BEEP BEEP

BEEP BE-

“Okay, a new morning this is.”

I got up and extended my arms upwards. I took a deep breath and sat on the bed.

“I feel butterflies,” I said, holding my stomach. Whenever I thought about what happened last night, I could not help but feel a strange sense of happiness and confidence inside me.

“Could it be that Chhaya had fallen fo-”

I quickly covered my face with my hands and fell on my bed, curling up like a caterpillar.

“No, no, no. This cannot be true.”

If you were to see me, I would look more like a red-faced caterpillar. However, I have never seen one in real life.

“Hehehehe”

I kept giggling like a child for several minutes, still lying on my bed.

“WAKE UP AHAN! You will be late for school,” my mother screamed from the kitchen. It seems her voice could be heard by the neighbours as well.

“YES! I am awake now.”

I controlled myself and got up from the bed.

“Wow, I feel so much better already. Might just skip brushing my teeth today.”

That thought crossed my mind. I mean, they say brushing our teeth makes us feel awake and better concentrated. Right? So I don’t find a reason to waste my precious two minutes pointlessly.

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BRUSH BRUSH

We should always brush our teeth. It has nothing to do with feeling awake and concentrated. That’s just false marketing. Even when you have no toothpaste left at home, you can still brush just with water.

PTHOO

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After finishing my morning routine, I set out for school. I sat on the porch and put on my shoes.

“What is this, Mom?” I asked, pointing to a big box wrapped in cloth that she put beside me.

“Your lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“I had taken off today. I need to go with your dad to attend your aunt’s daughter’s naming ceremony.”

“WHAT?! Why am I not invited?” I stood up facing her now.

“Because you have school.”

“Didn’t you have work then?”

“Don’t argue, Ahan. Your studies take priority over our work. Besides, someone had to attend to acknowledge their invitation.”

“No fair. You guys are going to a feast without me,” I threw my hands up and down.

“It’s not a grand feast, Ahan. Just a light lunch.”

“Awww, why can't I come along?”

“I already said the reason. Besides, you will get to attend the Bhat-Badi ceremony. Eat all you can then.”

Curse you who invented schools. I cannot have a private life now. It just sucks to be a student.

“It’s so unfair,” I lowered my gaze and turned towards the gate.

“You are getting late. Hurry up, or you will have to stand outside class the first thing in the morning.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

I picked up my lunch and put it in my bag. I reached for the door handle and twisted it.

“So you are not back before nightfall, huh?”

“Yes, you know she lives in a different city.”

“Hmph.”

As I opened the door, a strong wind welcomed me. The coats offered by the school are useless. They have no insulation. The school should allow us to wear a sweater underneath, too.

“Take care. I will leave the keys with the neighbourhood aunty.”

“Just give me a spare already!”

“We will give it to you once you turn eighteen.”

What does it have to do with me turning eighteen? Is it some sort of erotic act to carry a spare key with you?

“Bye!”

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HUFF HUFF

I was pedalling to school. It is about 4 kilometres away. Frankly speaking, one should take the public bus for that far, but the buses get too crowded during the evening. One could barely stand inside. I cannot not handle that after being already sucked up by school chores. Cycling is far easier. At least I get to breathe.

The school building was in sight. I was not early today. But there was still some time before the morning assembly. I turned my bicycle towards the entrance of the bicycle parking.

“DAMN!! Man, the fuck is wrong with kids these days?!”

I stopped my bicycle at such a horrendous sight. Someone has managed to topple all the cycles in the parking. It must have been caused by pushing one of them, which then caused a domino effect. Or maybe someone did push them one by one. My school has some crazy kids after all. But the real question is,

“WHERE DO I PARK?!!”

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“Okay, all sorted now.”

I dusted off my hands and then parked my bicycle in the correct spot. I locked it and put the key in my pencil case. Just extra security, you know.

“Oh, wait. I am now running late.”

