This is the first post on my blog... keep visiting, there's much more to read... and appreciate... I hope...
I have to stop using all these fullstops...
DAMN!
]]>Instead, he held up their notice, and said, “Explain”.
Jai had no idea why he was doing this. First of all, he had respected the principal until now. Second, he already knew what the notice was about. What was the point in asking? Maybe he wanted to hear it from their mouths.
Rohit volunteered to do it.
“Sir, we’re interested in music, and we want to form a band. We wanted to find other students who are interested in forming a band, so we put up the notice.” He said it confidently. Jai was sure he himself could not have put it better.
“OK. This is not a music school, and I have decided to take action against both of you.” The principal leaned down and pulled two envelopes from his desk drawer. “Suspended. Indefinitely. Both of you.”
“WHAT? You can’t suspend us! We haven’t even done anything wrong!” Jai yelled.
“Well, I think I have the authority to do it, since I’m the principal.” He was obviously enjoying this. “I’ll inform your parents by phone when you can come back to school.” He paused, and said, “Don’t know when that will be, though.” He said mockingly.
Jai and Rohit took the letters from the principal, and stormed out of the room.
“Well, we have a lot to talk about. First, let’s go get our bags and get out of this place,” Jai said.
Rohit nodded in agreement and they went to get their bags from English class.
The teacher was teaching when they arrived.
“What happened, Jai?” The teacher asked. Jai had dreaded this. He had always scored good marks and the teacher liked him, because he was very punctual and never missed a single English class.
“We’ve been suspended.” Jai said, his head hanging.
“WHAT?” The teacher asked, shocked. In Indian schools, suspensions were handed out only on very, very serious occasions. The students were shocked too.
“For how long?” Siddharth asked, from the back.
“Indefinitely, man. Guess we won’t be seeing you guys for a long time.” Jai and Rohit picked up their bags and left the class.
They walked out of the school and decided to go to Coffee Day.
They ordered two frapuccinos and sat back.
“Damn! I hate that guy, man. I thought he was, normal.” Jai said.
“Yeah, me too. Look at the good side of it. You can write, and I can play guitar. We could get Malini and Sam and practice too.”
“Uh, they haven’t been suspended. They have to go to school.”
“Right. Doesn’t matter, we can catch them after school. I’ll call them and tell them to meet us, where?” Rohit asked.
Their frapuccinos arrived. They each took a sip.
“Mmm. My place, my mom will be out from 4 to 6 in the evening.” Jai said, savouring the aroma of the coffee.
“OK. Where does she keep going, man?”
“Some society meeting or something. She has them all the time. Atleast it helps us out. Now how do we present the idea of our suspension at home?” Jai asked.
“No problemo for me. Sometimes when you don’t have a dad, it helps.” Rohit said, and Jai knew how much saying that hurt him. He didn’t mean it that way, and he knew Rohit knew that as well. Rohit took a long swig of his frapuccino. “My mom thinks I’m doomed to failure. So, I’m cool.”
“Not me, my mom will kill me. The novel’s already created problems, and now here’s another one. Dammit!” Jai and Rohit took their cups, paid for their drinks and left the café.
_______________________________________________________________
Drk, lovelee, keep commenting, you guys are great. Drk, you'll notice I'm starting to let you a LITTLE bit inside the characters heads. It'll get better I promise. Right now it's a little shaky,I think.
By the way, do you listen to Nirvana? And what's your a/s/l? Just some thoughts.
R&R.
Peace.
]]>Actually, I mentioned the reason for the fear in Chapter One. You see in India, parents want their children to take their studies seriously, and do not give significance to creative and artistic pursuits. Hence the fear, beatings etc.
As for the Principal , you'll have to read further to find out!
Chap 4 coming up...
]]>“What’s wrong? You’ve been real quiet… I mean, more than usual.” Rohit said.
“Well, yesterday my dad beat me because he found the first couple of chapters of a novel I’m writing.” Jai said. Rohit could see his brown eyes were moist.
“He BEAT you? I mean, like, physically?” Rohit asked.
“Do I have to draw you a picture?” Jai asked, his face looking menacing. His face had never ever looked like that. Rohit would never forget that expression. Jai’s medium length black hair, along with his almost round spectacles and that expression made him look strange, almost maniacal.
Rohit cringed. “Whoa! Just making sure, dude. What are you going to do about it? Stop writing?”
“I wouldn’t stop writing if he said he would kill me,” Jai said, spitting his gum into a dustbin.
They opened the door to English class, and found the Principal leaning back on the desk. The teacher was nowhere to be seen.
“Come in,” he sneered.
Rohit and Jai entered the room, looking at each other. They had never done anything serious enough to be faced by the principal. In fact, neither of them ever recalled having talked to the Principal one-on-one, and they had been at this school for fourteen years.
“Stand here, so the whole class can see you,” he said in a falsely sweet voice. Rohit and Jai took their places without a word. They looked up to see the class of thirty-five looking back at them.
“What?” Jai mouthed to Athira, a girl sitting in the front row, pointing his thumb at the Principal behind his back. Athira shrugged.
