HOW DID I BUY MYSELF A FRIEND IN GRADE V AND LEARNT ABOUT MONEY AND RELATIONSHIPS!

I am fairly certain that everyone who has watched the 'Big Bang Theory', has definitely found Sheldon's struggles with friendships laughable. I did too. Then I watched the 'Young Sheldon' spinoff and an insight into Sheldon's mind as a child was shown. Sheldon desperately tried to make a friend in school, to often hilarious and disastrous outcomes of comedic relief. In all those bouts of laughter that it gave us, the one thing that was easily missed and ignored though, was the reality behind the struggles of a person to find a friend and belongingness, if he or she is not so normal. Sadly, I have never been close to what Sheldon was, a child prodigy, a mathematical genius but I was the walking and breathing epitome, a real world entity, that defined the word 'Abnormal'. As for a friend, the one that I never had, let's delve into this rather sad, long and boring story of how I had decided to buy myself a friend in Grade V.

Much of my ideas about friendship today, has later been shaped from the many things I read, while growing up. Let me share an excerpt from a personal favourite piece of poetry, a ballad, that I happened to read in high school.

"Three were there of his race and creed.

Three only and no more:

They could not find to bear the dead

A fourth in all Jodhpore.

“God only knows,” said Pertab Singh,

“That which I lose to-day:

And without me no hand of man

Shall bear my friend away.”

'A Ballad of Sir Pertab Singh', as the name suggests, a ballad on friendship by Sir Henry Newbolt, is perhaps the most heart warming piece of poetry, that I have ever read, on friendship and what duty, should one uphold for a friend in life. The ballad rolls out the story of the friendship, between an English soldier (unnamed) and an Indian King, Maharaj Pertab Singh. Sometime during the colonial raj, an English soldier, on duty in the state of Rajasthan, had befriended the said Indian King of Jodhpur. One day the Englishman died and in all of Jodhpur, they could only find three other Englishmen to carry the dead body and a fourth one was nowhere to be found, as is the custom. None of the Indians, wanted to touch the body of the foreigner, owing to a belief that, to bear the dead body of a foreigner, meant losing one's caste. After a terrible dilemma that ensued the ordeal, the King, Pertab Singh himself became the fourth man to bear the dead English soldier to his grave after much tribulations, with local priests and his own community of Rajputs, thereby becoming a 'Pariah', an outcast in simpler terms. The King chose to become an outcast rather than betray his dead friend. Such was his friendship and his duty towards his friend, even though he wasn't alive anymore.

I do know now, what friendship means and what it means to have a friend. Life has a way about it, and so does the many facets of friendship and other relationships, that might happen to chance in one's. For the most part of my childhood though, I never really had one. Call it my fault, my poor mental heath growing up or whatever, I could never find someone to be friends with. If you ask me why, I would say, I preferred being alone and I wasn't really interested owing to the control freak I was. I was rather more interested in practicing 'Ambidexterity' (the ability to be able to use both the hands, equally well), when I should have rather chosen to find a friend. Not many people that know me, know that I had been a regular practitioner of Ambidexterity in childhood. I can write in at least three different and significantly unique patterns of handwriting with my right hand and two totally different ones, with my left. Well, that definitely makes for another good story for another time.

Everyone studied, everyone got good marks. I wanted something more for myself. I blame myself for exposing myself to the tales and ideas of Leonardo Da Vinci and our very own 'Lord Krishna', at that age. I desperately wanted to become a 'Polymath' (A person who is good at too many things). Almost everyone knows now what it has resulted in. I know too many things but don't really know anything today. I can do a wide variety of things but haven't been able to do anything significant till date. Much ado for nothing.

Amidst all these frivolous pursuits, I suddenly realized one day, that I needed a friend. I realized I needed someone to stand with me so that I wouldn't look alone and dumb. Maybe, I wanted to conquer and become an Emperor. In my mother tongue, Odia, we say, 'Tini Tunda re Cheli, Kukura' (If three people say or vouch for a fact that it is a goat, the dog becomes a goat). I needed those three people for myself but, it had to start with one. Someone, that I can trust. Someone, that I can share my self professed, ultra radical and revolutionary ideas with. Someone, who wouldn't truly betray me or rat me out. Someone who would stay with me no matter what and agree to whatever I say or theorize and hence, began my search for a FRIEND.