I hurried towards the classroom, hoping to drop my bag in and reach the assembly in time. Students who don’t make it to the classrooms before assembly have to stand with their bags in the assembly. I didn’t want that to happen. I pushed a few students walking my way off as I ran.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry. I am in a hurry.”

“Sorr-”

THUD

“Aaah! Hey, dude. You have eyes or what? That’s why you should never run in corridors. Ah, man, hurts like hell.”

“Koustav?”

“Ahan? Ghorer shotru Vibhishon!”

He held his head, which had just hit the wall. He squinted his eyes and groaned.

“Hey man, I am getting late here. It was not that loud impact, either,” I tried explaining to him.

He was clearly overreacting.

“You evaluate people’s pain by the sound of the impact?! You psychopath! Come here, I will show you how it actually feels.”

I didn’t pay any attention to his whines and continued running towards the class.

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Morning assembly was over, and we headed back to our classrooms. Koustav kept staring at me the whole time we were on the ground. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was not in love.

“Hey, Koustav. Your head looks swollen. Did you forget putting on the mosquito net last night?” Anirban asked, chuckling.

“Yeah, bro. A huge, ugly mosquito came and bit me. When I asked the reason, he said he wanted to know what sound it made.”

“What are you saying? Were you injected with some kind of venom or what?”

“Ask the mosquito what his sting tastes like. He might sting you once as well.”

“Oh, where is this giant mosquito?”

“He is sitting right beside you.”

“OH MY GOD!!”

Anirban screamed at the sight of me and moved away from me, squashing Koustav in the corner.

“Boka, I cannot breathe. Move!” Koustav tried pushing Anirban, but he was too heavy for him.

“But there is a giant mosquito there.”

“Enough, you guys. I did say it was not that big impact. I didn’t do it on purpose either.”

“Aaaah! The mosquito can talk. He is threatening me!”

“You runts.”

I curled up my fingers in a fist and hit them both. They tried to resist by hitting me as well. It erupted into a dog-fight now.

“GOOD MORNING, SIR!!”

We stood up at once and fixed our shirts.

“Some applications of Trigonometry, exercise 1, fifth question.”

We opened our books and began taking notes.

“A kite is flying at a height of 60 m above the ground. The string attached to the kite is temporarily tied to a point on the ground.”

The squeaking sound of chalk rubbing against the board was filling the room’s ambience. It was the only sound besides his voice that was permitted in the room. At times, he would rub the chalk so furiously that its screech would become unbearable.

“The inclination of the string with the ground is 60 degrees. Find the length of the string, assuming that there is no slack in the string.”

He finished writing the question on the board and turned towards us.

“This question is not worth solving for me. You have already solved several questions in this exercise that are similar to this one. I would like one of you to come on the board and solve it.”

He lowered his glasses on his nose and scanned the classroom. Instead of picking someone to solve it, I feel like he was waiting until someone voluntarily raised their hand.

“Sir, I can do it.”

“Good, Ahan. Come over to the board and solve it.”

“Psst, are you suicidal?” Anirban whispered.

I got up and walked towards him. He handed me the chalk and pointed towards the board. I lightly bowed to him and began writing on the board.

TIK TAK SWISH

Man, writing on the board this close was much harder than I expected. From far away where I sit, the letter looks so small. But up close, they are huge. I need to match my handwriting to the letter size Tarak Sir uses.

“Could you make the letters larger?” Ishika said, pointing towards the board.

You must be kidding me! I am already writing them ten times larger than what I write in my notebook. She must be blind not to see them from the first bench.

“Can you see them, Koustav?” Tarak sir asked, pointing towards him.

“Ah, well. Gimme, hat…”

HAHAHAHHA

What?! He read even the first word wrong! How could he read “Given that” wrong? We have been writing that in almost every question for the past few weeks. Is he doing this on purpose? That jerk, Koustav.

“Ahan, write larger.” Tarak sir asked.

Tarak sir should not ask the blind to read.

