George.

There is only one person who can figure it out and share this Post to George, and If It’s you, S, please don’t.
For once, a humorous post.
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And there I sat, contemplating my meaningless existence in this vivid world, when George* danced into my life.
Wait, this sounds too dramatic.
I must begin again.
I joined my tuitions 2 months after the rest. George hadn’t come during the first few days. The first day when he did, however, he was fashionably late. The first thing he did, apart from showing his goofy smile, was to touch the feet of the teacher. Now, in India, touching the feet of elders is tradition,  a mark of respect; Not that we practice it much in our modern society. He does it everyday, cracking the whole class up.

It was couple of weeks later, when we sat together one night, did we speak.
Wait, it’s getting too dramatic once again.
We spoke for the first time that day, laughing at each others jokes, not paying attention to the class. The next day, the same happened.

‘Twas after a fortnight when things took a rapid turn up North for us.
You know the drill (I hope).
I sat at the same place as I did when I first saw him. He was behind me. I received a tap- The Hand of George was pointing to the wall on my right.

Now, as the classroom has been in use by teenagers for above 10 years, it has a number of wise words and illustrations at several places. (Everywhere).

The Hand Of George, for your benefit, pointed towards some choice words.

I giggled. It reminded me of grade 8 and 9, when I and my friends did precisely the same things before being asked to ‘Grow Up’. ( We haven’t; We pretend to).

He then pointed the Hand of George to an illustration of a hand showing only one finger being raised.

The finger, for your benefit, is neither the symbolic ring finger, nor the more practical index finger, yet its the most powerful. Metaphorically.

I, George and my Friend continued to laugh. Needless to say, the teacher’s glare was fixated on us.

Now, I was one of the brighter (pardon my lack down-to-Earthedness, I’ve always enjoyed the sky) pupils of her class, and I expected her to let me off quiet easily. On the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, however, she turned out to be impartial to the luminosity of her students ( No, I don’t major in Physics).

She singled me out. After a slightly tense dialogue, involving my dear mother being informed of my lack of feigned attention, she asked me to wait after the class to face her ‘Wrath’.

A spot of psychology: Asking a student to wait after class, IS, a show of weakness.

Among peers, a person may feel embarrassed, but when there isn’t anyone around, a student has time and space to say anything he wishes to. And it means the teacher wants her words to be delivered only to the student. Which makes their arguement weak.

I faced her Wrath. I told her I was concentrating on her lesson as hard as I would if it was Scarlett Johansson teaching us in the black widow suit.
Or a Sunday dress. It’s ScarJo after all.

She didn’t believe me. Maybe because of the example I disposed to her.

I apologised, and she advised me “Stay away from George, he’s bad influence; You’re a ‘focused boy'”.

I agreed enthusiastically, crossing my fingers metaphorically (it was an English tuition after all), I went downstairs, few minutes after the class had ended.

And there he stood. George, a notebook in hand, gazing away at an interesting wall, perhaps.

I didn’t expect him to wait for me, everyone else had run off. He shook my hand and asked me to enunciate the exchange taken place upstairs.

Guffawing at every sentence I spoke, he walked with me towards the metro station. After my enunciation of the above exchange, we exchanged some extremely profound thoughts about school, food, the tuition, food, ambition, game of thrones, girls, food, football, teenage-boy thoughts, people, food, and other everyday stuff.

My drop off point was just a station away, and it came rather too quickly, needless to say. We were still talking as the door opened and I shook The Hand Of George, promising to come for the next class (another story, shorter, and involving some hastily devoured chicken nuggets), and departed.

As the train started moving, walking along the platform I saw George’s face appear again from inside the train.

He grinned his goofy grin.

I raised a finger, which again, wasn’t the practical index finger or the ring finger, but the most powerful. Metaphorically.

The train rushed away, his grin widening at my gesture as he becomes a speck into oblivion.
(Speck into oblivion? Drama Indeed. )
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(Scheduled Post; I’ll get back to you in due time, please feel free to share your thoughts!)
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