Flashback Time ...

This post has been inspired by reading one of my fellow bloggers post and hence I first thank "Chutney Post" for kindling my childhood and then inspiring me to write this. I am going to take you all to 1984 and this incident happened in my school at Mylapore (P S Senior Secondary School) when I was doing my 2nd std. Satish being a very average student got only B section and not A section. In my school A section guys are a bit intelligent than the B section and C section guys and that is what the management thought and it may be true as well. Me being a typical Leo always had a gang around me to laugh and obey to my commands (appave naanga Bhaashaa thaan) and as expected I used to occupy the last bench and the bench before mine was girl’s bench, well, let’s not think anything dirty here, as we are still in 2nd standard ... :)

There used to be four groups in my school Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire and Topaz and I belonged to the Emerald team and I was the team leader for that, yaa all in 2nd std. I am always notorious in my school and for all bad reasons and I had a cold war between my class leader "Maithreyi" for some unknown reason, I always used to tease her with my gang and would be happy to see her cry :) (such a sadist I was ...). She always brings "Thair Saadham" to school and without any side dish, poor girl will eat that for hours together and most of the time she will not finish her lunch. My gang will make sure that we sit next to her and keep pulling her legs (not literally) and yes all in 2nd std. She is very obedient and a sincere sigaamani of the class and my dumb teacher always trust her and never trust me or my gang. One day she went to the teacher and whispered something to her ears and the next moment my class teacher called "Satish ... come here" ....

I was pissing in my pants and went near my teacher as if you cannot see such a nice and a paavam kid ever in this universe, my class teacher name was "Seetha Ganesan", without asking me a reason, she asked me to stretch my arms and there came a powerful blow on my palm, and instant tears, and this poor Leo did not have the guts to even ask why his teacher beat him. I was looking fierce fully at Maithreyi and she was giggling and making fun of me in front of the teacher, the cold war turned out to be a real war and I was working on ideas to take revenge on her, as a wounded cheetah, I went back to my seat and to add salt to my wound, my entire gang was enjoying my tears and loved the way I got beating. Humiliation, frustration, irritation, anger, every possible emotion got mixed in my mind and tears refused to stay inside, and the same teacher came once again to my seat and gave one nice bang on my back with her bare hands and then asked me to shut up with her loud voice, and there Satish stopped crying, like someone pressed MUTE button in my remote.

The next day morning, I went to school and Maithreyi called me near the "Black mark Chart" and then showed me that I have got 3 additional black marks and she has got two stars from my class teacher. Right from my childhood I never hit anyone, instead I bite my own hands and express that anger and for almost 15 years that bit marks were there on my hand and slowly I left that habit and those scars went away, so as usually bit my hand and this time a bit too hard that blood popped up and said "Hii" to me. On seeing that Maithreyi got scared and she rushed towards the "first-aid" kit box and brought me some ointments, I pushed it off her hands and every object that was there in that first-aid box was thrown all over the class room and poor class leader had to bend and then pick each one of them and put it back into that box and once again, when my class teacher came, she whispered something to her ears and the same sequence of events unfolded, and today it was my left hand, as I have already injured my right hand by biting.

My hate towards Maithreyi sky rocketed and the evil in me worked out a plan and that was the first and last plan I did to injure someone. I my school there used to be a lot of alpine trees and they shed a type of fruit which bears lots of thorns on their skin, and during those days most of the benches will have one to many holes in the bench where students sit and to my luck, the place where Maithreyi sits too had a hole which would hold a thorny alpine fruit. Satish and his team collected every possible size of those alpine fruits and we were waiting for the right moment to place it on her chair and what could be the best time other than the recession for "choo choo" break, as expected Maithreyi went to do the inevitable and Satish carefully bent down and placed an alpine thorny fruit from under the bottom of the bench, so that Maithreyi cannot notice. I was a bit intelligent as well, as soon as I placed the thorny fruit, I moved to a different bench which is not near her seat. Recession bell went off and Maithreyi entered the class

I don’t know what to say, whether it is my fate or her luck, Maithreyi was called by the teacher to the front row and she was asked to read something by seeing the textbook to the entire class, but I was hopeful that some time she will have to come to her seat and my plan would work out. That was an English class and she was reading some story, and my gang is also nervous at this point in time as they were curious to know the ending (ellaam koottu kalavaaninga thaan). The teacher suddenly noticed that one complete row at the back is empty and the last two rows are full, so she asked the last row bench guys to come and sit in the empty row where I have placed the alpine fruit, that's all, the first thing my then friend and current enemy stood up and said "Miss, Satish Maithreyi seat la mullu vechurukaan miss", and I was like WTF ?? and instantly teacher came down from the front and then investigated the bench and noticed that I have indeed placed a very sharp and a lengthy thorn, then what, there started this "MGR - Nambiyaar" fight in the class room, I was chasing Maithreyi in anger and teacher was chasing me in anger, and finally all the drama unfolded in front of my dad and my principal and I was made to Neil down a whole day in front of my principal's room and the then principal was "Alamelu" and she never liked me since then.

Years rolled on, and I moved from B section to C section and my connection with Maithreyi got disconnected and when I was doing my 10th standard in the same school, I stood in election for the post of "School Pupil Leader" out of the total strength of 1400, Satish got 2 votes :) :) :), I know I am the one and I don’t know who the other one was. Life has to move on rite, I moved out of PSSSS and then joined some other school, but I could never forget Maithreyi in my life, because I did not complete taking my vengeance naa. I did my college and then I joined Oracle and Maithreyi as a name did not erase from my memory. One fine day at Redwood Shores, California, my manager called me on my desk to take an interview and gave me the CV, wowww, what a surprise the name of the candidate was Maithreyi, the devil inside me said, "What’s there in person, the name matters here and it is the right time to take revenge, just go and ask tuff questions and reject that candidate" (how stupid ahn ??).

I walked into the conference room and stood frozen for a minute and I could see the same reaction on the candidates face as well. I shook hands and then my first question was "Are you from Mylapore, Chennai ??" and the answer was "Yes" and she asked me the second question in Tamil "Hey, nee Satish thaane ?? PSSSS la padichiyaa?", and my joy knew no bounds and that interview went on for 5 hours and in that 4 hrs and 30 minutes we were talking about our school days and 30 mins I was asking her "What did she said to Seetha Ganesan miss to get me that slap", poor girl said, she forgot and again as a typical Leo, I forgive all the bad things she did for me and then said, "You are selected". I am still in touch with her and I am sure she would love reading this post. She admitted the fact that she was the one who voted me for that SPL post as well.