Hang On

Many of my friends have this fantastic hidden talent which ebbs out irrepressibly exactly when the circumstance is such, that this particular attribute of their personality should stay safely locked inside a huge castle with a huge door (that is locked) replete with a fire-breathing dragon and a surrounding moat for added security. They can, at certain instants, behave very stupidly. Much later, when everything is settled and peaceful again, they claim contrarily to public opinion that they did not behave stupidly and that it was a mistake, most people could quite easily have made.

If I were to make a list of all the people blessed with this terrific ability, one particular person would effortlessly top it. He has proved, over the years, that he can behave with alarming consistency in the stupidest possible manner exactly when the opportunity to do so, is sprinting away from the door hoping against hope that he would not call to the fore this particular trait, for his own sake. If I were to make another list of all the stupid things he has done, one particular set of actions of his, takes the numero uno position easily.

I speak of a time when we were in tenth standard and still in school. We were young, immature, sweet, innocent, little imps back then. In the mornings of every weekend, we went to a coaching class. It was like a weekly picnic for us. This place was around 20 kms away and around sixty of us went there via a school bus. We used to leave at around six in the morning and return by two in the afternoon. I know that most readers would set the frequency of the emotions in their minds to grievous pity for the hard working students just about to give their board exams. But it would be safe to say that most of us do not deserve it. There were people who benefitted academically from this excursion but we were not part of that select group. We went, we sat and we came. Unfortunately, we neither saw nor conquered. Alexander, the Great would have been very disappointed.

What used to happen was that en-route to the class our bus made a small stop at a certain place for around five minutes. A smaller bus used to go to a specific part of the city and the students of that bus would alight and get on to our bus and onward we would proceed to the glorious class. On most occasions, the big bus was earlier than the smaller one at the stipulated destination. Hence, the small stop had to be made. A lot has been said about the freshness of early morning air. One fortuitous morning, three of us decided to get a first hand taste of this wonderful offering of nature during the small stop.

We stepped out and stepped onto the divider. I do not recall why but we started singing and dancing on that plain piece of concrete. Now, you must be thinking that this must be it. Three morons shaking their legs and singing at six in the morning. But you are horribly mistaken. What followed was even worse. During the course of this early morning exercise, the other bus came and the guys from that one boarded our bus. This event was considered serious enough by only one of us. This intelligent dude ran back to our vehicle. We decided to take our own time. I think the words exchanged were that the bus was our fathers’ or something to that effect. That the bus was indeed not the property of either of our fathers became clear a few moments later. The bus started moving and that, too at a reasonable pace. I think everybody forgot about us. This is when we decided to make a run for it. These were the old days when we had no mobiles, no money and nothing that would be of any use to us if we were stranded in the middle of a desert except what we owned in between the ears. Missing the bus in such grandiose fashion would be incorrigible, to state the least.

The only reason I managed to get to the bus was that I was thinner than my friend. My first instinct was to inform the driver to stop. But then I saw something that totally caught me off guard. I saw my friend’s head floating right outside one of the windows. It was the first time that I saw his tiny hair fluttering in the breeze. Something was horribly wrong. His head stayed there for five seconds and then it was gone, as mysteriously as it had appeared. The bus stopped and I found my friend getting up from the road with a face, contorted in pain. He could not move his right hand. With his left ulna and radius though, he was able to communicate that he was screwed. He had realised early in the chase that he could not match the bus in pace. So he tried to outwit it in guile. He jumped onto a window and hung on like a monkey.

Even in the face of such abysmal stupidity, his brain still had the powers to register the stupidity of some other people involved in the incident. An innocent girl, belonging to the group who reaped great academic benefits from this bit of fabulous recreation, was sitting next to the window in discussion. Instead of deducing the situation and asking the driver to stop the bus, she did something typical of the fairer sex. She screamed her lungs out. Apparently, there was a request from the other side to encourage her to do the sensible thing. Her response was to indicate the presence of the head to the girl, who was sitting right next to her, who also belonged to the select group (actually led it). She responded in exactly the same manner as her friend had only a few seconds ago. To top it all, they ended the scream session with one final flurry in which they screamed together. It was hopelessly useless as the driver could not hear their cries of anguish. After this, my dear friend claimed that he got tired or bored or a bit of both. This is when he decided to let go. He fell on his right arm which broke, I assume, instantly.

Even after this entire fiasco, when you think that his quota of stupidity is exhausted for a year, he did another ridiculous thing. He refused to go home. He was worried that his mother would not take the breaking of his arm in a motherly manner and would unnecessarily create a racket that would wake up the entire neighbourhood on a peaceful Sunday morning. So, he attended all the classes and went back home in the same bus with us. I believe his mother did not take the breaking of his arm kindly even at two in the afternoon. Eventually, his arm underwent surgery and he had to write his ensuing examinations with his left hand. Fortunately, he recovered before the board exams and managed to attempt them with his better hand.

It seems incredibly funny in hindsight but as and when the events were unfolding dynamically, it was anything but. Stupidity, though, continues to be this particular friend of mine’s forte although he cannot possibly match the illustrious standards he has set for himself.