Srinagar RockeD?!

The year went by, we were supposed to go to class 8th then. I was a bit let down by the fact that Kumud ma'am had left the school as well. So we were going to have a new science teacher. Her name was Miss Nusrat. From the first day I made a very good impression on her. I wanted to be number one in class and for that i needed to be in the good books of the teachers. The teacher who hated me the most was probably my english teacher. She knew that i was okay at academics and sometimes deliberately gave me less marks in the tests. My maths teacher was also kinda okay. She didn't know much math but posed as if she knew everything.

When the results of the first test were out, i was declared second in class. I was elated. I had beaten all of the class, except one. Her name was vishata. She topped the class quite unexpectedly. Our social studies teacher was more than lenient to girls and would always increase their marks whenever they went to him. I think that was the reason she beat me. Unfortunately vishata was not able to sit in the second test, due to which i topped the class. But the talk of the class was that i topped because vishata wasnt there. I was not at all pleased. I wanted them to know that i deserved the 1st place. In the forthcoming tests, i stood first despite of vishata sitting in the tests. No one was ahead of me. I was on cloud nine. I was soon going to discover another of my traits, the sin named pride. I took the victory to my head easily. It kept me from going on later.

During class 8th a few new admissions came into our class. One of them was Anil kumar. We became good friends pretty soon. He was probably one of the best friends i ever had. I shared everything with him. At home i had plenty of friends. Surinder and vijay the closest ones. We used to play cricket after school. Surinder is now undertaking training in IMA(indian military academy). I have lost conact with vijay though. One of the other new admissions was a girl named Malvika. I must say she was fat but still managed to look good. One of our classmates had a crush on her. A big row was created out of it, the parents of both the students were called and the students were counselled. Although the matter was resolved, a bit of bitterness was left.

Once in class 8th, a small feud turned into an ugly fight in class. Two groups of boys started fighting. In the process, a boy named Wasim threw the duster towards another student. The latter dodged it and the duster went on to hit the blackboard. The glass blackboard was shattered. Later we all were summoned by the principal. He told the culprit to come out else the whole class would have to bear the fine. Anil said that he'd tell wasim's name. I advised him not to, coz we didn't know what wasim would do to him afterwards. The matter was resolved later and the school paid for the repair.

Another terrible incident took place during the year. It was sometime in the evening. I was getting ready to go to play. Suddenly we heard a loud crash. It sounded like an airplane had crashed on the road running in front of our house. Quite a few windows of the colony were shattered. Later we were told that a 16 year old boy had driven to the gate of the cantonment in a maruti. He didn't have a proper indentification, so he tried to force his way into the cantt. Carrying 30 kgs of rdx, he exploded it all on being stopped at the gate. Nothing was left of the gate, the car and a few of the guards. We were all shaken by the incident. Later the gate was fortified and the security tightened.

My mom was pretty happy with my academic show. She began trusting me as she once did. I was happy. It was then that dad got promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel and got posted to amritsar.

I was in class 9th then and had given the first tests. The results came out and i was in shock. I had been beaten badly by jitinder. The guy who used to be second. It was a result of the 'pride' that had been building inside me. Good for me that we were moving to another place where i would have to start from scratch. I didn't even go to take my result as i didn't wanna show my loser face to the class i had topped for so long.