Life is Beautiful, Love is Konjaatta???

Xth was an year of hectic rumors. They didn't have any visible basis, but gained strength day-by-day. For eg, we used to tease Deepak and Varada. Together they were called 'Vada'.
Then there was Neethu-Yathu rumor. It gave rise to all sort of funny situations, I'm sure you remember the Poseidon episode, then www.thu.com, and all the 'Kothu' jokes.


Greeshma, we used to tease with Anoop Roy. Anoop left school(actually, dismissed, due to complete lack of improvement in studies) in 6th or 8th and it was only later, in 9th or so, that we came to know that he had had an 'ithu' towards Greeshma. By then Anoop had failed in Catechism class too, which made him Greeshma's junior, of course. But we, Greeshma's best friends, were not to be hindered by that small obstacle. We decided that it was absolutely necessary to create a new character, something or someone who can prevent the Greeshma- Anoop Roy rumor from fading off and open up a whole lot of possibilities of teasing Greeshma, for me and Aparna. So we started researching........
We soon came to know that Greeshma & Anoop Roy used to be neighbours, their houses situated exactly opposite to each others' with only a narrow lane separating the two lonely hearts. But Anoop changed house soon after he left our school and the house was abandoned, a forlorn sight with boarded up windows and unkempt yards, left to the mercy of nature, slowly, gradually eroded by the fury of sun and rain...(So sad, the way the two sweethearts were torn away from each other...sob sob...... and so sad, her two best friends were deprived of the joy of teasing her when the two lovebirds actually lived in the same area......sob sob)

And then in Xth, Aparna and Greeshma started going by the same van, 'Appaappan's vandi', and startling new evidences were brought to light, that the two lovebirds may not have actually been separated after all. The 'Hamsam' or more correctly, the rendezvous of the inseparable couple was the legendary, the heroic, the bombastic, the 'what-else-mannankatta', the

"TANK"!!!!!!

So what is the Tank??? It is, literally, figuratively, a simple, harmless tank or a place to store water. But it was given unprecedented importance and fame no tank could have ever hoped for by mine and Aparna's brains- the imaginary worlds our creative minds weaved, to fuel up the Greeshma- Anoop teasing. So we fashioned Tank(I've seen this thing, OK, once, when I went to Greeshma's house after 12th, and it is HUGE and is situated on four TALL pillars behind Anoop Roy's house, dominating the entire landscape and the front-view from Greeshma's house.) to be the lovers' secret meeting place. We had justifications. The entire Anoop Roy house had become dilapidated with time, covered with moss and dust, but the Tank had withstood all tests of nature and retained its glory throughout the period of neglect, which could only mean that, me and Aparna declared, that someone was regularly repairing it and that, that someone could only be our so tragically-separated sweethearts... And so, the Tank came into being and Tank itself has become the favorite nickname of Greeshma. Tank has also featured in many of our poetry works, the lyrics of which parody the famous songs of the period, for eg,

'Tankinkkarayorathu Royichettan chodichu Greeshme, Greeshme varumo?
Keerayolamenjoru chettakkudilin jaalakam melle melle thurannu...'

(Like, you know, 'aatinkkarayorathu...' from film Rasathanthram)


and

'Tankinullil lavanaanu
kanthurannaal pokkaanu
vallorumarinjaal moshaanu
Greesammaaaa
Greesammaa aa aaaa...'

(Like 'Nenjinullil neeyaanu...' from the album 'Khalbaanu Fathima')

Tank has also played a major role in the film 'Avalude tankukal' but, it is a standard 12 creation, so you wouldn't be reading the script right now.

So that was about Greeshma.

Me-Aswin rumor was also in full prime during Xth. Our rumor had surpassed all imaginations and my dear classmates created a record 7,8(I lost count)9,10,100,1000.....children for us. Aparna christened my 6th child 'Kingini' and many other hilarious names like 'Aachri', 'Chriswin' were also popping up. I think it was also in Xth that 'Ginjubella' was accepted as the official name of our rumor.

In the other class there were Soumya- Arun Tony, Soumya-Manu, Dowlin-Arun Rajan, and many other favorite pairs. But Xth was also the year of some serious affairs in our class.

To begin with, there was the Sneha-Vishnu Pushkin-Anu-Yathu love quadrilateral, Varada-Abhishek-Nicey??? love triangle, Anu-Karishma affair, Varun proposing Ann Maria, and many more. I have swallowed many names to prevent hurting people. But of one such affair, I'm not going to keep quiet, because it changed all my impressions about a girl I thought was my friend- Soumya.

Soumya was in X A, so I didn't have much knowledge about her rumors, until one Maths tuition class in December. All the girls were in a huddle and excitedly whispering about Soumya. I gathered enough information to know that she was having an affair with Anu- I couldn't believe it! I remembered the 8th Soumya very well. She had looked at me in a disgusted way in the school bus once, when I'd animatedly described one of my fights with boys, during PE class, when I'd refused to give their football and Jose Palathinkal had chased me. Apparently, I'd thought, Soumya considered laughing and running around with boys as lowly.

And now, she was rumored to have an affair with Anu! All girls, Salini included, were confident about the fact, but I was shocked. All the girls were against her, happily recounting her faults, talking ill of her, in the classroom, when she was not around. And I felt sorry for her; I wrote sentimental advice on her Christmas Card and waited for her near Sreelatha miss's house. She came and I asked her if there was any truth in the rumors flying around. And she told me, quite sincerely, she'd absolutely no idea. She used to call Anu 'Atom' but that was just for fun, she said. And I believed her, and was very happy. So we decided to make 'atom' the reversed-form of 'mota' or egg, and declare that it referred to 'Soumya-Arun Tony' rumor, concerning hen and eggs and all the rest. And there in the classroom, I stood by her; continued to believe that she was innocent, while all the other girls were going on assuring me that I was wrong. But I thought, friends don't say lies between themselves.

Later, of course, in 11th, from Aparna, Dowlin and many others, I learned that she had indeed been lying to me. And I felt hurt, humiliated. Never again had I been able to see her as my old Soumya, though I helped her through the Pookalamatsaram, ran with her in the relay and danced with her. Even her autograph for me, written in Xth, which had at first made me feel touched, later seemed as a mocking. I'm sorry Soumya, probably, you didn't have the courage to tell me the truth (or, more possibly, you didn't think it necessary), but really I'm sorry that I've tried breaking up ties with you these last years, but I can say, honestly, that I've defended you in front of others many times, when they were all ready to mark you off as a bad girl. The least I can do for a friend...and yet now I wish, we'd been a little more close...