My first scandal

Many people including myself did recognise that there is something awfully faulty in the social conditioning with which men and women are raised in this country especially when it comes to attitudes towards the opposite sex.

It is only now that people are also seeing that things are not merely faulty, they are outright dangerous. it is a possible factor behind the free flowing news items about rape in this country. 

When I was 13 years old, I was in Delhi. I studied in Kendriya Vidyalaya, Janakpuri. Once, during a fancy-dress competition, I saw this boy dressed as "bharat mata"(Mother India) on the stage. In his clumsily draped saree and shaaby long-hair wig, he was funny and a sport. He was bound in chains that were tagged as "corruption", "poverty", "illiteracy" and "communal disharmony". Mother India was sad and pleaded to be freed from these chains. I immediately had a crush on him, although I couldn't even see his face. But, i knew his sweet boyish voice. I later found that he was my class-mate. i was new to school. His name was Saurabh. 

A few days later, I caught him staring at me during class. It was a deliberate stare, with the intent of telling me that he liked me. Well, this is how boys and girls communicated when they liked each other. The concept of walking up to someone and looking them in the eye and paying them a compliment was completely alien. If someone were to suggest it, he would probably be treated like Galileo was when he suggested that the earth may be round. 

Now I liked Saurabh and this attention from him excited me to bits. And of course I made this excitement evident on my face. How else was i to tell him that i liked him too? 

A few days later, this other boy from my class stopped me as I was walking towards my school bus and said, "pooja, saurabh aapse friendship karna chahta hai" (saurabh wants friendship with you). I later found that "friendship" had to be used in the noun form and lost its connoted meaning if replaced with 'friends' or 'dosti', the hindi word for friendship. 

"friendship" connoted a love interest. You better believe it.  

At the time when Saurabh's friend said what he did to me, I did not know about the latent meaning behind the word. I found it strange that Saurabh had sent a messenger. I said "ok"to which the messenger said "so what is your answer?"

I had not noticed a question in what he had told me so I asked him "answer?" and he said "yes or no?"

I deduced that he was asking if I accepted the friendship, still unaware of what that really meant. So I said "yes". That's when I spotted Saurabh far away in a distance watching us, jumping for joy, literally.  I beamed at him happily. 

By the next day, everyone in my class acknowledged us as a couple. Even though we still did not directly talk to each other, let alone sit next to each other. Then, trouble started. A few of my girlfriends said to me "pooja we didn't expect this of you.." I didn't know what they were talking about. I soon found out that they had previously categorised me as a 'good girl' but by accepting 'friendship' with a "boy" I had now been relegated to being a well...bad girl. Today, I'd see that as a compliment but back then, I didn't like this. I wanted my old reputation back. I began to be give Saurabh the cold shoulder and got the sense of being a good girl again. Saurabh's forlorn looks made no difference to me. My need to be a good girl had turned my heart into ice. 

My father had a transferable job. By the end of that academic year, we moved to Trivandrum. Where more such experiences waited for me.