Pritam's Blog
Raksha Bandhan
“I saw your friends today. They had Rakhi tied on their hands till their elbow,” my mom said to me.
“So what?” I asked.
“You didn’t get even one single Rakhi; probably they don’t love you and that’s because you don’t talk to anyone at school,” she concluded.
“They didn’t tie me Rakhi because they don’t see me as a brother… I am not the brother material,” I replied and winked at her.
Coming that from a 7-8 year old kid literally pissed off my mother. I still remember the way she yelled at me. But I was just trying to make her feel good. Because she was right.
I wasn’t a popular kid in my school. I had personality issues. I had inferiority complex.
Most of those “popular” kids in my school were made to believe, by their parents, directly or indirectly, that they were better than and superior to me because they were exposed to cable channels, they went to learn music and painting on Sunday mornings, because they could speak in “Kelu” - the so called purest form of Bengali, the language, and because they would bring sandwiches and pastries in their tiffin box.
I was from a village that, despite being just three kilometres away from the town where I went for my schooling, was an entirely different world.
We didn’t have cable channels nor any art or music teacher in our village. I spoke in Sylheti, which, according to the townfolks, was ‘rough’ Bengali and shouldn’t be taught to the kids, even though the parents would speak in that same dialect. And roti-sabji in the tiffin box wasn’t standard at all according to them.
That’s how small towns are. Full of superficialities and hypocrisy that you can’t even imagine.
I was neglected, mocked, made fun of, and bullied at school for most of my childhood. I even had a few teachers who never missed the chance to mock me. Even my own cousin, who lived in the town and went to the same school, ignored me at school even though she used to love hanging around with me when she came to our house. And even she never tied me a Rakhi.
Anyway, that’s why, for most of my childhood, I kept myself pretty low. I wasn’t popular (nor notorious) at all. And only popular kids in my school used to get Rakhi. Not that I used to feel bad about it. Rakhi never meant anything to me. It truly didn’t, I don’t know why. But I did use to feel bad for the overall different treatment towards me.
Anyway, not everybody was mean. There was this girl I was too shy of because she used to talk to me nicely. She was so nice. For example, if I missed a class, she would help me with my homework the next day when I arrived at school before the class started. She was also the first one to tie me a Rakhi ever. I guess she just pitied me…
I had fallen in love with her…
Boy, such a typical guy I was! Just because someone was nice to me, I fell in love with her… It sounds so ridiculous now.
But at the same time, I never expected anything from her… Whatever, she was my first love.
Call me a pervert or whatever… But Rakhi reminds me of her… it reminds me of my first love. Not that I miss her or love her anymore. But the fondness of that memory is still there.