{"id":238,"date":"2014-10-01T22:12:15","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T02:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manjithanda.com\/?p=238"},"modified":"2014-10-01T22:49:06","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T02:49:06","slug":"one-day-at-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/?p=238","title":{"rendered":"One Day, at School"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Girls-at-school\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The classroom had begun to smell;
\nit was difficult to figure
\nwhere it was emanating from.
\nFor some time everyone
\nbreathed from mouth
\nand clipped their noses
\nbut the fetidness, as was bound
\nreached the teacher.
\nShe cleared the air around her face
\nthinking somebody had been eating
\nfruit with black salt
\nand expected the miracle of
\nclean, fresh air in a bit.
\nBut nothing of the sort happened.
\nShe darted a questioning look at everyone;
\nalmost everyone giggled.
\nShe stood up and commanded
\nthe class be emptied at once.
\nAs we stepped out, one by one, single file,
\none remained glued to her chair.
\nIt was clear:
\nthere was an accident.<\/p>\n

I was the class head-girl,
\nshe lived close to school
\nand that translated into
\nme walking her to her house
\nso she could \u201cwash\u201d and \u201cchange\u201d.
\nAh the tragedy!
\nThe house door had a lock. . .
\nwhatdowedo whatdowedo now?<\/p>\n

We returned to school
\nmuch to the chagrin of the teacher
\nand amusement of the classmates.
\nSeventh graders can be bullies.
\nI don\u2019t know what was going on
\nin the little head of dear classmate
\nbut I was taking everything personally.
\nI decided to return with her to
\nthe same lock, beating Sun.
\nAfter two hours her mom arrived.
\nI handed her to her.<\/p>\n

Upon reaching school
\nI found my lonely school bag sitting on my desk
\nthe final school bell had rung long back
\nthe school bus had left.<\/p>\n

I started walking to the nearest bus-station;
\nthere was some change given as pocket money in my bag
\nthat I could use for the ticket.
\nThat was the first time
\nI took a civil bus
\nfrom the town of Laal Bazaar;
\nbefore that I\u2019d never travelled alone,
\nbefore that the meaning of \u201cchange\u201d was irrelevant,
\nthe big first was \u201ccompassion\u201d.<\/p>\n

The bus honked
\nand screamed
\nas it took me home.<\/p>\n

(The doodle “Girls at School” has been done with pen and watercolours)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            The classroom had begun to smell; it was difficult to figure where it was emanating from. For some time everyone breathed from mouth and clipped their noses but the fetidness, as was bound reached the teacher. She cleared the air around her face thinking somebody had been eating fruit with black salt and expected the miracle of clean, fresh air in a bit. But nothing of the sort happened. She darted a questioning look…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manjithanda.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}