A Saturday
Uploaded by naveed99 on Aug 20, 2013
“Javed”, said I, “please tell Mr. Majeed Sir that I will take Naveed with me.” “OK, I will”, he said .
Javed was our C.R at C.E.M School while we were in the 4th standard. He, like me, was careless about his assigned homework. None of us would do our homework especially that of Mathematics because it was too boring to maintain this notebook as one had to write on it everyday and thus was a tiresome job. So naturally its result, as everybody would expect, would have been a sound thrashing from the teacher and obviously it was so and we insanely were ready to bear that insult. Since it was on Saturdays that our Maths notebooks were checked and thus we had every reason to enjoy the rest of the days of the week. But from the Friday evening the thoughts of the following day began haunting me yet somehow I managed to remain optimistic. In the morning, I, as it was natural in those days, tried to pretend illness but I had already overused that trump card and thus on this particular Saturday any more usage could have been of no help. Thus I left for the school and as I was left with no other option than utilizing our last weapon, which was, the 'graveyard soil', yes graveyard soil. We would bring a handful of it and disperse it on the floor of our classroom while making sure some grams remain nonchalantly stable under the teacher's chair. By this, we believed, the teacher would either feel sleepy or forget to check the notebooks or conducting a test or by some other means would postpone the job until next weekend, and believe me it did work most of the times and if by chance it didn't, we would consider that either the teacher moved the chair a bit or the persons in the grave whereby we took the soil were not pious. Bringing the soil was certainly a daring task, not because of the Gothic practice it seems but because if someone saw us taking the soil and God forbid teachers come to know anyhow about that then undoubtedly it would have been our last day at school and for me, of course (family you know), the last day of life.
That Saturday morning's captivating cool summer breeze blowing effortlessly, the chripping of the morning birds in those lush...