See you meyala!

The High Handed Ones were always a sort of clique-within-a-clique back at school.

Three teenage girls who strutted through corridors, cackling boisterously, eating and drinking during class hours, thought they knew exactly how the world works (still do), and they’d spend hours and hours discussing incessantly the philosophies of life, shrieking with fits of laughter and making plans of mad things along the way.

‘You’re very high-handed you know,’ said Missis Eccentric to Mooja, with her signature appalled-old-lady look.
Mooja had argued with Missis Eccentric regarding the meaning of bulletin board. Surely, any grade niner with enough gall to disagree with the most eccentric old english teacher on the staff had to be quite full of themself no? Or atleast quite mad.
She shut up, Mooja did. But you could see the stubborn line of her mouth itching to burst.

‘It was an honest mistake, miss!’ I protested.
‘No no no, this one is the most high-handed of the lot,’ Missis Eccentric said, disgusted with the fact that I’d been so forgetful as to give her the Meeting details way beyond the deadline.
My eyes lowered to the floor, a gesture naturally conceived as that of Shame.
But if you knew me, you’d know twas but to spare poor Missis Eccentric of the ordeal of levelling with a pair of eyes that were flaming with outrage.

I don’t remember how Eccentric labelled Chokka Bunnis as a high-handed little child as well; s’pose it was because she hung out with us, and there weren’t any other ‘philosophical shitheads’ (Saint Muffin’s words) we knew of.

So we became the High Handed Ones, self labelled really. What better way to insult a cruel judgement than to glorify it in its face?

We’d pose for photographs with our palms stretched out high in the air, a cult symbol, a silly play on the term high-handed.
‘Yeaz dahling, we’re qvite arrogaynte, can you not see ze peeg-headednezz in my visage?’ we’d slur in a parodically fake posh accent, eyebrows lifted dramatically, followed by ten minutes of ridiculous side-cramping laughter.

13 years together. And now one of the kindred spirits is parting, an unfamiliar day we’d babbled about but never really anticipated.

Chokka Bunnis, Mooja and I sat on the ledge on the rooftop last evening, rain and wind billowing around us, the sun dipping below the horizon.
Parting is such sweet sorrow. Who said that? Cuz there’s nothing sweet about the sorrow part.
Time to go.
‘Group hug!’
‘Like, aren’t we supposed to cry or something?’
We laugh, the echo of those years of loud cackles through school corridors.

Chokka’s getting on a plane today. Bon voyage to another land, where she will learn to fit into a doctor’s coat, and master a new accent.
‘Ehh, we’re becoming adults no, getting jobs, and going abroad and all.’ Annoyed adults-schmadults-look.

‘Who else am I going to run-up-the-down-escalators with?’ I whine.
Sad looks. Goodbye hugs. Careless humour to prevent formation of boohoo-lumps in the throat.

Chokka Bunnis: Aney I’m gonna miss all your weddings no!
Me: I’ll send you pictures no so.
Chokka Bunnis: Yah you better. Hmph…
Me: Growing up sucks no?
Mooja: Totally, man.