“Okay, sir.”

I erased the solution and adjusted my writing. I felt like I was drawing instead of writing. Flipping the chalk up and down in smooth motions. The chalk squealed and screeched against the blackboard, leaving a path of its trail behind.

“Ah.”

The dust from the chalk got into my eyes. I was writing too close to the board. A rookie mistake. I rubbed my eyes and blinked a few times before moving slightly away from the board. I then drew a big triangle on the board. Well, the sides are not exactly straight. It looked more like a slice of pizza with cheese coming out of its crust. 

This is theta equal to 60 degrees. So this side should be the perpendicular and must be 60 metres. And we need to find the hypotenuse. So perpendicular and theta angle are given, and we need to find the hypotenuse. Hmph. It’s not that hard of a question. It could be solved easily by taking the sine of theta and calculating the hypotenuse.

“Do I keep silent while solving? Explain the solution as you go.”

“Ah, right, sir.”

I turned to face the students.

Wait. Why is everybody staring at me? I feel the immense pressure of standing on stage. The air around me got so heavy that it was hard to utter a word.

“Arghm”

They say that while on stage, the best way to focus is to pick a single person among the audience and keep your eyes fixated on them while explaining. Whom should I choose, whom, whom? Koustav, Anirban. No! Their faces will only make me laugh. Then whom…

“So, it’s given that the balloon is flying at a height of 60 metres, we represent it as the perpendicular.”

“Speak louder.”

“ITS THREAD IS TIED TO THE GROUND, MAKING AN ANGLE OF 60 DEGREES WITH IT. WE REPRESENT IT AS THE THETA ANGLE. WE NEED TO FIND THE LENGTH OF THE STRING, WHICH IS THE HYPOTENUSE OF THIS TRIANGLE.”

I hope it was loud enough.

“Okay, now, you there, second bench. Tell me what we need to do next.” Tarak sir asked one of the girls from the rightmost column.

“Sir, we will find the base using tan theta and then, ah… ummm…”

“And then? After finding the base and perpendicular, what would you do to find the hypotenuse?”

“Oh, we will use the Pythagoras theorem for that.”

“Do you agree, Ahan?”

“No.”

“But, it is the correct method.” Tarak sir stared at me.

“Yes, sir, but there is a better method. We could just take sine instead of tan of theta, and could calculate the hypotenuse right away without needing the Pythagoras theorem.”

“Brilliant! That’s what I was looking for. You, sit down, and Ahan, finish the solution.”

I turned towards the board and continued writing on it.

“So, sine theta is P/H. We have been given theta and P in the question. After putting their values in the equation, we move H to LHS and everything else to RHS. Sine of 60 degrees is √3/2. So H comes out to be 120/√3.”

Hearing Tarak sir praise my method raised my confidence a lot.

“To get rid of the √3, we need to rationalise this. So, multiply both the numerator and denominator by √3, and H comes out to be 40√3. The value of √3 equals 1.732, so the final answer is 40 ⨉ 1.732 equals 69.28 metres.”

I finished writing and turned towards the rest of the class. I briefly glanced at Tarak sir.

Please don’t be the wrong answer. Please don’t. After all that effort.

“The answer given in the book is 40√3 only. You went an extra step to find the answer in decimals. Although √3 is irrational and cannot be represented as a number, we can still approximate it to 1.732. So the answer is acceptable as a close approximation. Good job, Ahan. Go back to your seat.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Okay, so we will now move on to the next question. I hope this question was easy for you all, so there could be no doubts.”

I bowed to him and went towards my seat. Ishika gazed lightly at me and then went back to looking at the board.

Phew! Man, what a troubling thing to do. My hands were full of dust from the chalk. I brushed them off and rubbed my hands with my handkerchief.

“Yo, man! You are a genius.”

SMACK

“Aww, why are you up to physical assault today?” Koustav groaned as he held his head in his hands.

“Get a pair of glasses already.”