Jivika was the daughter of a school teacher. And as expected, she was instructed to sit on the very first bench, to be in the direct eyesight of her teachers.
The girl settled on the tiny chair and dragged another one next to her, placing her black book bag on the other seat.
She was saving a seat for her friend, 'the known stranger'.
She was engrossed in studying the dimly lit classroom which was located in the farthest corner of the narrow corridor, which could only be discovered with the help of the red plate with white text stating 'I-A'.
The classroom was situated right beside the stinking washroom stalls. After all, it was a government school, not DPS or any other private schools.
But the child was still enthralled by the room which could barely be called a classroom.
She took in the sight of the rusted window grills which made the place appear no better than a prison, the mint green paint peeling off walls, the defected tube light, the badly made charts by the previous batch, the red granite floor tiles, the assembly ground covered with bleach as a precaution to the monsoon accidents and of course, her still crying classmates.
The first day was always tough. In every aspect.
She was so preoccupied with her surveying that she failed to notice that her 'friend' had slid into the seat behind her rather than beside her.
And that's when she shifted her observation to the creature who was busy fumbling with his bag.
She walked over to the boy with the puffed eyes and red cheeks, snatched his yellow school bag and dropped it into the seat next to hers, but not before dropping her own bag to the seat which she had occupied earlier.
Two pair of amused eyes watched the girl, as if she were the 'eighth wonder of the world'.
One was the boy. The other?
The lady with a teaching experience of fifteen years, who was standing outside the classroom, had never witnessed something like that in the whole of fifteen years.
The boy, his tone not above 30 decibels, whispered, "What are you doing?"
Deciding at that instant that it was too soon to call him her 'best friend', she settled for a 'friend'. In fact, her 'only friend' at that point.
Curtly she replied, as if it was the most obvious thing known to mankind, "I am sitting with my friend".
Not able to believe the new 'title' he received, he asked again for surety, "I am your friend?".
Had she been a bit older, she would have laughed off saying, 'No shit Sherlock!', but given her age, she questioned with authority, "Yes. Any problem?"
The girl seemed to amuse him more and more as the days passed. Credits to how soft spoken he was, he could only reply, "Okay!" and smile.
The flash of a happy emotion across his features, made her feel the triumph of achieving something impossible, yet again.
Twice in a day she made two people smile, her mother and her friend.
Unknown to her was how she made two others smile. The lady whom she would soon call 'teacher', who was standing outside and last but not least, herself.
She extended her hand to him, presenting one fourth of a Dairy Milk, which seemed to be saying 'you've got a friend in me'.
She looked.
He looked.
They looked away.
And they looked back again.
~
Glossary:-
DPS: The Delhi Public School Society is a large group of private schools in India.
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