The School Farewell, Or Apocalypse II (Part 1)

The School Farewell!

The excitement that precedes any event involving a gathering of friends started on the day we got our Invitation Cards, with Anwesha screaming, “WHAT! We have to wear school-dress to the Farewell!?” and self exclaiming, “A Farewell for us! Wow, we’re growing up!” with a strange sense of awe at how quickly I found myself at the threshold of one of the events that marked the distant growing-up world from the eyes of a twelve-year-old.

I didn’t have the faintest shadow of an idea about what a farewell was, but I tried my best to gather a more or less rough idea from the people around me. On purpose, I didn’t ask anyone in Class 11. Knowing exactly what to expect, I felt, would spoil the surprise.

Armed with the following information, I came to the following conclusion.
Information:-
Deyasini: How can anyone not attend the farewell? It must be something simply beautiful, a token of what we’re leaving behind.
Devpriyo: Of course I’m attending the farewell. You never know, I might even cry.
Rohan: I’ll come to the school farewell, but we’ve had our own farewell. I think I’ll remember that one more, won’t you?
My Music Aunty: In our farewell, we were given red roses at the door. Younger students performed variedly, and we were asked to perform too, if we liked. The Principal’s speech was wonderful, redolent of warmth, love and affection, and at the end of it, we all had tears in our eyes.
My Mum: In our school, things are done mostly the same way as that. We don’t give red roses, though, that’s a bit too much. There are performances, short speeches, good food and so on.

Conclusion:-
I gathered that a Farewell must be something filled with nostalgia, mushy songs, and boring speeches.


So imagine my surprise (too mild a word, I know) when the Farewell party started with a…..ok wait, I shouldn’t spoil the surprise by disclosing it so soon. One needs to build up the atmosphere huh? I don’t know how one goes about doing it, though. I guess, for an amateur like me, it would involve something in the line of boring my readers to death with small details of what happened before the farewell started, till they fall asleep. Ok, here’s the list of those little details that filled the 45 minutes that we spent waiting for the stuff.

1. I jumped up to the footpath where Kaustuv and Anwesha greeted me with an ear-to-ear grin and an enthusiastic, “YOU came on time! Woah-ha-how!” Laughing and waving cheerily while waiting for Deyasini was all we did those 30 minutes. I expended a good amount of energy waving jauntily at a couple of people only to discover that I didn’t know them at all. But they waved back twice as jauntily and so it didn’t matter.

2. The ground floor of Uttam Mancha was stuffy. To my horror, I discovered that we were going to be seated section-wise. Pratiti and I gave a short pre-farewell concert using our vocal chords to the best of their merits, complaining in a high-pitched melodious rhapsody about how the school authorities were involved in a conspiracy against EFL to keep them separated at all costs.

3. I said, “Hell!” in my special-effects-enriched banshee voice a good many times before realizing that I was screaming right into the ears of someone who had been unfortunate enough to place his ears two inches from my mouth. It was while bracing myself for a profuse apology that the body in question turned around to face me. Upon seeing who it was, my apology swallowed itself, and I turned away pointedly. The Law Of Interactions With Certain People states firmly that you never waste your breath apologizing to Debaruns.
He looked at me thrice and looked away again, before saying with what seemed like a monumental effort,"Er, have you completely forgotten?"
I don't have to explain exactly how warm I feel towards a person who needs this huge an effort even to talk to me.
"Forgotten what?" I asked coldly.
"Um, all of us, I mean.”
I didn’t snort, not because it’s unladylike, but because I don’t know how exactly one snorts. Coming from a person who had not even recognized me for the past few months, this was one golden snort-extracter.
“Remember who?” I said, to accentuate how well I had forgotten.
“Ok, fine don’t bother trying to remember who. How were your tests?”
“That’s the reason I don’t bother to remember certain people after the tests. If you want to boast about yours, you’re welcome. Don’t have to feign an interest in mine.”
“No, mine was really path…”
I turned away again, more pointedly than the first time. So much for an interview with a long-lost “friend”.

4. My excitement was increasing in leaps and bounds when we filed together. As is the rule when we stand within two inches of one another for more than two minutes, Roro and I started an Eardrum-Shattering Contest when I spotted a well-fed round fat tabby cat glaring virulently at me, its dangerously green eyes boring into mine. “Look who’s here”, Roro said in an undertone. “I spotted her first.” I shot at him, still in the quarrelling spree. “Ok, I give that to you.” He said with unexpected generosity. “Spotting tabby cats in the middle of what is supposed to be a happy gathering is not a task I take pride in.”
We made our way into the auditorium, mounting a dusty flight of stairs, to be led to the balcony. The BALCONY. My first disappointment.
“Wow” one of my friends said. “What a gorgeous view!”
“What the---” I exclaimed indignantly. “Is this the first time you’re inside an auditorium? We’re on the balcony, for heaven’s sake! Balconies don’t have gorgeous views.” Even I knew that, with my very meagre common sense. But then, I’d been in an auditorium scores of times, albeit on the other side of the curtain. “We have the worst view, dammit.”


If I’d known what was coming, I wouldn’t have regretted having the worst view. In fact, I was glad of it 15 minutes into the show. And now, after having put all of you to sleep in the process of “building up the atmosphere”, I think the time has come to plunge into a direct narrative of exactly what the alleged “Farewell” had in store for my unsuspecting perception.

“Insomnia” a microphone or something that spoke as loudly as a microphone, declared. Yeah, wake up!
“Huh?” was my reaction.
“Woah-ha-how”, a scream from Anwesha, who was sitting right beside me, gave my right eardrum quite a turn.
“Huh?” I said again. “What’s going on?”

At that moment, the Insomnia or whatever it was, burst into clamour. Thousands of elephants started to trumpet at once, forests after forests were uprooted, all the monsoon clouds started roaring simultaneously, and the Apocalypse began!
It was a while before I realized that it was nothing but the keyboard, guitar, and all those metallic thingies (whatever they are called) that were trying to create what was known to them as music, and that the hall had erupted into a tumultuous burst of cheers to assist them in the process.

I looked around helplessly. The laser rays were creating a marvelous design on the ceiling and to me, it looked to be the only place where you could glue your eyes. Everywhere else, the world was breaking into pieces, people whom I had believed to be sane all my life, were mocking my belief ruthlessly, the devil was working his will in the minds of all those I knew. There was not a single eye I could lock mine with for a look of silent sympathy. I gulped. My head was throbbing. I knew what one felt like when sinking into a mire.


The Farewell began.