The boy who lived....

 A young boy climbed up the aisle to the stage in the morning assembly on the 1st day of our secondary session,  he cleared his throat before starting to recite a Hindi poem in chaste and fluent way.

       "Mom who is this guy??" i asked my mom who was also a teacher in the same school i studied  in
       "Son,he is tanmay, he will be your classmate from this year, he is manju teacher's son"
       " He is so nice on stage" i said
        "isnt he,you know he used to stammer at a young age??"
        "ohhhh....but he doesnt stammer now....how??
        "Hard work to get out of a bad situation is what he did"
        "ok"
We all proceeded to our classes after our section were announced, since he was as tall as me i approached him and sat next to him.

           "You are seema aunty's son naa?? Hi i am tanmay" he said with a wide grin and a loud voice
            "Yeah i am abhishek"
            " I know"
            "Ok take this" he said with a melody chocolate in hand
            "uhhhhhh okay thanks" after some resistance i accepted the chocolate from him

                I started enjoying his company more and more. So much so that i used to look forward to the next day to spend time with him. We shared many interests which included hatred towards girls( How stupid i was, and how diagonally opposite i am now), hating homeworks ,bad handwriting, passion for going on stage and laughing aloud at silly jokes. We used to play cricket in the evening together. And sometimes we even studied together. My mom taught us English and social while his mom Hindi and Sanskrit. The quarterly exams came by. He to my surprise topped the class and i barely made it to the top 10. He turned out to be much more than what i was. We did share interests but he was better at them . He was better at handling the stage, hating the girls to the level of having a fist fight with them which i never could do and later it turned he was much better at studies than me.

               We never fought, but when our mom's went for a picnic with 10th std to ooty they took both of us along. And it was there that we started fighting. The fights were always petty, like who will get to seat at the window, or why i am sharing my bed with my mom rather than with him. One moment we used to fight and the next moment we were together.This all continued till 8th std.And yes he kept on topping till 8th std.

            In 9th std i got into different division due to my choice of elective subject. Slowly 9th std passed by and i became less aware of him. And we then came into the big year, the 10th std. Suddenly i came across him one day at the market.

                "where you coming from tanmay??" i asked
                "ohh i went to movie , devdas, nice movie"he said with a sense of excitemet
                "dont you think you should be studying? and how did aunty allow you??" i asked in bewilderment
                " I didn't tell her, as simple as that" he said shrugging his shoulders

        The results came out and i was shocked, no, not for me but for him because for the first time i had scored more than him, he had lost his position and many people had climbed up on him. He seemed least disturbed by this and seemed uncharacteristically chilled out. We went to the same high school, and this time again he was in a different section. It was my birthday and i decided that it was time to reconnect with my old friend. He promptly came on time for my party but was panting....

             "What happened?" i asked worriedly
             " nothing i need to go now, my girl friend is waiting for me" he said with a smile
             "I thought you hated girls, who is she any way.....and...."
             "No not any more,i love girls now ,she is my classmate,wanna see her?? come along"
             "No you go, i ll stay back"

     But out of curiosity i followed him, without knowing ,i saw the girl, she was pretty, but she left in only 5 mins and he was joined by some other set of friends. I saw one of them taking out a packet and to my astonishment, it was cigarette which he had lighted. I was shocked to the core. I didn't keep much touch with him may be due to some of my morals(baseless may be) and fear of being in wrong company. Grade 12 exams also came by and went and this time he had fallen well below his previous score. And he was least perturbed. His dad and mom promptly gave donation for him in the same college in which i had got my admission. Unfortunately he took different branch and yet again i couldn't be in his class. His consequent results were not good . He got 2 backs in 1st sem and 3 in 2nd, as a result of which he got a year drop. He cleared the least no. of subjects required to move on to next year and came back as a year junior to me. But this time again he could not clear one first year subject due to which he was denied permission to move to next year and now he became 2 yrs junior to me. I have passed out my engineering and he is still in third year.

       I lost tanmay my friend somewhere in translation, someone i had loved as a brother had gone astray. Who can we blame for his debacle?? His parents?? no that would be a grave mistake. He is himself responsible for his downfall. Deciding the set of friends is always a personal choice and i guess he made the wrong decisions at crucial times. The rush of testosterone and adrenaline, and the will to prove to this world took him to stooping lows. The boy with whom i lived my best part of life is i think no longer even living the life he is supposed to live.

          Their is a famous doha by someone i don't know( uhh plagarising again, but from my old hindi textbook) which says that snakes may be always wrapped around a sandal wood tree but a sandal wood tree never gets poisonous and always retains its charm...............Hope you are well versed with this doha tanmay.....