I tried projecting my best self to my classmates and the neighbourhood kids around me. I tried helping them find whatever they desired the most, but found it difficult to access, often going to the lengths of first exploring and seeking it out myself to test the waters. All of this madness, now when I think about it, just to find a friend. In a way, most of it was working. There had been times, I had undoubtedly been chosen as a leader, the best student namesake, representative of this and that, monitor of the class, this and that absurdity, Amrut Pattnaik, the first of his name, whatever the fuck does that mean.

The law of attraction worked. My people pleasing skills were developing bang on point and one fine day I found him. The friend that I had wanted. The 'Yes-Man' to be appointed as the, first tongue to wag in my favour, the first of the three tongues that I needed. How stupid it was of me to think like that then! I do realize now and regret.

Enter, Sam, (Let's, call him Sam, for it would definitely be a grave injustice to him and a serious invasion of his privacy), a lean and lanky fellow, one of my classmates, who at times would seem to be really, like literally relishing on small amounts of the junk food, available in the canteen and from several street food hawkers selling their wares around the area of the school, I studied in as a child. Guess, who would know more about junk food and the many different tongue tingling tastes they had to offer. An unusually anxious child, with an ultra inquisitive and hyperactive brain, a seasoned psychopath, of course! One thing that I am definitely certain about even today, is the relationship between anxiety and junk food. Often, the first noticeable sign of anxiety and restlessness in a person would be his or her habits with junk food. I used to gobble up junk food like there's no tomorrow. I was definitely not a glutton. Constantly putting food in my mouth helped me calm my overtly sensitive nerves down, hence the excess of fat on my body and the mild gynecomastia, that I suffer from. To tone down that curse, the bouts of anxiety and panic that I suffered from, I constantly needed food. I constantly needed money. More and more of it each time. Hence, developing borderline Kleptomania (the urge to steal). Now, that I think of this depression, that people have been seeing me suffering from, has never been the result of a breakup or my inability to find new love or my inability to achieve anything in life or build a career. One thing I must really accept, that I shouldn't blame my ex girlfriends, my parents, my friends and anyone else that I have had bad experiences with. As a human, I do understand as much. This depression, my poor mental health has always been a constant part of my life since the day I was born. It has been the only constant thing that has stayed with me throughout. The days I have spent on this earth, the nights that I have twisted and turned on the bed, none of it was anybody's fault. Neither was it mine. It is just what it is, meant to be.

Back to the story, Sam, the innocent friend that I never had, definitely didn't know, the danger that was lurking around the corners he frequented, during the recesses and the leisure periods of classes in school. I was too proud and too enigmatic to approach anyone from my end. All I really needed was an window to pounce. Call it my good fortune or his bad, one fine day, many of the students including me were out of the class premises, indulged in some frivolous stupidity, in the absence of a teacher. By the time we decided it was enough and returned back to class for the next one, that was supposed to be taken by a conspicuously strict teacher, we were the only two left behind while everyone else had settled down. Mutual misery definitely creates a bond and so it happened. The teacher blamed us both for the ruckus that we had all created. Sam though, didn't rat anyone out and neither did me. He went a step further and calmed the angry teacher down by giving up the silly excuse of some errand that another teacher had meant for us to be involved in.

"What a silly excuse?", I thought to myself. I would have rather preferred something else, added a little more detail. Given the reputation of that teacher to have been an ardent Gossipmonger, one who takes pleasure in spreading rumours about other students and teachers to everyone else, she met on earth, I was almost certain that, we were as good as dead.

The teacher eyed me a few times, unsure and definitely suspicious of me, as a known abnormal entity. Due to my multiple involvements in too many things, good and bad, she had always resented me for my vanity and ability to win in anything I really wanted to. To make matters worse, she was in charge of the Grade V classes. That definitely didn't stop me from being the darling of many other teachers though. There were many teachers, who often swore by their pinky, that I as an entity could never be bad, a shock to many later on, along the years that witnessed my downfall from being, an extraordinary genius to a petty scavenger.

