The hot sun of the afternoon was too annoying today. Sanskar couldn't help but search for his classmates in the open ground.
The church of their school was celebrating 300 years of its construction. And not only their school but the English medium also was participating in the celebration along with them.
Their school ground and the church belonged to two schools collectively. One was their school and the other to English medium. The ground also belonged to the high school on the edge of the ground. As it was maintained by a Hindu community the children from there didn't visit the church. But only used the ground.
The huge ground also was the place for Christian community of that area to gather at masses every Sunday and fair which was held once in a year.
It was a great place to spend Sundays. This was the input he had received from his friends who had a trend recently to roam around the town and just spend their time. He being an introvert instead loved spending time at home or in the areca nut field of their family where he would sit hours together lost in thoughts until one of his brother came to call him for lunch or evening snacks.
Sanskar found Ruhan also looking around restless. Then he saw him smiling and waving at someone. And now Sanskar didn't require a rocket science to know who it was. Ragini smiled softly and waved back to him.
Ruhan made his way to reach her and forwarded a ice candy. She looked sceptical and nodded her head negatively. Sanskar truly knew why she was refusing. Probably Ruhan couldn't guess it.
She was with her friends and Ruhan was offering the candy to only her. She didn't want her friends to feel sad over it.
As a girl of her age Ragini was very mature when it came to understanding the emotions of others without them speaking.
"It's melting already. Take it" Ruhan whined like a small kid. Ragini still nodded her head negatively. "You are asking the wrong person Ruhu. Give it to me" Pranita took the candy and started to eat it.
Ruhan was flabbergasted for a moment. He really wished that Ragini would eat the candy and had brought her favourite orange flavour. But now the candy was savoured by Pranita.
"What is wrong with you? He brought it so that you can feel better in the hot sun and you are showing him attitude?" Pranita spoke. Ragini just gave her a smile and walked away.
Ruhan looked at Pranita and then walked behind Ragini. "Ragini" he called her and she turned to him sharply. She wasn't blind to not notice some children were watching them. Some seniors and their own classmates.
She controlled herself. "What now? What did I do?" Ruhan asked helpless. And Ragini wasn't being blind when she noticed such small changes happening in her friend's emotional state. Ruhan's emotions were actually all over the place and she had been hearing and being teased about it from some time now.
"Others would have felt bad right that you brought candy only for me? Why don't you understand this Ruhan. We are classmates and it is very necessary that we treat everyone equally" she said a bit annoyed.
"So we are not friends anymore?" He asked a bit sad. "Tell me Ragini, did you ever consider me as your friend?" He asked as his eyes started to tear now.
Ragini really couldn't watch him this way. She surely remembered the day when he first time walked to her desk and helped her in math. Why did they had to grow up so soon and why the emotions has to change between them.
"You are my friend Ruhan. You really are. But I can't treat you any different from others. And when you treat me like that I feel like something is wrong. " she said concerned now.
Ruhan sadly smiled at her in return. He himself didn't know why it hurt him so much whatever Ragini spoke. He just walked from there. Even though Ragini wanted to follow him she restrained herself from doing so. She was firm on her decision she won't treat him any different.
Sanskar also felt bad the way Ruhan was sad. He walked to his friend to give him some comfort. May be it was not the age for Ragini to understand all this but Ruhan liked her and Sanskar had concluded this from his experience of watching romantic movies. Was it the same thing what they termed as love in the movies? Sanskar wasn't sure. He thought it shouldn't be named as such because they were still kids. And they wouldn't feel such strong feelings yet. That impression of him about love was changing everyday as he started to observe Ruhan.