The Principal adjusted his glasses, and Jai noticed that his face was very much red. He was very, very angry. Until now, he had managed to hide his anger, but now it had obviously become impossible to hold back.
“These two brilliant…” he trailed off, looked at Jai and Rohit, and continued, “musicians, have turned the school bulletin boards into hoardings with their advertisements. In case any of you didn’t read it, drummers, bass guitarists, and what not can contact these two if they want to form a … BAND.” The word band oozed with hatred.
“Sir, we didn’t realize it was a, uh, crime to use the bulletin boards to find students interested in music,” Rohit gathered the guts to say.
“THIS IS A SCHOOL! NOT A BLOODY PLACE TO FIND STUDENTS WHO’VE WASTED THEIR LIVES!” The principal bellowed.
“Wasted their lives? What do you mean?” Jai butted in.
“Meet me in the office. As much as I’d like to, it’s not right to speak my mind in front of other students!” The principal straightened his tie and left the room.
Rohit bit his lip, and followed the principal. Jai, in turn, followed Rohit, as they shut the door to their class, and found the English teacher standing sheepishly outside.
__________________________________________________________
Short chap, but intense (I think).
Drk thanks for the comments... I've taken them seriously. Please don't refrain from making comments, good or bad.
Thanks a lot, peace.
]]>Oh, and I got published.
I repeat, I got published!!!! Those interested can visit teenwriting.about.com.... scroll down a little and read Crevice by getimmersed. You can comment here.
------------
Sunday, 4 p.m
Rohit was lying on his bed listening to “Homecoming” by Green Day. He picked up his Fender Stratocaster, a very expensive guitar which his uncle living in Norway had gifted him when he was fourteen.
He played along to the song, without using the amplifier. He could pick up the chords of most songs after listening to it twice or thrice..
The phone rang. The caller ID displayed Jai’s number.
“Yeah?” Rohit said as he picked up the phone.
“Got a girl here, who says she can sing.”
“I’ll be there.”
Rohit ran downstairs, locked the door, jumped on his bike and pedaled to Jai’s house.
He knocked, and heard Jai’s voice. “It’s open!”
Rohit opened the door and went in. A girl who looked around fifteen was sitting on the couch opposite Jai.
“Hey.” Rohit greeted her.
“Hi.” She smiled. “I’m Malini.”
“I’m –“
“I know, Jai told me… Rohit, right?”
“Yeah.” He grinned.
Rohit sat down on the couch and rubbed his hands together. “Okay, lets get down to business…. Start singing!”
Malini smiled again and launched into a song, “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus :
“Cause I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby
Yeah, I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby
Listen to Iron Maiden, baby, with me…”
“Nice…”, Jai commented.
“Yup… I agree. Can you sing anything else?”
She nodded and started singing “My Immortal” by Evanescence. She sang a few lines and Rohit stopped her. “You’re in!”
“I second that”, Jai said.
Malini grinned and gave both of them high fives.
“You can help us when more guys come for auditions.”
“Cool.”
The doorbell rang. Rohit went to answer it. It was a tall, lanky guy carrying a guitar.
“Are you Jai?” he asked, in a husky voice.
“No, I’m Rohit, his friend… you’re here to try out for the band, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Come in.” Rohit led him to the couch.
“Hey, I’m Sameer. Call me Sam.” He shook hands with everyone. “So, are you all members of the band?” he asked.
“Yeah, I play the guitar, Jai here plays the keyboard, and this is our brand new singer, Malini.” Rohit introduced everyone.
“Cool… but if you already have a guitarist, I guess you won’t be willing to check me out,” he gestured to his guitar. “Or will you?” he asked hopefully.
Jai laughed. “Yeah, we will. Go ahead.”
Sam took his guitar out of the case. It was an acoustic Hobner, and looked well-used. Sam strummed a few chords, and started singing “3 a.m.” by Matchbox Twenty. He sang for about a minute, stopped and played a solo.
“Composed it myself,” he smiled.
“Fantastic, dude.” Rohit said in awe.
“Man, you could replace Rob Thomas.” Jai said.
“Oh, yeah”, was all Malini had to say.
“So, I think I’m in?” Sam smiled.
“Oh, yeah.” Malini repeated.
***
The Principal was doing his rounds on Monday morning, when he suddenly noticed a couple of notices on the bulletin board. The hatred he harbored for music boiled up inside him, as he ripped the notices of the board, and threw them into the dustbin.
____
Comments, comments. This ain't going on till someone makes some serious comments. I will write, but I won't put it here.
]]>__________________________________________________
First day of school. Jai and Rohit had absolutely no intention of studying hard, and so they had decided to find someone to play for their band.
Walking through the corridors, they heard the bell for the first period.
“English”, Rohit said, as they both rushed to the second floor. English was the one period where Jai paid attention since he wanted to become a writer. Rohit however spent the period writing a song, enjoying the privacy at the back of the class.
After Computer Science and Math they had a 15 minute break. Jai and Rohit used the time to wander about the school looking for someone who could play or sing.
They saw a guy with a hairstyle that made him look like a rock star. He was leaning against the wall and reading something. Rohit went up to him and asked, “Hey, you like music?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“What sort?”
