It was during these discussions that we saw this world from different eyes as each of us spoke their hearts out when talking about the problems that existed and what all changes were required in our country and many other things which, I think, guided us to the place where we stand today. We all were really annoyed when people around us said “Is desh ka kuch nahi ho sakta, ye jaisa hai waisa hi rahega, jo hota aaya hai, aage bhi wahi hoga (Nothing good will ever happen to this country, whatever has happened it will continue to be so, and nothing will change)”. We hated the fact that people who were fortunate enough to receive proper education, lead a good life were sitting on the sidelines doing the commentary rather than making an effort themselves to improve the situation.
I didn’t have any specific interest but I read newspaper due to which I had gained a bit of knowledge in politics and was really fed up of the corruption which had engulfed our system so badly and to such an extent that now the word politics actually sounded as a synonym to fraud, cheating, self-interest etc. One more thing that I hated was the lack of awareness among people about education and I personally felt that if at all, every person had some basic knowledge, even a bit of formal education, then most of our problems would have eventually vanished by themselves(which included poverty, child-marriage, child-labor, over-population and to a great extent pollution too). I was a day-dreamer and would often imagine in my dreams that how incredible would the place, where we lived, look without all these problems.
We always thought that even after working so hard all day long in scorching heat of the sun, a person goes back home with so less money that he/she is hardly able to feed his/her children and while some don’t even get that much. Why small children, who should have been studying in school, were either carrying the load of their younger ones or working as a rag-picker or somewhere else to earn a living(at an age when most of us wouldn’t have bothered to think about how hard our parents worked to get all our wishes fulfilled).
Some days, this used to be our topic while at other times someone else came up with their opinions and views. And this was not just limited to this, whenever we all used to meet anywhere outside school also, some or the other topic or incidence used to lead us to something that needed some serious attention.
Every other time, when we were not doing this, Sagar and Karan were busy planning their next roguery. For us, school was a place where you meet friends, play prank on others, try to divert attention away from teachers during classes towards something silly, break rules, take risks like bunking our morning assemblies as our principal sir used to give a long speech everyday, which were mostly on the same topic every time. Though quite surprisingly for teachers and most of the other so called studious students in our class, we were decently good at studies. We were just trying to live our life to its fullest, and at the same time realizing that our jocosity and easy going attitude did not affect our future.
Now one more thing about guys is their crushes. Sagar and Karan used to have crush on every other girl they saw, even a double crush on the same girl if she changed her hairstyle. Once, Sagar saw Disha with her cousin Priya at some market place, and became elated as if he was already sure of going on a date with Miss Universe. Next day in school he was waiting for Disha to come so eagerly that he almost went out to see if her bus arrived or not more than thrice. And it had to be the same day when a teacher gave Sagar some task, so he tried to control his emotions for some more time but at last he gave-up thinking that maybe she won’t come to school that day and came back to the class with broken heart. It was 10 minutes passed the start of first period that Disha came running to class panting vigorously. It was then that Sagar's face lit up as if after a long battle with clouds, sun was again shining in its full intensity. Sagar became restless and as soon as the bell rang he rushed towards girl’s row and called Disha outside. He inquired of every detail about Priya as if investigating some murder case. Disha also was a great player, she initially told him about Priya in such a nice way that Sagar actually thought that she was the only girl for whom he had taken birth. They both resumed for classes and Sagar had already started dreaming about Priya and him, having a sweet romantic candle light dinner with no one else around. Those 3 periods before lunch were the most happy hours of the day for him, not knowing what Disha had in store for him during recess.
When we all were having lunch, Disha in her usual and soft tone said just these few words – "Hey !! I forgot to tell you Sagar, the name of Priya’s boyfriend, it's Rohit. I have met him, he is such a super cool guy..." It was just an instant after Disha stopped after saying that, we all looked at each other’s face and then Sagar’s. The colour on his face disappeared and his mouth opened wide. He was dumbstruck, and we all began laughing frantically seeing him. It looked as if whole of our group had gone mad except Sagar, the lone survival of this attack of madness. He did not had anything more and just went to class as his ‘beautiful candlelight dinner’ dream was shattered into a million pieces. It hardly mattered to him as he would find someone else for his ‘dinner’ dream in a day or two.
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