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According to my own timescale, I suppose I got my first friend – a very endearing one – in my 3rdgrade. That’s rite! Because, honestly I don’t remember much of my life before that. So when I entered my classroom the first day, I walked straight to the backbench. Yeah! Ok! I was late. There she was! Anna Poorni, sat there smiling at me. I can still remember how it made me feel – a pleasant relief that I guess you will feel when someone smiles such a sweet warm one. Then we became friends – the best, of course. As simple as that. She was the only reason for me to look forward to school. Everyday went flying even amidst our classes – 3rd grade syllabus kind of sucks, you know. My friends now are pretty much sure about the severity of my laziness. But back then, she was the sole person to understood me. Ah! When I crashed my homework the previous day, I was assigned to write an imposition – the teacher freaked me out with that – one hundred lines of something, well, I think it was the answer which I got wrong. You can guess why I don’t remember the lines, yeah! She wrote me the imposition even before I asked – Okie, I was planning to ask her. That was the sweetest thing anyone ever did to me then. I was overwhelmed so much that I remember I got her two fivestars the same day - oh com’on you know how precious fivestars were back then when we were kids.
But all of a sudden, I came to know that things between me and Anna were not going to be the same anymore. One morning of March, I was officially informed by my mom that I was going to be shifted to a new school for my 4th grade. There was nothing in my mind except Anna. I mean,what’s wrong with the school? What’s the wrong with my grades? Why can’t I just continue my schooling there? I have got my best friend there for crying out loud. But all my cries and reasoning went in vain. They have already decided. I still remember the result of all my cries. I spent a week – a whole awful one – in a hospital for running a temperature about 102’. Whatever, in the end, I was shifted. But I did not realize that the worst was yet to come.
It was the first July, since I got into my new school, when my mom said something about visiting my old school once again so that we can get some certificates back; I was really jumping thinking about Anna. It was a week day and I was 100 percent sure that I would find her around the only shop near my school – my old school. And it was then when I saw her, “Anna!! “ I cried. She smiled the same old smile that sent a joy of reunion inside me. But then, I happened to see something else too. A hand, that was wound around her waist. “Hey! Moni! This is Anu. Anu! This is Moni!” That was all she said, before my mom grabbed me saying it was time to go. I understood I no longer belonged there. And clearly, someone else had taken my place. I can not even regret or scream. That was wrong. So I smiled one last time at her as I sincerely tried to hide my tears. It was my first heartbreak.
