The Case of the Elusive Blue Pencil
Disclaimer: This personal anecdote of ‘first true love’ does not portray the writer in her best light. However, the writer has taken all possible measures to remain faithful to the story as it happened. Characters’ names have not been altered, as the statute of limitations has well & truly passed.
It was the summer of ’99 and I was five-years old. I was in Upper-Kindergarten, and it was my first day back after the summer break. I was no longer the green-behind-the-ears, little kid from LKG who secretly wished her mother didn’t leave her behind with the other crying-howling-bawling- their-lungs-out-kids.
No, it was a brand new year and I had been gifted the most coveted Faber Castell 12 color pencil set. I brought it to school, sharpened to perfection and had even labelled it with my name (capitalism & territorialism start young, you see).
Now, I had the habit of monitoring my fellow classmates for signs of unruliness or misbehavior. On any given day, I would make at least three different trips from my bench to the teacher’s table, to report on infractions such as talking when the teacher says, “Pin drop silence”, eating snacks before the allotted snack break, getting spellings wrong (writing alphabets in mirror image), and the like… Clearly, I was ‘popular’ among my classmates.
On this particular day, I went up to the class teacher, Raja Miss to report on one such incident of grave import. She nodded appreciatively and motioned for me to get back to my seat. When I returned, I sensed something amiss immediately — my color pencil set was missing. I searched through my desk drawer & bag. Holding back tears, I marched back to her table.
I had been tasked with the supreme responsibility of meting out justice. The weight of this duty lay heavy on my shoulders. This was not the opportune time for a crying episode.
Raja Miss listened to her plaintiff’s appeal with rapt attention. Most of the class turned silent too. The class bully, Shiroshi (at least that’s how I pronounced her name at the time), looked red with worry. My best friend, also named Sneha, was full of righteous indignation on my behalf. Even Yash, the class chatterbox, seemed curious as to how the scene would play out.
Raja Miss got to her feet, her flowy sari billowing around her tall frame. She was a woman of action and not one to view such matters lightly. She prompted the (yet to be unmasked) defendant to return my pencils, if they had taken it. I looked around the class, searching for the culprit, but nobody came forward to own up to their lapse of judgement.
She then rounded up the usual suspects- rosy-faced (was it just a healthy glow or was she hiding something more sinister?) Shiroshi and George, whose chin was newly plastered after a near-fatal episode of jumping between desks. Both of them stared at her blankly and repeated that they had nothing to do with it. (This was my first taste of playing ‘Bluff’, though I didn’t know it at the time). As the two remained firm about their statements, she called for the entire class to search the room for my pencils.
By now, my resolve had become shaky. Tears welled up in my eyes and I was just about ready to throw a fit.
That was when a few of the pencils were recovered from behind the last bench. I was still behind on numbers & counting, so I wasn’t sure how many were yet to be recovered. I wiped my tears and joined the others in the search. I remember recovering the yellow and green ones myself. Soon enough, only the blue pencil remained elusively missing.
Resigned to this fact, I got back to my seat and arranged my 11 pencils in its box. Classes resumed, though I can recall none of what was taught on that day. It was almost time for the van to come drop us home, when Anuj, a boy whom I had hardly noticed until that point, came up to me and produced a blue pencil from his pocket. I don’t remember what followed, what I said to him, or even if I managed to thank him.
All I remember was that he had a smart mushroom haircut (which was all the rage back then) and wore a crisply ironed white shirt & shorts. His red tie was the exact length it should be, not dangling at knee-length like George’s.
I returned home that day, intent on relaying the day’s events to my parents. Come lunchtime, I sat with them at the table and promptly informed them that I would like to marry Anuj, the boy who ever so kindly returned me my blue pencil.
They mulled over the proposal and spoke in a few hushed words I couldn’t completely decipher. A smile was surreptitiously exchanged, then silence... My father looked at me intently and said, “Let us discuss this further when you are older”. This seemed like a mature enough response and I was duly satisfied.
In the coming days, we had a Forest-themed ‘Show & Tell’, where I remember bringing a stuffed gorilla and Anuj (or more likely, his mum) had created a miniature forest. My gorilla found its pride of place among the lush green canopy of this forest. (This gorilla accompanied me for some years since, until it was misplaced during our home shifting in ’04).
It was a busy year, with learning the alphabet, memorizing rhyming songs and counting up till 50. I soon forgot all about Anuj and didn’t even mind that I was not paired with him for the Annual Dance.
Ten years later, I remember telling my friends Haritha and Sarmishta about Anuj, my ‘first true love’. The two of them managed to find him on Facebook; to their dismay, he was going two years strong with his high school girlfriend.
And that was the fatal end of my first love story. A suitable plot twist that I can now think of, is that Anuj may have been the one who hid my pencils in the first place. But, let us not sully this tale of love & missing pencils with such ideas.
Let us leave it be as a little testament to how, as kids, our hearts were big, our memories forgiving and how each new day brought its own share of adventures!
I think there’s no such material like our childhood, which makes a storyteller out of everyone of us! Who was your first ‘true love’? Would love to hear more stories and write more of them too…
Reach out to me in the Comments section or mail me at snehaens@gmail.com
