The Lion in the Dog House

Those who are closest to me wouldn't have, by now, failed to notice that I had been curiously silent about a certain person in my last post. The reason that I've omitted to mention Leo's name up to now is because I felt that I would need an entire blog post to describe his legendary deeds.

For those who don't know it, Leo Mequin(What a name!!) was the first ever boy with whom my name was linked up, in a rumor, for reasons that follow.

Leo had been pointed out to me by Anaswara on my very first day at Poochatty as a formidable character - he didn't have a gunda image(but he did he have a thara, thallipoli image), nor did he flirt with his classmates, but he was supposed to be the hero of many heart-breaking love stories and was rumored to have girlfriends even in 12th standard. But he was a very friendly character and excelled in sports-football, his favorite. The thing I suppose Anaswara had against him was that he didn't study at all- a complete ozhappan. But the teachers liked him too, he was considered as a naughty boy, like Shraddha, maybe.

I struck up an acquaintance with Leo in the very 1st week. He used to call me 'Kolamby', not in remembrance of the flower, but because my name reminded him of 'Christopher Columbus'.

His notes were never complete, because he didn't listen to the class, and so in my second week or something, he asked for my SS note, to take home, to copy notes, and I gave it to him. When Anaswara came to know about it, she warned me that I would never see my book intact again; she'd given him some book the previous year and got back only pages of it, that too months later. Well, Leo heard Anaswara's warning. So, I suppose, he wanted to prove that he was not that clumsy at all or something, and the very next day, brought back my book, not just intact, rather he had covered it with new brown paper neatly and stapled it(I hadn't finished covering all my new books then) and explained that he couldn't find a name-slip or would have stuck it too. Well, I was really happy and showed it to Anaswara. Osinu kittumbo brown paper aayalum vendannu vekkaruthallo.That day he asked for my Malayalam book. I had covered it, but he ripped it off, and put new covers and brought back the next day. The same happened with my Hindi(I think) book too. I didn't suspect anything, but it was enough to set the tongues wagging.

Then there was my scale too. It was a sort of three scales stuck together, in a long triangular prism shape. He used to put it into his belt and draw it out like a sword and play with it. I let him keep it in class because he never broke it or anything. But people were talking.

Here I must also mention that, at Poochatty, three students sat in a bench, girls and boys mixed, upto 9th. For some months, Ayyappadas sat near me, he was Leo's friend and, so, to talk to him Leo used to come and sit near my bench. We used to talk, laugh and all, but that's because we were friends.

I still remember the day I got an inclination that rumors were flying around, about me and Leo. Usually when we girls discussed about love affairs, it was about Elizabeth not talking to Mohammed or about Arjun now having 'ithu' towards three girls in the class -I forgot whom( We called Arjun Thriveni for that). Or, in the bhuji gang of Anaswara, Anisha, Amala and all, the conversations were always about Harry Potter; it was the time when OoTP was released and Harry potter was zooming around the corridors, classrooms, with everyone trying to read the 5th book somehow(the weight of the book horrified us),or Anaswara correcting my pronunciation of 'Chamber' as Cheymber', or Anisha narrating the story of PoA to everyone(only she had read it)- about dementors,Sorting and Arthur Weasley warning Harry not to go to the Forbidden Forest that year, or Megha telling me CoS story as much as she could from the film, or myself wondering what sort of creatures the Death Eaters were, having not read GoF before OoTP(I imagined them to be amoeba-like creatures) or me mistaking Sirius for Severus(Snape) and declaring that it was well that he got killed in OoTP and everyone looking at me disgusted and Anaswara consoling me that since I hadn't read PoA, I couldn't know that Sirius was a good man, and me not having a clue about what was going on, but nodding all the same. My day-dreams then were always about suddenly finding out that I was a witch and that Harry(not Daniel Radcliffe) was my boyfriend and that we would fly over the grounds in his Nimbus 2000 and such stuff...

So one day, outside the never-opened music class, waiting for the non-existent teacher to come, I was truly surprised to know about the rumor, which the other girls broke to me softly. Immediately I denied it and then they said that the matter did not concern me, it was about Leo having an 'ithu' towards me or not. It could be resolved by only one way- by asking to him and Dhrishya was given the job. So the very next interval Dhrishya went and asked to Leo and the reply was: 'Cheppikutty adichu therippikkum njan!!'

Well that satisfied me and he himself soon told me there was nothing of that sort so, we again went on talking as usual, and on the other side, unknown to me, rumors became more and more intensified.

