Ramazan Mayhem

My internship has finally come to an end. Six weeks of 8 am-ing to 7 pm-ing are over! And so it's back to sleepless nights and teaching at the prep center once again.

It was with an odd mixture of trepidation and relief that I surveyed the reception area once more. For one thing, I'd really missed coming here. Sure, I'd been coming on Saturdays, but that had hardly felt like the usual routine. And what with Ramazan coming by, classes have become really dull. The students are awfully quiet, and I keep on looking at the clock, waiting for the hours to tick by. However, I must say that it feels lovely to come to work where your boss will chat you up for ten minutes, inquiring about your internship and cursing your bitchy ex-boss. And I need not state that I don't miss spending time stalking bitchy peons and intimidating them just so that I can get coffee.

It was just another regular coffee-less afternoon (because of Ramazan) when I ducked out of class to get some handouts. I trudged past a group of sullen looking kids. The Head Receptionist was talking to this guy with a very grim expression on his face, while two other girls looked on resignedly. Maybe they're getting told off for disrupting class, I thought sympathetically.

About ten minutes later, I walked into the reception area and stopped short. The boy was arguing with the HR, face flushed. One of the two girls was whimpering, and kept on repeating 'I won't go home, I won't go home!' Now that really piqued my curiosity. And so once the trio was out of earshot, I made my way to the HR and asked him about it.

The HR grinned a smile full of yellow teeth. 'Jee?'

I lowered my voice conspiratorially, keeping an eye on the weepy maiden and the freaky adolescent. 'What happened? Why's she crying?'

The HR's smile waned. 'Miss ab kya bataen. These kids are up to their khel kood. Even in class, tch tch.'

The dumb retard that I am, I had to wince and repeat 'Khel kood?'

The HR grimaced and said 'Aapas mein khel kood'. (They were playing games amongst themselves).

I stared at him and only one syllable came out of my mouth. 'Oh.'

I kept on racking my brains thinking what the hell two girls and a guy were doing in a dark classroom after class. All sorts of cheap thoughts flitted across my mind, each one more repugnant than the other. But for the life of me I couldn't figure it out- the guy and the Weepy Maiden were making out, but what was the other girl doing in the room with them?! I surveyed the guy. Ok looking, average teenager with raging hormones. WM was kinda pretty- or probably was, it was hard to tell with all the smudged eyeliner around her red-rimmed eyes. The other girl was a plain looking one wearing a hijab. I mulled over all the possibilities over and over. I could understand why the gawky kid would be making out with WM, but the other one too, at the same time? EW.

Rather than prove my stupidity further, I made my best 'oh-I-understand' face and shut up. HR exhaled and continued, glad that I had finally caught his drift.

'I caught them in class, and I told them I'd be calling up their parents. The guy just balled up his fists and stood mutinously, while WM threw a tantrum and kept on saying that she couldn't go home, her parents would kill her. So I told them "Why do you guys do such things then? And that too in Ramazan. Tch tch." Then they all started crying (how gay on the guy's part, I thought), so I let them go with a warning.'

He shoved a piece of paper towards me. Apparently he had tried to extract an apology from the guy. This is all that the scrap of paper read:

'I am sorry for talking to my friends in class.'

Signed by all three.

I snorted. What had the HR expected, that they'd write 'we apologize for making out at the prep center, and that too just because we got caught'?

Weird desperate kids. Rather stupid desperate kids. Not that it was any of my business whether they were making out or not (that too in Ramazan! Courtesy: the HR), but why do that in a public place? A prep center classroom of all places.

Later when I recounted the story to my sister, she turned to me impatiently and said exasperatedly 'Maryam! How stupid could you be?! Of course the girl in the hijab was on the lookout for any people passing by!'

I don't know how my sister always knows things like these, and I never do.

I huffed. 'Whatever. Needless to say, she did a terrible job.'