From T to A in 16 Days

25-11-17

Today was our annual school trip, the highlight of most academic years in almost every day school. However, as the principal believed that early teens could not have unsupervised sleepovers, we, unlike most schools, had a one-day trip. The much smaller journey to our destination, a resort, was similar to any other trip: a group singing, another with eyes glued to their mobile screens, some listening to their personalized playlists and very little conversation in the whole bus. For a change, I observed my classmates for sometime, before engaging in a conversation about the most effective methods of revision for each subject with my friend Aryan. Agreed, choosing that topic at that time felt like a sin, but it has to be fine, the periodic examination was less than a fortnight away. 

Fortunately, the school fulfilled their promise and the time spent at the resort wasn't as boring as or seemed in the beginning. I would have praised them, but I still believed taking us on a trip that includes night stays would have been a better choice. 

There were short activities organized to entertain us (as we had to be back at school before 7 in evening). The lunch break was approximately one and a half hours, and we were given ample time to change clothes after the activities, which meant that despite everything, we had more or less an hour of boredom. 

On the way back, Aryan, who had shared the seat with me in the morning, conveyed that Anoushka wanted to sit with me. I was okay with the arrangement as long as he didn't feel like I ditched him. 

As many of the boys of my age would do, I was a part of some of the conversations around some considerably tabooed topics, well guided by the group. But all the participants in those were boys. Thus it was sensible that I would be hesitant to approach one of those topics in presence of the opposite gender. Surprisingly, it did not feel so with Anoushka. She took the lead, and I don't remember how, but we ended up researching a couple of those topics. Commenting about it accompanied with muffled giggles, some snores filling the background. Maybe one could just converse with close friends about any topic and their gender didn't matter.

As the trip ended with teachers having to literally wake up some of their tired pupils, the rest watched them, having quite a fun time.

"I will always be jealous of Tisha. She has something which I never can." Anouska confessed before she left, leaving my tired self confused. 

Ankur pov 

"Do you invite people regularly to read your journals?"
"No. Why would I do that?" came a confused reply.
"You wrote tabooed topics. It consists of a large area. Now I wouldn't generalize something in my journal if no one was to read it other than me. And none of us could tell that I would be reading some entries in future." Because I did not ask him to show me his journals the moment we met. He always had the option to read them out to me.
"Well...it is awkward. Writing about the topics you visited after the conversation was over. Try documenting one after you have one with anyone. You will feel it isn't as easy as writing a dialogue. I journaled just for fun, if something isn't easy to put, I skip it ."

I nodded. He had a point there and he had a point when he mentioned the ease of conversing about these with close friends.