Chapter 2

It was the last day of election campaigning. The height of campaigning. A day when there was more jeering than cheering for me. Half my class was jeering me, the part of the class which belonged to the same class as Vishnu in class 10, was in full flow to jeer me. The other part of the class, with either newcomers into PS in class 11, or the people who had come in from other classes in class 10, or Karthik and Narayan, who were with me in class 10 too, was cheering me. I didn't mind the jeers, because I expected nothing better from Vishnu's friends. But I really felt I could make a good Headboy, because I thought I could lead by example, from the front. But no one was ready to look into such claims, it looked like what one needed to win the elections was style, and popularity. On the second day, with the way the campaign was going, I was getting more and more pissed off. I had already lost out on so many many votes thanks to lack of charisma, lack of style, and a lack of popularity among the non-studying group of juniors. A lacklustre practicals session in the chemistry lab with our crazy lab assistant JayaSharadha ma'am. She had a hoarse voice, and the very entering of the lab, got you the feeling of entering a cemetry at around midnight!! The experiments were the rescuers, and we used to rush out of the lab with the joy of having won a lottery, as soon as our experiments used to be over. This day, our lab session, I felt was even more bad. Following it, we came back to class, and after 2 more class sessions, we could leave. Before leaving, it was another wicket to fall. Another friend of mine, Vidya Sharma wasn't voting for me, I heard. I went and asked her to vote for me. She told me she was voting for Saurabh. I couldn't face her, and with a nod, I turned away with an eye of tears. Tears, for two reasons, one being the vote of each dear friend of mine mattered a lot to me, and secondly because, I had reserved her vote a week before the elections. Vidya was actually planning to stand in the elections, but then pulled out because she didn't want the school commitments to affect her studies.
So the next afternoon had the elections being held, and the results were out the morning after that. As the principal announced the names of the Headboy, and his assistant, I was not only shocked but also disappointed, not to find my name in both the lists.
But then I got over it soon, and it was then time for the cultural seceretary and the wall magazine editor elections. I supported Vishnu's opponent Chinnu in the cultural seceretary elections because Vishnu had opposed me in the headboy elections, and not because of any personal affinity for Chinnu. But, you generally don't bark back at a dog when it does bark at you. I decided to bark back, and I paid for it. Vishnu was the cultural seceretary. In the meanwhile, Sandhya, who was also a good friend of mine and Suresh's, was standing in the wall magazine elections. We engineered her election strategies. Karthik was looking for a license to get closer to Sandhya, and as a friend helping in need, I provided him with the necessary help. I got him to do the domestic jobs like pasting Sandhya's posters in school and the so. With this, she was impressed with him, that they soon became good friends. Sandhya won her elections by more than 350 votes, and had an outright majority.
Now, that the elections were done, we moved on to the next most enjoyable part of our school life. Saurabh, Vishnu and I were a quizzing trio till class 11. We had rocked the city-wide Iliad quizzing contest in 10th and were the most happening quiz trio in school. At this juncture, we had attended a culturals quiz in 11th. I misspelt 'irreparable', which lost us the quiz. Not that Vishnu would have done everything right on his day, but he just wanted me out, and now he had a reason. I was chucked out. Saurabh didn't bother to fight with Vishnu regarding this, because 'they were best friends'. I mean what is best friendship when you can't even try to influence your best friend out of a folly of his. I lost half the respect I had for Saurabh after this incident, and our friendship took quite a beating. Vishnu, now that he was cultural seceretary was over the moon. I had found a new quiz team in Suresh and Pradeep. We had rocked the Iliad in 11th, but still were made the second quiz team. You couldn't have done anything about it because he was the boss, and he decided things there. But after a few victories, we couldn't be ignored, and with the pressure mounting on him, Vishnu had to send us to quizzes now and then. The culturals were an enjoyable experience. But for stuff like fashion shows in some culturals, the rest were all fun events. The loud cheers, the O's and many other experiences were stuff everyone had to experience as students.
Parallely our school was also rushing with stuff. We barely managed a pass in the chemistry and physics assignments, when the only people who comfortably managed a clean score in these too were Rahul and Vidya. We enjoyed our time, even in the little time we used to get in school amidst all the culturals. We shouted out 'O Raghupradeep' whenever someone entered class (in memory of Raghu, a classmate of ours), and made gestures of 'Adhu Try' every now and then. It was a rocking time we had at school then. The happiest times of our school days.
In the meantime, our JEE classes were also on in full flow. We were having a gala time there too, with an awesome professor in K.K.Anand sir, and a group of dedicated friends. The greatest thing about my IIT classes, was that more than the stuff I learnt, I made really good friends. Suresh and I slowly became the best of friends. Raghav was getting close too, but everytime he got close, he irritated me and got down in my eyes. In the meanwhile, Jayakant, Rahul, Krishna, Rajesh and Karthik had also become an integral part of the team. So was Nishant Rajkumar, a guy from PS, but in the D section.
Then we had the culturals we hosted 'SCINTILLATIONS'. It was truly a scintillating experience, and Vishnu finished it off in style with a group of students giving him leg-butts, and Sandhya rightly ending up with the blasts from the vice-principal for this.
Following that came the school's annual day, where yours truly hogged more limelight than many other friends for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I was the best student in the Science stream!! For what?? For loafing about, after bunking a few classes in pretext of JEE preparation, for having wasted all the time on the net when I ought to have been studying, for having watched so many adult movies illegally, when I ought not have watched even children movies, and what not!! But finally, I was the best student in school, for once in my lifetime!! So, I was glad to recieve it, and that made my annual day special. There was my favourite ex-principal on the dias when I recieved and nothing was more satisfying. Then, another old friend of mine, HariRam, came about to the hall and Sandhya, one of the co-hosts of the programme with Saurabh, went off to flirt with him, while Suresh and I were having lots of fun backstage. But post the Annual Day, it was back to serious stuff. Sports Day was a dampener due to the rain, and hence there was nothing stopping us from facing the Quarterly examination practicals and the theory papers. But considering the amount of preparation we had done for school, and the amount of hard work that had gone into JEE, there was no question about how our quarterly was going to go. We had to live and experience our fate going awry in the next few days to come...