There were instances to make people talk, I admit, but they were only coincidences. Once Leo played football barefoot in he hot sun, got his feet all burned up and he was transferred to the last bench were he could lie down during class. Only thing, this bench happened to be behind mine, and I dunno, he told me I had kicked him and must wash his clothes because they were dirty or something (I forgot the details). Anyway people were talking. But I was completely oblivious to those rumors, because I confess,( for the first ever time), if I had had a soft corner towards any boy at Poochatty, it was Sibin, because, he was the only boy in the class who studied well, though his position in merit list, naturally, came beneath mine, Anaswara's, Amala's, Elizabeth's and Anisha's. As I have said before, girls ruled the class.

Well, the rumors reached their peak at the beginning of 3rd term. And I am about to describe most dramatic incident that, it is alleged, occurred:

I have not until mentioned the school library, but it is in integral part of the incident. At Poochatty we are allowed to take library books home only in 7th instead of the 5th at IJK(but Anaswara used to read Nancy Drews even in 3rd, she went to the Public library). The library was huge and the room was two storied with all the Fiction upstairs and Reference and Reading Room beneath it. We were to have Identity Cards to take books.

One day Leo came to me and started reading out my phone no. and address from a bit of paper. I wondered where he got them from. He said that he'd accidentally dialled my no. instead of Sibin's and that the Caller ID had shown all the details. Well, I was stupid, I didn't know how the Caller ID worked and I believed him, mainly because some days before a call had come to my house asking if it was Sibin's house. My chechi had attended the call and she'd said that it was wrong no.. But I had wondered then if it was the Sibin of my class that the caller had meant. Leo spoke about it and he said that he knew it was my voice because it was squeaky, but I said that, no, it was my sister, and then he gave some long-winded explanation about the Caller ID showing the address to be Padamadan and me being the only Padamadan in the class and he had connected it up and thus got my address and phone no.; and believe it or not, I swallowed the whole story! From then on, he used to carry that little piece of paper with him and, I dunno, show it off, or something, to irritate me. It irritated me, but that's all.

And then some weeks later, before assembly, there was a lot of commotion in the classroom. Leo was absent, and rumors were flying around that his father had found a girl's address in his Science textbook, had become angry and tore it up, burned the book, and Leo was grounded and all such things. I was afraid his father might call my house or something but my friends consoled me, said that nothing would happen. And then nothing did and Leo came back and we talked as usual and all. I don't remember if I asked him about it. The next thing I recall is talking to Dhrishya.

It was a PT period and she said she had some things to tell me and we walked over the grounds, talking. She explained that it was from my library identity card that Leo had got my address, that he'd deliberately called to my house and cooked up the rest of the Caller ID story. This much I do believe, because it follows logically, but what I'm gonna write now, is only second-hand knowledge from Dhrishya, and it seemed stupid to me then and still seems stupid, but I'm gonna write it all the same, because it's really funny, but I'm not saying that any of it is true, this is what Dhrishya told me:

One day Leo's father found out my address from his book, got very angry and tore up his books and warned him never to repeat it. Well Leo was never obedient, just exactly the opposite. So to enrage his father further, he obstinately wrote my name or address or something with lemon juice(naaranga neeru) on his bedroom wall so that it would glow in the dark(that's what she said, I've never tested it). At night his father saw it, shouted a lot, ordered Leo out of the house and painted it over(why couldn't he have just washed it? anyway, that's what Dhrishya said). And do you know what Leo did? Well, he went to 2nd show of some film(he always had pocket money, Dhrishya said), came back, went to the dog kennel and slept in it that night(what did the dog do? Dhrishya didn't say)!!

So, you see, it is simply incredible. But that it is the last event I remember about that rumor. Except, later in 8th, after I'd returned to IJK, and said all about it to my best friends, once when Ann met Leo during a sports meet, realizing that he was from Poochatty but not knowing that he was Leo, she'd asked him if he knew a Christabella, an Anaswara, a Megha, a Leo and stuff and he'd nodded to everything and admitted only in the end that he was Leo and sent me his regards through Ann. He left Poochatty(or dismissed??) in 9th, I think and later, once when I phoned her, Anaswara said to me that Leo had said, about me: 'Oru kollam koodi kittiyirunnel njan avale valachene.' Well, I must say, I'd had a very narrow escape, but considering everything, he wouldn't have been a bad choice-he was tall, neither dark nor fair, cute(I think so, Ann agrees) and had a shy smile that was really attractive. Only problem was, Anaswara said, his nose was a bit jammed to one side, because he'd fallen down from his bed once when he was small, but I never saw any problem with his nose, but maybe I didn't look hard enough.

Anyway, thus with a full year's experience in another world, I returned to IJK, hoping to amaze my friends with my life there. What they thought about it and how different my school had become in my absence, I'll tell you another day...