The Broken Window

We must retaliate.

That’s what they thought. And I had no choice but to agree.

We were sitting on the cement floor, in John’s room, the place where we met, every night. Prakash had a shrewd smile on his face, and I knew that he had thought of an evil plan.

“Explosions!”

Prakash spoke with his patented grim and sly expression.

“What the hell? Are you nuts? I am going back to my room’’

I shouted. John gestured me to lower my voice. It was study time. We were supposed to be in our own rooms and study. Our hostel warden, Mr. Binny Thomas, whom we called as Bean, was a haughty and ruthless guy, and he, indisputably, was our biggest enemy. Bean, finding us in the same room was the last thing that we ever wanted. That would give him a good enough reason to dismiss all the three of us. He already had plenty of them, mostly attributed to the plans by Prakash. But somehow, we hung in. One more, and we were out. I was sure of that.

The three of us, and the hostel management were in a constant war. They imparted rules, which smothered us all the way. We were plus two students, not the inmates of a jail. Just because our parents put us in this boarding school, we couldn’t have died, trying to mug up stuff.

“Just shut up and listen to the plan. We’ll buy some good crackers, the loudest ones possible. We hide them somewhere in the hostel, attaching them to the rear end of a mosquito coil, say by 9 o clock or so. As the coil finishes, the cracker goes off, that’s probably by 2 or 3 at night. Everyone including Bean will go crazy. No one would even be able to find out what happened. What do you say?”

Prakash looked at us.

I was surprised. How the hell does this guy come up with such nefarious ideas all the time?

It was his idea to break the window glass in John’s room and use it to go for late night movies. We used to get out through the window, jump over the compound wall, and after the movie, come back the same way. Nobody ever knew.

We were trying to avenge Bean’s decision to reduce the Sports and Games time from one hour to half, and nobody could have suggested a better plan than this. I was not very much good in any of the games, but I loved the fact that nobody expected you to study during that one hour. Both Prakash and John could play football well, and I spent my time, watching them play. Once I tried playing with them, and managed to come out, without the ball touching my feet even once. But it wasn’t that bad. I did a decent header, even though the ball hit my face and not my forehead, leaving me staggering, for a few moments. Snake and ladder was the only game which I could play well. But it was not included in sports. I didn’t know why .

"Awesome plan man. Time to kick Bean's ass. He'll have a tough time in finding out what happened. I'm in. We'll proceed."

John announced his support. It was my turn after that.

"Um, well sounds like a good plan to me, but… er… what if he finds out? He will definitely throw us out. And my Dad will slaughter me. Mom will cry non-stop. I can't take all that. Last time Bean called and complained to them, my whole Christmas vacation got spoiled over that."

I let my concerns out. I was afraid.

Both of them didn’t like it.

“Why are you being paranoid? How the hell will he find out? We'll hide the crackers properly. Even if he finds that out, he will never know it's us."

John tried to convince. Prakash just had his trademark, disdainful smile on his face. I hated it. He was cool. Fearless. I always wondered how he could be that way. I secretly admired his guts, but, I hated him for deriding at my fear and making me feel embarrassed.

“Ok, I’m also in. We’ll pull this off. No matter what happens”

I said, trying to sound confident.

Prakash said he would buy the crackers. Mosquito coils were my responsibility. We dispersed, after planning to meet the next day evening.

***

I bought mosquito coils while I was on the way back from school. I never thought they would be of any use, even though mosquitoes were plenty in our rooms. After flying around for some time, mosquitoes would go sit on the coil, and chill out, using it as a couch. Mosquitoes got adapted, was what Prakash said. Bugger knew all that. He could grasp things very quickly, unlike me. He said it came under the theory of evolution, discovered by Isaac Newton or something. I didn’t know for sure. I always flunked in Physics. Or was that from Biology? Anyways, I flunked in both,just like I did in Math. And yeah, the other subjects, too.

But just because of that bastard discovered it, mosquito coils didn’t work anymore. I hated him for that. He should have discovered something useful.

***

Everything went as planned. On the first day, we hid the cracker at one corner of the corridor, behind the dustbin. It went off at 3.30 in the night. Everybody got scared. Bean ran around, trying to figure out what happened, as if his bottom was on fire. His first conclusion was that the cooking gas cylinder in the kitchen, exploded. We laughed our asses out.

We did that a couple of times more in the next week, hiding the cracker at different places. It was just too much fun. But very soon, Bean got the hint. He knew someone was playing a prank. He called a meeting and threatened that he would get hold of the culprits one day, and will dismiss them straightaway. I shuddered, but never showed that. Prakash and John were unmoved, as usual.

***

Fourth time. The inevitable happened. We overdid it, was what I thought. Bean was supposed to be having dinner. And John saw the watchman going to the ground floor. No one was out there, since it was study time. But when we were about to hide it inside one of the toilets, Bean popped up, out of nowhere. Disaster.

Dismissals were written and handed over to us within half an hour, at the warden’s office. I burst into tears.

“Be a man, loser. Don’t cry like a child”

Prakash whispered in my ear. But I didn’t care anymore. Dad was going to kill me.

***

We sat on the floor in John’s room, for the last time. Both John and Prakash were silent.

“I don’t even know what to do. I can’t go home. Dad will feed me to the dogs.”

I was struggling to control my tears.

“Will you please stop whining? We are all facing the same situation here”

John was really angry.

“Oh yea, but you don’t know how it feels for me to go home. How my parents are going to make me regret for this”

I said, with my voice breaking in between.

“You have your parents to go back to. And you have a home which you can call yours. I don’t have both of those”

Prakash said, in a calm voice, with a melancholy smile on his face, which I had never seen on him before. I was dumbfounded. Tears stopped flowing, from my eyes. No matter however imperfect and insipid I considered myself to be, I still had countless blessings in my life. That thought struck me like a meteor.

All of us were silent for some time. I looked towards the broken window.

“How about a movie, pals?”

I looked at both John and Prakash, wiping my tears.

Both of them looked at each other and smiled. A few moments, and we jumped over the compound wall. After all, it was our last adventure together.

Author Profile

Sudeep is a techie with a flair for humor. He likes to call himself a  'so called Engineer', who is crazy about books and movies. He likes to jot down nonsense in his free time, and wants to write a screenplay, someday. Sudeep blogs at http://thsntht.blogspot.com/ , but thinks that the only regular reader of his blog is himself.