Sam had struck a chord with her that very moment, that definitely went a long way later on, or so I have heard. To my surprise the ruse worked flawlessly. To Sam's misfortune, the enthusiastic kid, who had continuously strived to hog the limelight and failed up until then, had been discovered by two very significantly dangerous people that day. The gossipmonger teacher and of course, the sad and self professed protagonist of this story. Each with their own agenda to take over the school, conquer everything their eyes could see around and become the most supreme being inside the school premises, after Principal Ojha, a dear old lady godmother at it's helm. Poor old Principal Ojha, I never resented her for the harsh judgments, she later passed on my absurd cases and the crimes that I committed as a juvenile. She did what she had to do to keep her school, her kingdom of dainty little boys and girls, in line with it's purpose of being, i.e. to educate and build the future of society. Now, that I can recall, this might be the very moment, my downfall had begun. It was only a path of downward tumble after this. A path of madness. Darkness had crept in and the corruption of my soul had begun. All I needed was a little push and what happens next in this story is what brings you 'me' today, a story definitely at par with the fictional entities you know as the 'Joker' and his beloved the 'Harley Quinn'. All I am sad about is that the darkness of my soul, had for long been contained by the good teachers of my school and my innocent parents at home. This new class teacher though, unknowingly opened a can of worms she shouldn't have or so I must have felt at that point in time. I will not even name her. People connected to these incidents can definitely guess her persona. As a child I never did really intend any harm to befall anyone and neither do I intend any such thing, for anybody else now. The only reason, why I choose to be far away and alone from everything and from everyone. At times my loneliness scares me, haunts me but I can't help it. I can control my urges to rule and conquer, by hook or by crook now, but then, I definitely needed Sam, the friend, I never had, for my crooked designs.

I had long observed him to know that he was a sucker for junk food. I didn't care to know the reason behind it. I didn't even know the reason behind mine, back then. I stole frequently from my sweet and innocent mother's purse to fuel my urges and continuously munch on junk food, outside. I understood that if I had to get Sam on my boat, I would have to fend for him too. I wasn't smart enough to understand the reasons behind, but I definitely knew the consequences of it all. I knew I had to buy myself, a Sam, the friend.

So it began, my crooked design, to conquer the school and establish myself as the conqueror supreme. I started swindling the monthly school fees, that my mother meticulously made sure to put into my pocket, the first week of every month. Money was never a problem for my parents. My father was already working as a senior marketing manager in a pretty established pharmaceutical company and then later on rose to new heights with the sudden outburst of the concept of 'Insurance' in the country, in the late 90s and the early millennium. Neither did they know, what I was doing nor do they truly understand even today, why I did what I did. All of this to just buy myself a friend, I couldn't have had otherwise. For an entire year and half the next, pretty much into Grade VI, I would give various disheartening excuses at school for not having paid the fees and swindle the money, to feed myself and Sam, relish on the many different junk food items that were on the offer around. Now, when I recall, I do remember the feeling, the central emotion that drove me and my frivolous pursuit. I felt an extreme sense of satisfaction and emotional gratification knowing, I had a friend, who at the drop of an eyelid, would run on any errand, that my crooked design could conceive of, as possible and oh, he did.

The class teacher too was busy moulding Sam as her spy. She would be the only teacher to unravel all the mysteries surrounding student incidents that were unacceptable within the school boundaries. Poor Sam was being torn by a moral duty to a stupid old lady who probably had no entertainment in her life and hence the gossip-mongering, that she resorted to and an ethical duty towards a new found psychopathic friend, who regularly spent a shit load of money on his desires. To make things worse, we were on the onset of our pre-pubescent developmental stages and our desires were slowly dwindling towards other things that life had to offer, the sweet, seductive call of borderline porn. Money definitely helped and Sam, ratted out nearly everyone else but never his friend, me.

Sometimes, he would ask, "What does your father do? How are you able to secure such huge amounts of money to spend on both of us?"

Poor guy, he didn't quite know, that I had the entire staff of a well known, well established, highly efficient and highly competent school of the city of Cuttack, dancing to the my tunes, my stories. The very reason I hate lies and unrighteous money today is because I have myself perpetrated a lot of it, for my own benefit in the past. The very reason I have tried becoming an actor on-screen is to avoid acting in real life, to not lie, ever again. Whatever I am supposed to do today in any job or business, that I join or start doing, requires me to act and lie in some form and I am just not able to do it anymore, having done, a lot of it, the entire length my childhood. All my current problems, in life, my stints with bankruptcy can only be traced down this single conflict of interest and purpose, that I have had all my life, more so in the recent years. People around me think, I don't understand 'Business' and probably that's why I am not finding my bit of success and achievement but the truth is I was doing business, playing with emotions and marketing my ideas quite radically, charming the various stakeholders for my crooked designs, even when they hadn't learned to properly wash themselves after a dump. My mind and my soul, just don't allow me to do, all that I have done in the past anymore. It pains me to not be understood. It's as if, I knew what I should have done exactly to rule and conquer and now that I am off the path to follow righteousness in life, everyone else has started doing it. It's just that I was way ahead of my time with my crooked designs. It's almost heart wrenching to see the very same people, my friends, my teachers, my elders doing the very same things that I had been resented for, the entire length of my childhood, for the very same pursuits in life.