“Uh, Boyzone, Blue, that sort of stuff.”
Rohit slowly backed away from him.
***
Lunch.
“Seriously, we can’t walk around school looking for people who look like they can play, we need someone who can REALLY play.” Jai said.
Rohit nodded as he took a bite of his sandwich. “Maybe we could put up a notice or something on the bulletin board, and let people who play come to us, instead of us going to them.”
“Yeah, good idea.”
Jai pulled out a notebook from his pocket. Rohit marveled at how small it was.
“Why do you carry that around?” he asked.
“I write down ideas in it…. I do wanna be a writer, you know.”
“Well, I should get one too. I could write down song ideas in it. Usually I write stuff in a notebook… once, I did that and my mom saw it, cause it was in my Math notebook. And she got all mad at me for spending my time writing songs when I should be studying”, Rohit said, the last word filled with a sort of hatred. He didn’t really hate studying, he found Physics and Math quite interesting, but the fact that very few Indian parents took interest in their children doing something not relating to academics prevailed.
“I’ll give you one, I have a couple at home”, Jai said.
Jai read out loudly as he wrote:
Can you play bass, guitar, keyboard, drums or sing? Well, we are looking for you!
Call –
Jai stopped. “Uh, can we use your number? My parents would get mad at me”, he said, looking hopefully at Rohit.
“Yeah, and my mom’s gonna be all happy I’m conducting auditions for a band,” he said sarcastically.
“OK, let’s just get them to meet us somewhere…. Hey, my mom won’t be tomorrow from four to six!”
Rohit grinned. “Great!”
***
By that evening, the notices were up at three different spots in the school.
“Should be good enough…,” Jai said to Rohit as they walked home together.
___________________________________________________
]]>-------------------
Brent carefully studied the frog that lay before him. He had managed to split it through the centre, but was too grossed out to go further. He thought of a way to delay the teacher coming to him.
Last week, over dinner, Brent’s parents discussed the chances of him becoming a guitarist. “Never! Think practically, Brent! We’re doing this for your own good! Ten years down the road, when you’re a successful doctor and earning bags of money, you’ll thank us for making this decision!”
Brent quietly pushed the food around on his plate. “You can make bags of money as a guitarist too. Plus, you’ll be popular among people,” he pointed out.
His mother replied, “Oh please. Name a person who’s made money and become popular playing the guitar.”
Brent opened his eyes wide, and made a face. “A person? One person? Mom, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, The Bee Gees, The Rolling Stones, Oasis…,” Brent counted on his fingers. “I could tell you more, but you’d probably just yell at me.”
His mom looked at him angrily, put her fork down and stormed out of the room.
“Dad, you never say anything to support me. Come to think of it, you don’t say anything to support her either! Don’t you have anything to say? You sit there, quietly, like a fool…”
Brent got slapped across the face. Hard.
“If you disappoint your mother, by not becoming a doctor, I swear, I will never ever let you do anything else in your life. You will be sorry. So you better listen to your mother and do as she says!” Dad stormed out of the room this time.
“He still doesn’t have his own decision…,” Brent muttered to himself.
He had been attending classes the very next day. He had forty-eight classmates, but not a single one of them was interested in music. And it seemed to him that they never ever did anything that was remotely fun. Brent was fairly peeved at this, because he was used to parties and fun. And his parents had never been this strict with him. Till he was about sixteen, they had always let him have his own way. Perhaps too much. That’s why they’re being so strict now. Brent knew that some of Dad’s friends might have told him that he was not a good father, and he was now trying to rectify his mistakes by being utterly strict with his son. That’s not how you correct your mistakes. Is it? Brent silently cursed his Dad’s friend.
At twelve, when Brent cried and said he wanted a guitar after seeing a band perform on TV, they bought him a full-size one, and he could hardly hold it. But it had been a good investment, because Brent was very interested and he could play beautifully by the time he was fourteen. He was very modest though, and never boasted about being able to play well. His parents were proud too, and made him play for friends when they came over. You were just showing me off then, weren’t you? He had been very happy to demonstrate his skills, and once his uncle had even gifted him a brand new set of expensive strings.
That was all over. This was a new age, an age in which his parents didn’t give a damn what he thought, and wanted him to become a doctor. They weren’t trying to live their dreams through him, though. His dad was a successful chiropractor and his mother a psychologist. Perhaps they want me to do something they can relate to. Brent remembered his mother question at dinner. One person who plays the guitar and is famous. God, she could be silly sometimes!
Since he had started attending classes, he had been waking up at five a.m. and going to bed at midnight. He was used to sleeping for a minimum of seven hours, and the new routine was killing him. If I keep doing this, I probably won’t live to be a doctor. If I can study all this stuff, that is. He had been trying desperately to cram the everyday portion into his head, but he had achieved nothing so far. Absolutely nothing. The portions were difficult, he was absolutely not interested, and he was tired of his parents nagging him.
Brent looked at the split frog that lay before him, and puked.
THE END
]]>
This is the first post on my blog... keep visiting, there's much more to read... and appreciate... I hope...
I have to stop using all these fullstops...
DAMN!
]]>