ShE!

Preplanned

“Shyam wears specs and Sam won’t. That’s their difference,” krithi said.

“Oh, I’ll keep that in mind”

The first word that came out of shyam is “I’m s..orry”

“For what?”

“For being rude to you”

“When?”

This startled everyone.

“Smrithi, I need to ask you something”. Radha asked after seeing Shyam searching for words.

“Ok. Go ahead”

“You lied in order to curb my fears?”

“I said you’ll know. Finally, you know,” smrithi winked. “I know you will”

“But how?”

“I was eavesdropping”. She said in a low voice by closing her mouth partly with her hand.

“When?”

“When our class teacher spoke about you to the other in the staff room”

“What did she say?”

“She said you are good at speaking about that kind of stuff like the speech you spoke but your fear is stopping it from doing it and you are not trying to come out of your hell”

“Is that shell?” Sam whispered to Shyam in ears. But it somehow reached smrithi.

“You heard it right, Sam. I said hell not shell.”

“Oh!. Sharp ears” sam whispered in an even more low voice.

“Thank you, Sam” smrithi said in return.

“That’s cool” Sam said to himself with his mouth shut. But still he looked at her long to make sure she heard nothing. Smrithi turned to him and smiled. “She heard that?” He asked himself again, but this time he stumped shyam’s leg harder.

“HUH!!. What the hell are you doing, Sam?”. Shyam jumped up with knees in his hand.

“Sorry sorry sorry” Sam calmed him and made to sit.

“Back to the topic” Radha said. Her dark eyes flared angrily at Sam for the distraction. “What do you mean by hell, not shell?”

“Yeah. Actually, she said shell, but I corrected it as hell because you are not in a shell. You are actually thinking as if everything out there is hell,”. She said pointing at the window. “When you change the way you see it, then you’ll know you are not in a shell”

“So you are not telling to come out of my shell. Are you?”

“I’m asking to change the way you see the world as hell. When you do that, you’ll come out your shell, eventually.”

“Oh god!!" Something strikes Radha.  "We actually came here to ask about other things?”. Radha said searching for the paper she wrote the day before. And then she read like a TV reporter. “I apologise for being rude to you”. She continued reading without looking up. “I wish I knew that before”.

“Hey wait, what you are doing?” Smrithi asked, giggling.

“I’m apolo..,”

“See, whoever is in your situation will do that. Okay?. And importantly, I didn’t take it personally. I promise,”. Smrithi placed her hand on Radha’s hand and gently tapped it.

“But why are you doing this to me? You are not my best friend and I did nothing to you. What you get in return for doing this?. Class teacher knows your plan? Is she a part of it? How did you manage to do that?” Radha asked in one breath.

Smrithi blinked.

“Hey sorry, she will burst out all the question into one when she is nervous or curious. You can answer one by one,” Shyam said.

“I’m sorry too. It happens out of control sometimes,” Radha said, abashed.

“Oh, it’s ok. Can you please repeat?. It was too fast,” smrithi said, scratching her head.

Shyam grabbed the paper from her and read out slowly.

“I did that to you because I want to hear you. It’s good to hear when someone talks passionately about something from bottom of their heart and yeah, I’m not your best friend but I felt like that. And that feeling doesn’t ask why I need to do that. It’s just made me to do it. That’s it.”

“Just do it and feel it. It’s our philosophy,” Sam said.

“Feel it and then do it. It’s mine,” smrithi said.

“And to answer your next question, I do get something in return”

“What?”

“Your speech!!. That was great. You made many people to think. And class teacher doesn’t know everything.I just ask her to say Today is not your day. And I think she added something more. The speech is actually the day before yesterday. I said it before in order to ready yourself both physically and mentally. You would’ve crumpled if you did everything in one day”

“That was a perfect plan,” Shyam said in bewilderment.

“So I deciphered it right and everything is preplanned” Radha said in squeaky voice.

“Yeah, you are. I need not manage to do this. I love to do such things so the path is always open. And I think that answers your last question. Anything else?”

“You are talking like Radha,” krithi said.

“No. I’m not even close. Does gurukulam taught you this?” Radha asked.

“Maybe”

“Im really sorry for that day. I..” Shyam started.

“Not every friend will stand for their friends. I’m happy for that, Shyam. You should be proud to have friends like this, Radha”

“Yeah, i know,” Radha said with a broad smile. “We like to know more about gurukulam.”

“And also that weird book,” Sam said.

Shyam pinched his lap. “Sorry that book.... not weird” sam stammered in the name of covering it up.

“It’s my pleasure. But I think the lunch hour is over. Tomorrow for sure”

To be continued.....