ONE LAST RAINBOW

         It’s really hard to remember, since when we were fellow classmates and let me be glassier with my memory window where I wasn't even aware of her presence. It was all before standard 6th when I was almost 11. Something remarkable that year!!! I don’t remember, barring our promotion to higher elementary school just the next building close to our old one.  

 A school in a remote village means,It’s more than just a school. A reflection of social conduct and believed as a divine garden where little souls are being shaped and nurtured. It holds thousands of stories for each of it’s blossoms who were infloroscented here and few of its own sweetest and harsh memories like ,"Super Cyclone-1999_Odisha", Which left wretched four walls of this epicenter with no cover and took away thousands lives and billions of dreams in years to come. Everytime with the magical heal of "Time", it stood again and clayed and coloured beautiful butterflies like me.

That was the first day of my 6th grade. With a nervous mind and fear of anonymity, I hoped for the best as I was the only girl and all new faces arriving at our school were boys. Apart from biological bigotry, boys were like aliens to my own small “world,” confining my friends and myself. My School was renowned for the unique teaching pattern of our teachers but the underlying truth is ....."No one dares to withstand their furious gaze and resentment if they are poor at studies".... I still remember their command, ‘pin-drop silence’ and we would cease to exist.

So, you can't expect me to stay calm in that type of storming situation. Especially when I was just 11 and soft at heart. So, I sat there like a statue, avoiding looking at anywhere and refusing to believe in any mishaps. And then…….then she came.  

She was holding a notebook with little-Krishna's picture on it’s cover and pen in her hand. She gave me a wide smile; Perhaps with a composed inhale to see me and sat closely beside me.      

'How long have you been here?', she asked me, looking into my eyes, like she and I were very close friends. 

Though I was hesitating at first, I had only her and I let her chat with me.

‘Your name?’, she gave me an awestruck look, when I asked her name.

“How can you stand first in our class? You don’t even know my name?,” she said annoyingly . She was talking to herself I supposed as I hadn’t answered any of her query. 

‘Sandhyarani Dash, my name. You can call me Sandhya.’, she said, staring at me strangely.

‘Okay, I will remember.’, I said. 

Oh! How I believed her to be safe and sound! Only later I realised what it took to be her friend. 

I don't remember what she explored in me, but from then she accepted me as her foster child. I still wonder about her real intention towards me. 

Days passed by, I wished her to forget me. But I was wrong, she seemed to like me more. She started to bring me food. May it be sweet fruits from her backyard or any special dish, prepared by her mother. Though I was happy with her affectionate gestures through food, she never let me mingle up.

She was attractive and charming with her appearance but her wild care-free attitude made her despised among other students of our class. She was tagged as impish and headstrong as a consequence of her actions with others ….. but might be that was not true in my case.

Just like other children we had few childish beliefs and she was way ahead from us, like collecting "white grass" and "3 leaf-Touch-me-Not” plants to avoid punishment. I was also her partner doing those silly stuff out of my love for those greeny petals and with little curiosity.

There were more. In the rainy season, when the nearby rice fields were full of water, we sat on the hedge, looking at it for hours and watching the snails walking slowly, on the edges of the field. She used to tell me more stories about snails, like, "how a snail caused the death of her neighbouring aunt, who tried to eat them, what dirty things they eat and if you harm them, how they followed you to take their revenge".

Though I know those tales were from her wild imagination, I still used to get goosebumps with her intense narration. 

An incident which turned our friendship inside out and left me with a shock is still alive in my memory pane. Once, when we were in the class, a heavy rain poured in. Heavy streams of rain water were approaching us through the holes of the roof. While all were trying to rescue themselves and their belongings, I was busy drawing flowers on the floor with the flooded water of rain. "Sandhya", who was sitting beside me, grabbed my hand with a huge force and began lecturing me about, "why and how it is bad to play with rain water". 

 She was from an orthodox family and trained with many rules and regulations, definitely more than us. But this time it was beyond my resilience and I slapped on her face as a reflex consequence of my piled up annoyance . The Intensity was loud and alarming, the whole class came to a pause. Girls laughed mockingly. Her haters looked satisfied and gave me encouraging looks. Whereas she retained her half red face till the bell rings. Though I felt like a culprit, I was sure, ‘She deserved that.’. ...

Sometimes we can not resist our outrage if our friends act like our super parents and to be specific just to annoy, "You". She had made her face in every possible ridiculous way, just to make me realize what a humongous blunder I had commited that day.

Sometimes, she turned out to be even more wacky , just for fun. Like, "if I don't know a correct answer and tried to copy from somewhere, her enthusiasm would be above 100 percent and she would threaten me to bring it to light, if I won't share the answer with her". Wherever I went I found her before me, laughing at me and making fun of me.

Foggy mornings of winter, hot summer afternoons, earthy smells of rain, every season was full of her chatter. Our teachers could forget to punish us but she could never forget to annoy me. When I became tired of her, I thought about accepting her as she was, but then she used to do more unimaginable things, leaving me dumbstruck.

Unlike me she was a sportswoman with stronger muscles and could beat up any one, who dares to mess with us. But it's rare to like a masculine girl, unless you have an intense inclination for her. And though she hardly beat me, I believed she was a hindrance to my stature.

But as I tried to escape from her, the 7th board exam came closer.

I remember she had no such impulse for rain, but that day we sat together and watched the full rainbow blooming in the distant cloudy sky. That was one of many painful days, when we got punished for home work. 

After the exam our paths were dissociated. I came to the city and she continued her study there.

There were no more headaches from any tittle tattle. No more roaming into the wilderness. Not a single peaceful rainbow showed again and I never got back that piece of me, which had been lost in that time with her. 

We grew up apart. But that doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side. Our roots will always be tangled. 

For a girl like me, my life was always steady and untouched of any things other than being a good girl. And she was just like a rainbow, full with all colours of charm and liveliness. Our association was so exceptional where she poured all her colors into my life and I really feel great that I met her.