the backbenchers

THE NEW GIRL

She looked at the gate. Big and imposing as it was, it gave her few jitters. This was not the first time she had felt this way ever since she shifted to Delhi three days back. This morning, she had struggled to get up at six in the morning and catch the metro to barahkhamba road, where her new school was. Her father had asked her if she wanted him to drop her to her school and she had refused. Her father was a hard-working man, and she don't want to bother to him.

Ananya looked all around her. A lot of girls got down from big cars she hadn't seen in Raipur. Many of them were with guys. People met outside the school gate, screamed at each other and hugged. Ananya looked at them, and felt a little strange. Their skirts had crept up to their mid thighs, their socks were rolled down. None of them had their first buttons of their shirts buttoned up. No one, neither the guys, nor the girls wore the shoes the school had prescribed.
She felt out of the place.

She entered the gate and tried not to look here and there.

Everything that she had heard about the school was coming

out to be true.

It's a school of rich kids.

You will be a misfit.

Girls are kissing in ninth standard

It's twelfth grade and it's not the right time to change schools.

But she couldn't have helped it. None of the Delhi schools would take her in despite her great results in her old school. But at The presidency convent, her father knew somebody and she could get in. She entered the building and there was a sea of students out there. She had a hard time figuring out where her class was and she was kind of scared to ask anybody for help.

Excuse me?" She approached a girl passing by and asked, half scared. Where is XII C?'

'What?' A girl with chewing gum in her mouth looked at her from top to bottom, paused for a few seconds and walked off. As if Ananya didn't exist. She felt lost and went about finding the class on her own.

XII C.

That was the class that she was supposed to be in for
the next one year.

She had a very different idea when she was coming to

Delhi. All her friends back there were excited because she
was the one going to the big city. To the hip Delhi school. Nice boys. Days of fun! Initially, she was just sad because she didn't want to move to a new city. But since her friends back home were so excited, she had started to feel that little glimmer of excitement in her heart too. And yes, she had never seen boys studying the same school as hers. She had always been in a girl's school. So this was new.

She entered the class and saw all the heterogeneous groups sitting on the top the tables, some of the girls had arms around boys and all of them were making a lot of noise. All eyes turned to her as she entered the classroom.

'Yes?' A girl with braided hair and long nails stood in front of her and asked.

'XII C? New student,' Ananya said.

'Ohh,' she looked at her, her eyes travelled from Ananya's hair to shoes, and walked away.

She felt naked. Even though she was the most dressed up girl in that room, she felt bare. Everybody looked at her. She walked through the rows of benches and looked for an empty seat. Only one bench was empty. The last bench.

She put her bag down and looked at her watch. There were still a few minutes to go. She could hear whispers around the classroom, and she knew they were talking about her. But as the minutes passed, people stopped looking at her and went about their own business.

The first twenty minutes in her new school had been very
unsettling, to say the least. Beautiful, pretty girls and short skirts. Guys with hair all over the place and low hanging school trousers in sneakers. She had anticipated that she would notice something like this, but what she didn't know was that this would be the norm here.

Just then, the teacher entered the class. She was both their physics teacher as well as the class teacher. And she was a far cry from the teachers she was used to in her school back home. Ms Juneja was young, thin and she looked only a shade older than a college girl. There was a buzz in the class as she entered. The guys gave each other sneaky looks. She was the darling teacher of the school. Ms Juneja was extremely pretty and friendly with the students. A lot of guys in school had a crush on her.

'Aman? Anamika?' She started to call out names of the students to mark the attendance.

Ananya waited for her name. The whole list was read out, not without hiccups. Ms Juneja had to shout a few times to get the class in order.

'Ananya?' Ms Juneja finally said her name.

'Yes, ma'am!' She said.

Ms Juneja had a good look at her before asking, 'New student?'

'Yes, ma'am,' she said and stood up.

'No, no. Keep sitting.' Ms Juneja stood up. 'So which school are you from?'

'St. Mary's Convent, Raipur,' she said. There were faces made in the class. None of them had heard of the school.

'Welcome to The Presidency Convent,' she said. 'After this class, I will assign you a buddy. Someone who would help you with everything that you might need here,' she smiled at Ananya.

'Thank you Ma'am,' Ananya said and almost instantly liked her.

Then, she started teaching. Things were a lot different in this school than they were in her last one.

'Did you all go through the chapter on Thermodynamics?"

Ms Juneja asked sweetly.

'NO!' A voice said.

'Ma'am! Are you kidding me? IPL was on yesterday.... another voice said.

'... we were busy, ma'am!' said yet another voice.

And then there was a lot of noise. Ms Juneja looked on helplessly as the students created a ruckus in class. Ananya realized that this was a routine in this school. Every kid was a brat. And every kid had a powerful dad or mom, or both back at home, No teacher wanted to be on anyone's bad side. For one, this school was run by the students, and not the teachers.

All this was new to Ananya. In her last school, students were still getting slapped by teachers.
           
                                            ~•~