tales of Suchita

A hot summer afternoon. A nondescript school day filled with number crunching, essay writing and listening to your Hindi and English teachers lament on the hopelessness of teaching thirteen year old students who did not appreciate the languages.

It was the type of day that isn’t long but feels like it has simply stopped moving. The air is still, the sweat trickling down your back is distracting. The creaking of the fan is inadequate and everyone is generally in a bad mood. It’s no one’s fault really. But everyone is willing to blame everyone else for the energy-sapping environment.

Radha’s frustration had little to do with the weather and everything to do with the inability to grasp what his intuition was screaming at him. After he had unceremoniously thrown his friends out of the house, he had tried and tried and tried to follow the path but it either dead ended abruptly or looped back to the three suspects he had vetted and rejected, vetted and…

This case was using up so much of his brain space he hadn’t realized until much later in the night what he had said to Mayur and Sagar. Full of remorse, he had begged for their forgiveness. While both of them had brushed it off as nothing more than him being him, he hadn’t taken kindly to being told he was an arrogant jackass and this wasn’t the first time he had belittled their intelligence.

He was shocked to realize that the prankster and the need to catch her had brought out the worst in him. And then to be told this was ‘normal’ and nothing new, he was forced to reassess the most important question: who would want to hurt him because he had hurt them.

Taking that as motive, he suddenly had a new pool of suspects…including Sagar and Mayur. But it was a girl – he knew it because of the letter then why did he keep looping back to his two best friends?

He was walking back to class after the short break when he felt a push and went sprawling on his front. The shock of the violence rather than the physical act infuriated him and he turned around angrily only to see Devanshu aka “Dev D” with a menacing expression on his face. Radha looked at “Gee D” and “KD” flanking the towering Devanshu and decided to allow his anger to cool.

He stood up and brushed himself off and waited. If he wanted to do a standoff, Radha was game – no one was better at staring and keeping silent as him. Dev D didn’t know how unnerving silence could be.

“You. Stay. Away. From. Priyanka,” he said, spittle flying everywhere.

Under any other circumstances, Radha would have paid no attention to Dev D and his threat. Any other day, he would have simply said yes, diffused the situation and walked away. Usually he let his brain overrun his emotions. But it was not today. So he walked right up to him and even though Radha reached only his shoulder, said, “Or what?”

Dev D it seems had miscalculated Radha’s response. He had expected him to back off or beg for forgiveness. The open threat disarmed him and he didn’t respond for a moment. Then seeing the looks of disappointment in his own sidekicks, he realized he had to soldier on. He couldn’t back away from such an obvious threat. Radha may not care for his reputation but Dev D did. So he sent up an apology, stepped back to give himself room and swung his right arm.

And while Dev D was struggling with his conscience, Mayur had come from nowhere and in an ill-fated attempt to protect his friend, pushed him aside. So it transpired that Radha went flying to the left thanks to Mayur’s push and Dev D’s punch landed on Mayur’s soft face.

As Radha crawled over to where Mayur was lying, Dev D was pulled back from throwing another punch by his sidekicks. He smartly agreed to let it go and quickly entered the classroom leaving behind a dazed Mayur and a seething Radha. He was just glad no teacher had been around to witness the fight and that nobody had created much of a ruckus.

“You are such a moron!”

“Thanks,” said Mayur and then laughed. It could have been the punch but mostly it was the euphoria of being in an actual school fight. “The word you are looking for is thanks.”

“No the word I am looking for is who is spreading rumours about Priyanka and me.”

“You should be more upset than that.”

“Mayur…”

“You like her, just accept it.”

“Would it help you if I did?” laughed Radha. He felt movement in his peripheral vision and saw Sagar, standing there, looking like he had swallowed a mighty bitter pill.

The expression on his face reminded Raadha of a snake that was readying itself to pounce. He shook his head, trying to get rid of that image. “Sagar,” he said, “see what stupidity Mayur did.”

“We know we are stupid Radha. You don’t have to rub it in you know. Why are we even your friends I don’t understand. You have her na, go talk to her. You as it is think she is smarter than us. You don’t need us anymore.” Sagar looked down at the two friends who were still on the ground since Mayur wasn’t sure if it was a good idea for him to get up, and walked into the classroom.

And Radha would have brushed it off as just Sagar having a bad day or being more hurt than he had let on with the callously thrown comment on their intelligence that he had made but there had been something in his eyes and voice – something that told him there was more to it than simple hurt. Could it be…

“I’m so sorry Radha.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because of what I said, Sagar went and told Priyanka that you liked her. Dev D heard and got angry and…”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Radha. “Are you going to get up?”

Mayur smiled and Radha pulled him up. They entered the classroom but before sitting back on his chair, Radha looked at Sagar again. That same snake-like expression was still there. Time to protect Sagar was up.

He sighed heavily as he sat on his chair, thinking, and hating himself furiously.

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This is the twenty-second post in the series. To know more about Radha, click here.