continued from part - 1
Just as he was finishing his conversation
with Rakesh, Ashish came out of nowhere and suddenly touched him, no almost
pushed him, announcing loudly, “Now Ravi has the drilla”
Ravi should have known better, everyday by
the end of second period someone or other is in drilla, and the time in between
two periods, the small slice of time available before the next teacher comes is
the dangerous time when drilla is passed on to an unsuspecting person, if
he/she had not saved themselves by making the protecting gesture with their two
fingers, tip of index finger touching the pad of the middle finger, almost like
crossing fingers. If you’ve made that gesture even if the drilla person touches
you, it can't pass on to you.
Apparently that day Ashish was in drilla
since Anusha saw and announced when Ashish, while yawning and stretching
touched an old chewing gum sticking from the inside of the bench, and everyone
else other than Ravi and Rakesh had made the protective drilla gesture.
“Great, now I’ve to find another idiot to
pass it on to!!!”
----O----
Dejected that there is still a lot of
waiting for the winged horse Ravi went home. Adding to his misery was the fight
he had with Harika. He still didn’t understand why she was crying for such a
trifle thing. He thought he should in fact be thanked for cleaning up the mess
in her place. What’s worse all the girls seemed to understand and sympathize
with Harika which was even more a mystery to Ravi and Gangadhar.
All he did was he threw away the pencil saw
dust which for some reason was in abundance at Gangadhar’s place. And later
mistaking Gangadhar to be the one who threw away the pencil dust, Harika
knocked him and since Ravi is a good friend of Gangadhar he has no choice but
to get involved in the fight.
All along Harika was crying that she has
been amassing the pencil dust to feed her peacock feathers.
“Whaaaat?” Asked Ravi and Gangu together,
surprise evident in their voices.
She opened a page in her notebook and sure
enough, there was a small peacock feather amidst of a lot of pencil saw dust,
which clearly puzzled most of the guys and they surrounded the bench where
Harika, Gangu and Ravi were.
She explained, “If we feed these peacock
feathers, they’ll grow into big beautiful peacock feathers”
“You’re kidding, right?” Said Ravi with a
hint of uncertainty in his voice, since Harika was still crying a bit and Ravi
didn’t know what to make of it.
“Why would I lie in a matter like this?”
“Then you’re being stupid, how can a feather
which was detached from the bird regrow?”
This time she pushed both the guys out of
the bench with the help of other girls who sided with Harika without a word,
like it’s an obvious mistake of Ravi.
“Girls are stupid,” said Gangu to Ravi later
in the playground.
“Guys are stupid,” said other girls to
Harika, while religiously sharpening their pencils, to generate some pencil saw
dust to compensate Harika’s loss.
----O----
Contended with the few little sips of tea,
he has filched from his mother's cup, while she was in the kitchen (since tea
for adults & hot chocolate for kids), Ravi went to the terrace. And just he
came up, he saw a flock of cranes going across the sky.
He wanted to test the incantation Bangarraju
has told earlier in the day to get that coveted mark on one of his nails.
He closed his fists and kept them in front
of his chest and made little circles with his tiny fists, saying,
"కొంగా కొంగా గుడ్డెట్టు, దేవుడి గుడిలో పువ్వెట్టు" -
- Hey crane! Please give me the mark and
offer a flower to the God in the temple.
He didn't know the second line of the
incantation.
He kept doing that until the flock were mere
tiny specks in the distant skies and sure enough his ring finger nail has got a
fresh white mark which he can't wait to exhibit to his friends in the school
the next day.
The folklore and fairy tales have lives, they just attend to one generation at a time and keep them submerged in a river of pleasant dreams and beliefs, playing with them, providing them with the fortresses, filling everything with colors, magic and life and adding a melody to the childhood.