LIE, ACT AND CHARM!

For,

MONEY, SUCCESS AND ACHIEVEMENT!

I would tell Sam, "There's no limit to the wealth, my grandfather has left behind."

He would gloat happily and praise my grandfather, for having left behind such an enormous stream of wealth to fuel the frivolous pursuits of my friends' and mine. Slowly with time, I became convinced that Sam was totally under my grasp and that he would never leave me, under any circumstance. A man is only but, undone by what he creates. I wanted more. I wanted two more tongues in my favour having successfully consolidated the first. The 'Rajasuya Yagna' had successfully been conducted with flourishing results. It was time to expand further. It was time for the 'Ashvamedha'. That is when I made my first mistake, gave an equal right to Sam, at par with myself. I was never one to not give someone, what he or she truly deserved. I knew it had never been given to me and how much of a pain I had suffered for the lack of it. My ideals on equality were pretty much developed even then. I handed the task of recruiting the second tongue in my favour to my friend, Sam. That was probably the only mistake I had committed, in the entire well planned and well executed design to take over the school, conquer it and rule. He ended up parading a non-existent chap whose name I hadn't even cared to notice for a classmate, to be our subsequent recruit. Let's call him 'Abhi'.

Now, this little chap, was so good and so innocent and so non-existent, that I had failed to observe and analyze his fangs. God, they were sharp and they even bit me long after he was gone, both from my life and memories years later, on another occasion, when his father, a doctor, met a pair of doctor relatives of mine, in some doctors' conference, to stir the sands of time and bring up the stories about my past pursuits of madness and kick my healed and long forgotten wounds, afresh again. I have tried a lot to shake off my past but they do keep reappearing in everything good I do to soil my current standing, to be judged for something, I didn't even fully comprehend, why I was doing back then. This storytelling is in part my own process of letting go and facing my demons and part, a memento macabre, for if anything sudden to befall me, my stories aren't entirely lost to the world. That the world knows, what people suffering from poor mental health go through. What experiences they accumulate and how misunderstood they often are.

Abhi, after the initial honeymoon period of getting his regular fix of junk food, borderline porn and frivolous stuff that allured the students of Grades V and VI back then, started sowing the seeds of resentment, in the mind of Sam. They would take whatever they needed from me and go away to another corner and enjoy the delights, they chose. I wouldn't mind initially but with time, I noticed, their distance. Sam, when alone, would still come running to me but with Abhi, he would certainly ditch his old friend and wander away. The class teacher with Sam's help had now gotten another fresh recruit to her ensemble of spies, Abhi, and this one wasn't the tongue that really wanted junk food but more marks as well. I feel it really sad and unfortunate to mention that this is what a woman, a teacher, probably in her thirties or forties, with kids of her own, did actually resort to, by recruiting an ensemble of spies, favouring them with more marks and gossiping about other students and teachers, to just make herself feel important. When I place her actions and mine in a scale of justice, I don't see myself having done anything wrong. Only it wasn't meant to be done by me and so it corrupted my soul and I have been in terrible pain over my past haunting me, till date. All because, my anxiety and my poor mental health went unnoticed by the elders around me, unaware of the various psychological phases of development, a child can go through.

All good things come to an end. Even after a year and a half of the class teacher's constant inquisition into my activities, Sam hadn't breathed a word. I will give him that. He was faithful in the least. But, then one day, Abhi ratted me out with detailed chunks of information about my wanton spending and Sam's loyalty to me, that I had bought. For a middle aged woman, bored of her sad and sordid life, it definitely must have seemed like she had unearthed the holy grail. Sam, fearing the repercussions on his new found stardom and good marks, was forced to hit the death knell on my grand design. Sometimes I laugh and sometimes I feel sad, thinking about what she might have felt, when she finally did find the fix of her 'El Dorado'. To search and find dirt on someone's name after a two years' length of witch hunting that she pursued to just somehow convict me. She immediately connected the eighteen month long default on the monthly fees with my frivolous spending and right there, in front of my eyes, like a pack of cards, the castle of glass, that I had built with astute devotion and fervent passion, came tumbling down. It hurt so bad. Moreover, I had lost the only friend, that I had managed to buy myself. My mother's screams and incessant hitting, for my mistake, fell on my deaf ears. Surprisingly, my back, my calves and all the places I was hit at didn't even ache. I had lost the only friend, that could have been.

A FRIEND, THAT NEVER WAS, THAT I DID BUY MYSELF IN GRADE V.