Nimmu and Missing Friend Read online

but that day she couldn’t turn to school. Instead of her the drawing master came and he was lean and thin, experienced teacher, he also received good teacher award from India government. Fortunately he was aware of that school and the condition of chairs in the school, so he first checked it, oh god! All of them were saved. That day Nimmu felt that he was out of sin. He asked malik, that what is, a good teacher award means? Malik replied, it means he will not hit us with stick and the maximum he would only advice!

  Students have understood that they could have done harm to a good person, so they have now become more or less quiet. Gopu apart from having new shirts , he also had great accessories also. The students had never seen that, and nimmu had seen that once with his father, It was shangai hero Pen, its great fountain pen with golden color cap and green color bottom, and its nib, nothing like that, more than that it sucks ink from a bottle just like that. Almost all the students were next to gopu to see that phenomenon that how a pen itself can suck the ink. Nimmu was hesitating to ask gopu to write and check how good was that pen, but gopu wanted nimmu to try that and nimmu did it. It was so smooth in that paper and it never spilled ink haywire, and was travelling like their scooter in that paper. He asked gopu, how come its so smooth? Gopu replied that its because of the nib and its sharpness. Next day, nimmu was trying hard with a stone to design his pen’s nib to give similar shape, and he did get some shape only with 10 differences and then tried writing in his note pad, wow, just the paper was torn!

  Aarib was worried one day and was not talking much, nimmu asked him what was the reason. Aarib told him that he didn’t do home work and the science teacher would expect it, and she would definitely beat him. Nimmu knows that normally the teacher don’t spend more than 15 minutes in checking the homework note, that too many a times on sample basis. He told aarib to keep the notebook on the top, because the teacher has the habit of pulling the notebook from down. They both succeeded! But for the next class also aarib was worried, because he didn’t do the History home work also, however now he had learned a trick, he told nimmu that he would manage. Gopu was listening to this and told them, this time it won’t be like that, in fact you should keep your notebook on just below the middle, because the History teacher has the habit pulling the notebooks from middle, top and bottom. They actually succeeded! Nimmu and gopu both were good in observation, they watch things closely and they would never commit something in study life, unless they were sure.

  Malik and aarib always was with nimmu, whereas nimmu and gopu had much better understanding, they all somehow started settling in an equation. Charles somehow wants to be closer to Gopu, but he by nature was not very comfortable with Nimmu. Gopu influenced by nimmu, had joined the evening tuition conducted by Nagaraj. They leave the school and on the way nimmu would go to his home and get ready and then join the tuition, whereas gopu, aarib and malik would go to the tuition directly. They had competition in running and they were not bothered about those vehicles come on the way. They had so much joy in running in those streets!

  In tuition it was pretty evident that nimmu and gopu seems to be brighter than other students. They both had very good study companionship. Most of the times the teacher will ask them to study a particular lesson and ask them to remember and tell/answer the questions. These two are the ones who finishes it first, and they had lots of internal competition, they used to set target time to memorize and they both tell it to each other and if they were fine, they go and tell to Nagaraj. There was healthy competition growing. The wives of nagaraj really liked these two guys and most of the time they used to get some nice snacks in evening and lots of good words for these guys and they always wanted their sons to grow like these two.

  Though gopu was attending the tuition regularly it was getting difficult for him, as the sunset was happening early in November and he needs to walk back 3 miles. One day, he came in nice red color bi-cycle, with nice lights and electric bell. Almost all the students were there next to the cycle and trying to touch and check that out. Few of them wanted to ride the cycle also, but it was nimmu, whom gopu wanted to ride his cycle. Nimmu was not aware of how to ride a cycle, as a matter of fact, he tried riding cycle 3 years before, but he could never succeed. After 2 attempts, nimmu’s brother (was the trainer) told nimmu, unless he falls down and see some blood, he would never learn. That was it, after that nimmu never learnt to ride cycle as he was pretty afraid to see his blood. Now when gopu was asking, nimmu told that, he don’t ride cycles with red color as that’s not his lucky color. Instead he offered another option that he would run behind the bi-cycle. They did! He ,aarib and malik were running behind the cycle as gopu was riding it to tuition.

