15. Aisha Paul

I waited outside the class for Namrata to show up. I knew her schedule. She was the first one to enter and leave every class; her entries and exits were carefully timed to maintain a distance from her my classmates—especially me.

  Years ago, when I was fourteen and in the seventh standard and growing breasts the size of pumpkins—and was famous for them too—I felt powerful. Everyone talked about me. I was poor and my mother was dying but at least I had the school by its balls, academically and otherwise, and I was not going to let that go. I could spread gossip through my influence on the girls who hung out with me, and get boys to do anything I wanted. I had quite a time. It faded away slowly as rumours of my non-existent promiscuity started making the rounds, but during the few months it lasted, I was pretty mean to some people and one of them was Namrata.

  She was a new student on a full scholarship in our school, freshly transferred from Ryan International, and had taken the school by storm! Now normally I wouldn't have minded but it was my time. I was doing well in my studies, led the march past for my house, had a permanent first row spot in the choir, and was a probable candidate for the House Captain. But this girl had rained on my parade. She made it to the dramatics team and the shot-put team and charmed everyone. My dizzying fame was slipping like sand through a closed fist.

  'What are you going to do?' Megha had asked. 'I heard she's nominating herself for the House Captain position.'

  'No one cares about her. She's so fat! She's disgusting,' I had said, quite cruelly. 'And everyone will see that.'

  A fat, ugly girl wasn't going to take away my thunder. Though I should probably mention here that I, too, wasn't beautiful as per conventional standards but I had the height (I was 5'3" when I was in the seventh standard), the breasts and the thighs of an adult, and that obscured everything else.

  Late one afternoon, after a physical education period, I found Namrata changing in the washroom, and I struck up a conversation. We talked about her old school, the friends she'd left behind, and whether she liked my school. She was a nice girl and even liked Room on the Roof, my favourite book of all time, but I had a reputation to protect, and one to destroy. So while she talked and laughed, thinking I was her friend, I slyly recorded a video of her changing into her uniform, her naked chest on blatant display.

  'What bra do you use?' I had asked innocently.

  The funny girl had cradled her breasts and said, 'Nothing that gravity can't beat!'

  The next day, a grainy clip, minus the audio, of Namrata's saggy, cellulite-ridden chest was on every other phone. Since my voice could not be heard, everyone thought Namra 

ta had sneaked in a boy to the changing room and was stripping for him.

  'Did you see that video? Namrata was changing in front of a boy! Such a slut!' Megha exclaimed.

  'I feel sorry for the boy. I would rather claw my eyes out than see that,' I said.

  Someone else had added. 'Look at those breasts. Those are ugly!'

  'I know, right!' I had said. 'And those love handles. God. She should stop eating men for lunch. I heard she got kicked out from the last school because she slept with someone in the classroom.'

  And then the shaming began. She was the ugly, fat slut from Ryan International.

  The video never got out of the school or Namrata and I both would have been in trouble. Namrata never confronted me. She missed school for a month, her grades dipped, she dropped out of the shot-put and the dramatics team, her scholarship was taken away, and by the time we got to our eighth standard, she was a nobody.

  It had been four years. I knew what I had done to her. I would always sidestep whenever I saw her walking in the corridors. I shirked and shifted the blame on to her, thinking that she should have fought the rumour. But, of course, deep inside of me, I knew I had destroyed her when I passed on that video and firmly tagged her as a fat, ugly slut. And now, I had to make amends. No more tags. No more labelling people on how they looked.

  When she finally showed up that day, I walked up to her, smiled my widest and said, 'Hey, I need to talk to you.' I had hoped in my heart that all had been forgiven already, that time had healed her.

  'No, you don't,' she said and walked right out of the class.

  Clearly time was lazy!

  'Hey, listen,' I ran after her, collecting my things. 'I really need to say something to you.'

  She turned and asked, 'What?'

  'About earlier?'

  'What's there to talk about?' she snapped, her eyes already little pools of tears.

  'Plenty.'

  'I'm waiting,' she said.

  'Namrata, I'm sorry for what I did all those years back. I shouldn't have done—'

  And the next second my face stung with a resounding slap. I stumbled backwards and lost my hearing for a few seconds. She deserved to be in the shot-put team. People stopped in the corridor and stared. 'I'm okay, I'm okay,' I told the people who had rushed to help me.

  She had made her way through the crowd by the time the tinny sound in my ears abated. I ran after her.

  'What did you do that for?' I asked, almost crying. 'It hurt.'

  'Because that's what you deserve, Aisha! That and much more.'

  'I'm sorry, I said I'm sorry,' I said, crying.

  'I'm never forgiving you for ruining my life. I had almost killed myself because of you!' she said.

  'But—'

  'Listen, Aisha. It took me years to be happy again. Please don't come anywhere near me, okay? I hate you!' she said and ran away.

  I walked into the girls' washroom, locked myself in the stall and cried my heart out for three hours, hoping to feel the pain I had made the girl go through. Since I couldn't completely comprehend her pain, I recalled the face of my mother as she lay in that pool of blood, and I started howling.