Annie and the Underworld II

Last night I dreamt I was back at Santiniketan again. Suddenly the heat, the sweat, the stench, the goats and the dogs they all came back along with the cacophony and the screams of what seemed like a few hundred little children in Uniforms running around, but strangely I felt warm and pleasant, I even saw myself sprawled under my bench that I had wet, sobbing and generally feeling miserable and then suddenly noticing a figure at the backend of the class also darting underneath a bench and scrambling around on all fours as if in search of something, I watched the scene through what seemed like a few hundred dangling legs, some boyish, some girlish – and that made me smile, it made me laugh suddenly through the flood of my tears I was laughing and then crying and then laughing again while my nose leaked and sticky saliva stretched between my open lips – I realised it was Danny. He was the same guy ‘coz of whom I was in my current state of misery. It was he who had given me the folded white sheet that had those ugly words scribbled, I love you. In my dream the incident continued to roll and the chorus of the entire classroom chanting ‘shame, shame, shame’ tore through my wretched ears. That’s when I heard another distant sound calling out Annie?? Anne? The sound was so far , far away – yet it seemed so close, I felt I could touch the sound.

Annie and the underworld

it was a balmy summer afternoon,Annie walked in, She was distraught - her shoe had come off so she was forced to walk into her classroom half dragging it while also dragging her bag, her nose was sweaty her eyes were flooding up fast, she quickly relieved her School bag onto her desk, which was gratifyingly located in the front row of her class, and then promptly squatted underneath her school bench, unmindful of her clean white skirt, and sobbed like she was lost , she hated her existence, the heat outside was vengefully punitive as punitive as it was even inside Santiniketan. Not really the one envisioned by Tagore and other enlightened mortals of yore, this one was more exceptional, nothing inside Santiniketan matched its more celebrated namesake. It was one long ugly concrete shanty - hot, noisy, creepy, untidy and chaotic. The school even had dogs and goats moving in and out at will, goats in fact took pleasure in leaving behind their select droppings as a compliment, dogs did what they knew best lifting one leg. Santiniketan smelt of urine all around and so was Annie - for she had just managed to piss in her squatted position and continued sobbing even harder. The world above in the meanwhile was in complete oblivion of Annie's plight, it seemed so routine. Annie's mates where all in different states of animation themselves, most were also sobbing at different decibel levels, while a few were singing some fresh bollywood numbers, i could distinctly hear someone singing 'my name is Sheila, Sheila ki jawani'...somewhere in the background i think that was the ever active Bama singing, making sure her voice was heard above all the din, a few more were whining, a few were shrieking and running around, some were using their desk as a jumping board with disastrous effects, since when they jumped they either landed on a classmate or onto the next desk hurting themselves,I saw a few doing ramp walks - the classroom looked anything but one. And the whole of Santiniketan seemed caught in more or less similar state of animation making the whole school sound like a place in constant riot. The cacophony continued until soon Annie's teacher walked in, the animation and noise dropped down, all running and jumping around froze and the classroom settled down to an irritating buzz as the teacher took in the customary 'good morning teacher' chorus,and for Santiniketan it was not surprising how this routine was copied out in every classroom across the school all at the very same instant,so the chorus from our classroom had several matching chorus from the other classrooms at Santiniketan. Annie's teacher placed her cane on the table , cursed after looking at all the chalk dust on her table and promptly started addressing her uninterested wards who were by then back to more innovative forms of silent animation and gestures and games - this time it was located just within their limited desk space. The teacher banged her desk loud with her cane bang bang bang the class briefly gave her some semblance of an attention until She turned around and faced her small wooden black easel board and then went about hollering her nonsense,a small book in one hand her cane gripped loosely by the the other hand, some thought she was singing a rhyme but most had no clue what the teacher was doing, Annie continued sobbing underneath her bench and the rest were all doing whatever they felt like doing - everyone seemed happy doing whatever they were doing. All, except me. I was frowning at my pencil, someone had chewed its head off and so all i could do was to place it on top of my tapering desk and watch it slide and then catch it just before it fell down. I continued the sport for a while until one instance it slipped when i thought the teacher had called my name and i was caught between the confusion of whether to catch the sliding pencil or stand up to answer the teacher's calling- the pencil fell down or rather i allowed it to fall - I stood up, that's when i noticed that the classroom had a visitor, it was the big, dark and obese School Princi and her usually menacing face looked even more gnarled and angry - large dark red painted lips could not hide her yellowing dents, thick eyelashes, tacky eye shades, streaked hair, thick neck, big boobs on a sweaty face with ugly unaesthetic gold chains plus her stringed reading glasses together gave her just the look ideally suited for Santiniketan - She was discussing something with the class teacher in an agitated manner and the class teacher looked equally agitated and all the time they were looking at me and my name was being mentioned in a not so very complimentary tone. Then my name was called again, I realised my teacher was gesturing me to come forward, while gripping her cane harder, i knew what was coming but I was perplexed for i was not aware as to what was the cause and the severity of my crime, by now the whole classroom's attention was diverted to the current event that was rolling out, it was almost 40 gaping mouths wide open with fear and anticipation I slowly inched away from my desk which was Thankfully among the last rows of the classroom and using the art of inching forward at the slowest possible pace started inching forward , almost wishing they would ask me to go back and not come forward but no such luck came my way,then I remembered I had forgotten all about my fallen pencil I dashed back, slid under my bench and like a rat started looking around desperate almost as if I knew some hidden key that would magically take me out of this rathole, by now the decibel level at which my name was being called was getting seriously loud. But I tenaciously kept moving around, on my knees it was hurting and painful on the knee and my darned palms began sweating making my palms darken with dirt and dust , using the art of ignoring loud calls from 2 menacing faces who were waiting to devour me, through a corner of my eye I caught Annie, she was still crouched under her bench while she continued sobbing pacing her actions with a few gasps for breath intake, at that moment I wanted to roll on my stomach and laugh, Annie was such a crazy bug, but seeing her sob i lost control myself and started sobbing suddenly the whole of Santiniketan's Class 1C was wailing real loud - talk about collective sobbing, I think we were the very best in that art.

thesocratespot: death of agitation

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thesocratespot: Autumn

thesocratespot: Autumn: its almost a compulsion you have to live when you really cannot, you are told your body is incarcerated - you are no joan of ark no ...

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death of agitation

who's the ghost ? stalking? shadows ahead, light behind, radiating crescendos, emotional epilepsies, here now, nowhere