  The school didn’t have any excursion or educational tour activities, as most of the poor students can’t afford it, and they don’t want half the students to go for any tour. So they did arrange to attend a science exhibition in college, but for that students had to go to that college in nearby town. Though the cost was less, for many students it was nagaraj, who was bearing the cost. The students never bothered about the event, but it was about traveling with their close friends in bus and talking to them and shouting with them, were the important moments. The students took a regular bus and found some place to stand and in another 20 minutes they reached the college. Nagaraj was directing the students to keep quiet and observe and note down what they see. Nimmu and many of the students saw thinks which they never thought of, the claps based song player, claps based light, volcano eruption demonstration, manual power generators, magnetic trains, earth quake simulation, burning camper steamer boat in water and so on. It was a dream for them, as they moved to the biology lab, aarib came down running crying, gopu asked him what happened? Aarib told, it was a real human skeleton in the lab, and it was looking at aarib, closely. Aarib told that his mother always says that there will be ghost which will come as skeleton and will catch him, if he don’t eat properly. Nimmu got bit of fear, as he also was not good in eating! But with all the guts they wanted to go and check was that real, they moved to that lab. There was good breeze as the monsoon was near, the dummy skeleton was moving in the breeze as that was only hooked from the up. Now nimmu and gopu ran from there and told nagaraj that there is ghost in it, nagarj got really angry and he started advising them, but that’s enough for the others to communicate and that too, such a hot topic on ghosts!

  The monsoon came; the village gets rain for most of the days in those two months. The rain will be mostly intermittent and sometimes heavily. The students can’t sit in the ground under the tree, like birds which goes and hides somewhere to prevent rain falling on them, the students would be moved, grouped and sit in the corridor next to the higher grade students. The students were happy with monsoon, it was pouring on most of the days, so the pupil were grouped and goes to sit in corridor, and mostly the classes would be for namesake. Nimmu, gopu, aarib and malik always tries to be in same group. Charles, somehow he also now a days sits next to them, in fact he either sits in the front or back of gopu. For students, monsoon means, unexpected leave! The school would be closed whenever there were high rains. Rarely could they announce holidays on the earlier day, but most of the time, it would be on the same day with writing on a black board, that school closed today because of heavy rainfall. Nimmu likes to go and read that sentence and then come back home, it gave of lot of happiness, as that was a nice surprise. But for others who traveled for 10 miles and so on, in that rain with malfunctioning umbrella, it might not be that nice, except they escaped one day session. Sometimes the school announces holiday for the afternoon, and since they don’t have any public announcement systems, it was through the count of bell. If the bell rang four times means, that four sessions in the morning completed and business as usual in the afternoon, however if the bell rang for five times, that means its holiday in the afternoon. In order to get that five times bell, nimmu prays to his god most of the times. He knows that if the rain comes after the second session and continues till the fourth session mea
ns, mostly it would be a off in the afternoon. His praying was to ensure that the rain should not become drizzle, nearer to fourth session. Whenever he saw sun in the second session, he really used to get tensed, he would pray to sun god to go away and the rain god to shower heavily. Most of the times, he spent time in looking at the rain density and that too he measures that with black background, so it will be clear for him to check. He did get few half days off in that November month.

  Gopu likes to discuss on movies and many of those students were pretty happy to discuss that. One day gopu came and told nimmu that he likes bruce lee and no one could match bruce lee. Nimmu have seen few movies of Jackie chan like police story, drunken master, etc and he was not aware about Bruce lee, he felt ashamed a bit, but ready to follow his friend’s guidance. He went along with his father to nearby town and got a Bruce lee video from library. He saw the first movie “Enter the Dragon”. He was amazed by the actions, and next day it was a big discussion. However nimmu’s