Classmates: Who is? Who is Not?

From Right: Omar Esmail, Azad, Rizgar, Me, Deepan, Sabin, Kamal, Omar, Senior(Elizabeth), Bejeta, Madam Mamta, Madam Chitra

Disclaimer: The article below is the views and personal expressions of the author, and may not always be true. These are distant observations and are not intended to hurt anyone, explicitly or implicitly—especially some of our best friends.



A-Z of Our Class

A is for Azad, with his A-plus height.
If he ever happened to be in the army,
he would be the first to die—
an enemy would spot him gangling from afar.
(Sorry, Azad, you're the best guy.)
Except attending class often is his admitting Achilles' heel.

B is for Bejeta, a backdrop of topical blazon.
Catty is the way she barks.
She can sometimes be haughty.
There's something she doesn't believe—
not even to good boys. I don't know why,
if you ask me.

C — there's no C name in the class.
So I have a good chance to write
about the common things in the class.
But there's nothing common as such.
All things are uncommon.
You cannot describe them as such.

D is for Deepa, a difficult girl to deal with.
I often see her serious,
minding her business—
a kind of deliriously dolorous soul.
Look into her eyes:
you'll know she's burning her midnight oil.

And here comes deadly huge Dildar.
I'm always scared of him—
that one day he'll box me,
and I wonder if Mr. Doc could fix my bones.
But Dildar wouldn't do such things.
He's the most delightful and dependable person.
He wouldn't tell a lie, even if everyone else lied to me.

E — there's no E name I've ever heard in this class.
I don't want to show my ego
by writing what everyone dislikes.
But the fact is: there's someone with ego among us.

And here comes F — the failure.
The thought of it shakes me with fright.
To fight with failure is to study only.
There are some who fight tough
but still flunk.

G — when I think of G, only one thing comes to mind:
the great shakers of boys—
the girls, of course.
There are four girls in the class.
I think some love Lady Gaga too much,
or some the latest Gangnam Style.

H is a humbling class,
but sometimes it becomes a horrible humdrum
because some students pick holes in uselessly.
I think some of us badly need hemlock.
I have no say. Everyone has a hundred percent rights.

And here comes I — everyone is an I, an individual.
I is ill-fated students taught by ill-equipped lecturers.
I can imagine an ill-assorted future for all of us.

J — what a jerk?
Keep your eyes on some jabbering jerks.
They believe they're jacks of all trades,
but when it comes to doing something,
they're empty jars. Move on…

To K.
Kamal's presence is very necessary in the kangaroo court.
The class would go wild with him.
The lecturers would take half the class,
and the other half would be his—
and Dildar would close his eyes and ears tight.
Such a loquacious man
who loves killer looks.

And I personally want to add something to this K.
There are some students as small as kids,
and they do everything:
killjoys, kickers, kissers—
and kudos, I'm not that good at any of these things.

L — I'll be very laconic here,
as some people only think of love
and have lachrymal tears in their eyes.
I suspect someone is a ladyboy from the class.

M — yes, Mohamein is a small mombati in the class.
He'd attend a week less per semester
and still pass easily.
I'm a fan of him.
I'll try to follow his absenteeism next semester.

N is for Najiba, a nice woman.
Needless to say, she does her needful.
Who would forget to nag
and drag the whole class like some?
Believe me: she's unbelievably logical and true.

Oh, here is O — Omar, a tough guy to consider.
The future onus of the country's PM falls on him,
yet he doesn't have an even-odd job now.
Someday, someone will write an ode about him, I guess.
But for now, he treats class like an open market—
moving off and on, out.

You know, we have two Omars, making Omar square.
This one is Omar Esmail, whose actions speak louder than words.
He throws his hands hard, like playing coins.
He opines and oscillates on his opinions.
He says, "Hi Sabin," many times
until Sabin is fully tired of replying.
Then he sits,
pokes his opinions, and moves out—outside.

P — here I get to play with words again.
P is for Penjor, one of my colleague teachers in Bhutan.
He pokes his nose everywhere:
in the playground, in clubs, in dancing,
with ladies, with boys, in meetings, in eating—
everywhere. He seems really versatile,
but not as much as you'd think.
He blacks his face everywhere,
so he ends up in everyone's black books.
You know what everyone silently calls him?
"Phallus Penjor" — that's what they shout from behind the mountain.

Q — let me not quack here more.
I'll move quickly to R,
which is quite interesting to read.

R is for Rizgar, a rabble-rouser
who seems to run the race faster than others.
What a racket! He thinks he knows everything
yet comes to class with nothing — not even a pen.
God forbid, alas! He flunks, acheo!
I like your funny rags.

S is for Saacha — that's me, a sophisticated guy.
I sometimes cannot understand myself.
I wonder whether I'm on Mars or Earth.
And worse, I have four balls —
which is why I believe I'm an alien.

Here's another S — not me, it's Sabin.
Sabin is always on the move with her satchel,
ready to flee from the tedious class.
I think Saturday is her best day.
She may be physically a little sore,
but I think her heart is as white as Maida flour.
She's been looking for a boyfriend,
just like I've been looking for a girlfriend!

And here's another S.
The greatest news for the letter S is
that the highest number of names in the world begin with S.
So it is. Who cares?
Srinath's presence doesn't make much hue or cry.
He's a dead log.
He comes and goes like a wounded dog.
He tries hesitantly to poke out,
but the lecturers' hectoring trims him nowhere. Pity, no?

T — now it's time to say Tata.
No — where are U, V, W, X, Y, Z?
They're in the line above.
No need to talk about Umbrella, Virgin, Xanadu,
because after Y comes Z — Zamindar,
who will come and collect all the money
for reading this zany article.