Bless the stress of recess

Today is one of my close friend’s birthday. After requesting when she didn’t agree a bit of force had to be applied and then she finally agreed to give us a treat in the recess. We are eight by the way. Our recess, as god would have it, is only of 35 minutes, in which the first five to six minutes are taken by the teacher who had the previous class, she was so caught up in teaching that she didn’t hear the bell (or so she claimed). This means now we have 30 minutes to hog. There is a maddening rush on the stairs; our class 10A is on the second floor along with two other sections of 10^th, the 7^th 6^th and 5^th class students from all the sections on the first floor join us on the stairs ritualistically; how can I forget the science, arts and commerce classes of 11^th and 12^th who use the same staircase plus all the teachers from all these above mentioned classes who walk in less than sensible speed on the stairs to get to the staff room on the ground floor. The thing that confuses me is why anyone doesn’t use the other staircase. Yes, there is another, everyone calls it “the second staircase” automatically making it second preference. When recess begins everyone runs to the first staircase like cattle in a stampede. Who us? Well …umm… our class is closer to the first staircase and well why take the effort to the extra distance to get there right! Save energy they say!

Back to the point, we battle with the rest of the kids on the first staircase and it only takes us five minutes to reach ground floor, where we steadily make our way to the canteen which is on the other side of the ground. Why steadily you ask? No no defiantly not because we are young women who are sophisticated or similar pretence but because shoving people…oops...I mean gently making your way on the stairs takes up all our energy. We take another 5 minutes to get to the canteen, famished! Oh five minutes is a long time is it? We are quick young determined ladies ya’ll, there were fallen soldiers all over the place, people who gave up the idea of food because canteen was so far. The school has strategically placed the canteen on the other side of the small field and let me tell you it is no “small” field. Anyway after we reach the canteen there is this small queue; oh who am I kidding! There is a crowd of 20-25 brave hearts trying to snatch… I mean trying to polity receive their order. To add to our daily stress levels the birthday girl forgot her purse in the class. She tumbles through the crowd to make her way to and from the class to get her purse, this took about 10 minutes. Bless the lord she is back!

The struggle begins; the eight of us join the crowd, kicking any and everyone irrespective of size, age and other frivolous criteria. We however managed to keep our dignity intact by adding a ‘please’ before the ‘get lost’. We are now face to face with the canteen in charge lady. “Eight chaat” one of us barked; “no” she replied with the calm of a cow in a grazing field; “what no” said another one of us in an anxious tone, “there is none left” she says, we stare at her blankly. “There will be some more prepared and ready in 5 minutes” she said finally. We were relived; we maintain eye contact with the lady as of that would speed up the process. After what seemed 15 days but were 10 minutes, she offered us the chaats. No sooner than we dipped our spoons in the delicacy that the bell rang. Alas! We gulp and swallow the chaat ASAP and run to the queue back to the class, nothing was worth standing at the end of the line that was exposed to sun rays, sun tan you see is a bigger deal than food etc.