried to roll down her socks so that legs were an uneven mass of green and blue.

“Class, please submit your leaves assignment”. Pooja remembered collecting the leaves, categorizing them, pasting them in the scrap book, showing them off to Amma and Appa, putting it on the table for the glue to dry and then her memory came to a halt. “I must be growing old”, she told herself while walking to her teacher to explain her predicament.

The rest of day dragged on, especially since she sat alone in the last bench to avoid eyes and unnecessary talk. There weren't any incidents, except when her dance teacher pulled her up for talking in between and her math teacher called her to the board to work out 9+7.

“So sweetie how was school today?”, Amma met her at the door. She burst into instant tears and amidst sobs piteously said “I told you I wouldn’t wear the yellow rubber band to school.”
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So people, this time will you please believe that Pooja isn't me? Thank you! :-)

16 comments:

Casablanca said...

Remind me to save tears for such occasions next time ;)

Good story!

Jinguchakka said...

Good one! I enjoyed it.

Rohan Kumar said...

Nice!!

totti said...

Did you open your old box and find the faded yellow rubber band? :).More the reason to believe it was, infact, your story :p..nice one

Anonymous said...

hmm ... hard to say , but i dont remember u wearing one to skool ... dont remember any bullies in our class too :-) so i just mite believe it didnt happen to u ...

janani said...

@casa - Yeah sure! Watch out for my "Casa beware" warnings in future. ;-)

@jinguchakka n rohan - Thanks! :-)

@totti - Oh no no! I have been a bright-colors-hater since I was a kid.

@harish - Ahhh thanks! And everyone hear what he has to say. :-)

Anonymous said...

hey nice story about sweet nothings..

Anonymous said...

nice story!

Dinesh Babuji said...

Enjoyed reading!

Dinesh Babuji said...

Enjoyed reading!

Sidewinder said...

'six year old's point of view' was really wonderful!. Enjoyed it.

Sidewinder said...

n also thnks for that 'I luv chennai' logo. I now have it in my page. :)

janani said...

@anon n anon - Thanks!

@dinesh - Thank you and thank you. :-)

@sidewinder - Hey thanks! :-) And let's keep loving Chennai - the best city in the whole wide world! :-)

Rams said...

I liked this one...A nice read when fighting with the ever closing eyelids at 3 in the afternoon...

Anonymous said...

Hi, dropped by your page, thanks to blog-hopping. This article reminds me of Calvin's (of Calvin and Hobbes fame) experience in school. Forget the homework at home, get bullied at school by Moe and ocassionally by the teacher, and in general have a tough time at school. Nice post.

Niranjan said...

I am the guy who posted the earlier post. I didnt realise that I had posted an anonymous post, which I dont like to do. So, here I am, remedying the same.