"Good morning teacher" The class chorused as the teacher entered the class. The black board was still filled with notes of the previous day,vthe students goofed around as the teacher wiped the board with a dry cloth.
"Tch tch Jiah" Someone said from behind me, waking me up from my slumber. I knitted my brows and turned around.
"What?" I asked irritated, my eyes still filled with sleep just like the other students around me. I had a dazed look as I stared at Gaggan, our class clown. These days he pestered me a lot in between classes.
"Why is your face swollen?" He asked me, curiousness shining in his eyes as he waited for me to give him a story. Gaggan loved drama, fights and getting punished by our teachers. His bun shaped face was always plastered with a goofy grin that irked the teachers. Once he even talked back to our maths teacher. The scar still shined on his knuckles, as our teacher kept slapping the wooden scale on his knuckles. Gaggan held in his screams and then at the end of the punishment his hand was bleeding. The reason he stopped making ruckus in our maths teacher's class.
The other teachers felt slightly bad for him as he was an orphan who lived with his old grandma. Cooked, cleaned and took care of his house on his own.
He clapped his hands to bring me back to the present.
"Why were you staring at me like that?"He enquired as I blinked my eyes getting rid of the dazed look because of the nap.
"I fell asleep" I said glancing around the class which has suddenly turned noisy, the teacher nowhere to be found.
"Or you fell for me?" He asked in a quirky tone. I laughed and shook my head.
"Why? Am I that bad looking?" He asked trying to arrange his oil clad hair in an order although it made him look more comical.
"You look like a hero. I forgot what was his name..." I trailed off as I tried to remember his name.
"Dilip Kumar?" He asked while trying to make his hair stand in a funny manner.
"Hey stop doing that, you look like a broom". As I rearranged his hair that he tried to spike up. I didn't get the weird trend these days. Bangs are adorable, why spike it up?
"If you want I can ask my grandma to-" I cut him as I read his intentions.
"No, I won't get married" I objected, I noticed him flinching. The entire class suddenly turned silent, as I realised I was rather loud in my passion in objecting his proposal that further humiliated him. I felt guilt creeping up as I looked at his crest fallen face as he took in all the ridicule from around the class. Then he swept his eyes around the class and smiled unbashingly. As if he heard a joke and turned back to his seat.
I regretted being so outspoken. But I don't want to get married. I want to study and then make my parents proud.
My mother was 7th pass, she never wanted me to study. When I was six years old I came to know about school, so I begged my father who worked in a factory to take me there.
My father was an emotional man, he hardly spoke. People usually got scared of his face, his fat nose and his black eyes that I inherited, always squinted to read newspapers. But he wasn't scary at all unlike my mother. When my mother was pregnant with me, he didn't let her work around the house. He managed cooking as well as his labour job together.
When my younger sister was born, my mother's family was so depressed that they didn't even name her. When my father returned from his factory job he saw my maternal grandma's sad face as she muttered the words.
"It's a girl again"
The environment around them was filled with grief when my father's gruff voice broke it "Where is the celebratory sweets? I am a father of two daughters now"
They were shocked in silence when my grandma fell to her knees crying loudly. She was worried that my father would leave my mother after my younger sister's birth, but my father didn't even flinch as he ate the sweets cooing at Sabrina.
I want to marry a person like my father. A true gentleman, not the one's who are courteous in the beginning but then leave as you failed in giving birth to a heir. I want to marry a man who would lift his second daughter like my father did and smile at her showing his crooked teeth.
I was brought back to the classroom as the bell screeched outside our classroom. I glanced at Gaggan who hasn't looked back like he usually did after every class, so I called his name.
"I am sorry" I said as he turned around. He nodded smiling cheerfully.
"It's okay. I know I am not rich now, but when I am, I will marry a girl like you Jiah" He said startling me yet again. I don't know what happened to this person but he was suddenly very interested in wooing me. I tried to react as a giggle left my lips, cracking both us up. We were two goofs as we read the new supandi comic during the interval laughing loudly at the jokes.
"If I become a writer and make you laugh like now. Will you marry me?" He asked his big brown eyes shining with hope.
"I don't want to get married now" I confessed stuffing the comic back into my bag not glancing at his face.
"Then after I become a writer will you marry me?" He asked me his eyes begging me to say yes.
"If your books make me laugh, then yes" I said and then turned around leaving the class behind. As I reached the door I had the urge to look back at the cheeky guy.
***
So before y'all say that they are too young to talk about marriage, you have to remember the era they were in. Dating wasn't common, promises were.
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Love me one day|Completed √
Short Story"I am leaving", The man said smiling excitedly at his wife who had a sullen expression. She nodded. "I... take care" Those were the only words she managed to utter as he turned around. "I will" He said walking towards the door then stopped midstep...
