It was holiday season and the festive mood filled the air, with everyone ready to leave the office early and spend the Christmas Eve with their loved ones. Vijay was drafting his holiday greetings email and added recipients carefully so that no one at the office was missed. He drafted the email and saved it to send later that evening before leaving the office on a long vacation until after New Year’s Day. It was indeed the end of a tiring work week when he had to wrap up the final release for 2019. A major project going live without any major incident was a perfect gift anybody working in IT industry would ask for. Relaxation slowly settling in, Vijay walked towards the coffee machine with his mug. It was a little above 3 PM and there were very few people in the office. Most of them were off for the long week/month/year end and those still at office probably had their flights later that evening. Vijay grabbed a cup of coffee and went near the window overlooking the parking bay of his office. He could see only white cars everywhere as it had started snowing an hour back and it’s expected to stop anytime soon as there were no snowstorms in the forecast. Maybe it was just nature's way of adding joy to the holiday mood. Vijay finished his coffee looking through the window and decided to leave home for the day. Before ejecting his laptop from the docking station, Vijay gave a once over of the holiday greeting email he had drafted and checked the recipients once again and hit the send button and immediately regretted his decision to send the email from office. His outlook did not respond to his clicks. Vijay was trying to close the outlook but had to wait for all the out of office replies from his recipients before he could safely turn off his laptop. Had it been a regular weekend, Vijay would have slapped close his laptop without waiting for all those blinking lights to turn off. But since the couple of minutes were sure not to eat into his long weekend, Vijay waited patiently before packing his laptop, pushing his chair back under the desk and turning off his monitor, to leave home.
Melody songs of Ilaiyaraja playing in the car, Vijay gently drove his car back home to avoid any incidents as the roads were slippery due to snow. Vijay pulled into his apartment parking lot and began walking towards his home. He could see his 4 year old son already jumping in joy upon seeing the snow through the glass door and asking his dad to take him out to play in the snow. Vijay could very well sense that's exactly what his son was asking him even though he couldn't hear a word. Vijay slid open the door and heard him say "snow la vilayadanum pa". He assured his son that he will take him out to play as soon as the snow stops falling and asked him to get dressed up so that he doesn't feel cold when he plays outside. His son ran towards his room shouting "Amma, pant eduthu kudunga". He freshened up and sat on the sofa and pulled out his phone to check on the notifications he received while he was driving from office. Thank God, nothing from outlook, he dismissed all the notifications and casually logged into facebook and began scrolling through the posts, mostly holiday greetings from his friends. Something caught his attention and he scrolled back up to see the list of friend suggestions. That was a familiar face and name, thought Vijay and clicked on Siddarth's profile. Siddarth was Vijay's school friend, but Vijay had no one from his school on his facebook friend list to receive Siddarth as a suggestion. Not giving too much thought into facebook's friend suggestion algorithm, Vijay browsed through Siddarth's profile. Siddhu completed his MBA from a top business university in India and is now working in Qatar. Curious about knowing about his other friend's from the school, Vijay clicked on Siddharth's friends list and started searching for names that began flowing through Vijay's mind like his class 11 A's attendance register. That was the last year Vijay studied in that school and that was the last time he saw all his friends from that school. Vijay's life had turned upside down after the XI standard annual exam results were published or we should say were withheld, just for him.
Vijay still remembered that fateful final day at his school in Adyar where he was standing in the middle of the playground with tears flowing down his cheeks and everything around him blacked out for few moments. His mom was standing just next to him talking to Mrs.Meera Venkatesh, Vijay's class teacher for XI standard 'A' section.
Mom: Please give him one last chance and I will ensure he does well in his XII standard. We have already arranged for his tuition for XII.
Mrs Meera: Am really sorry, but I do not have anything to say in this matter. I am just conveying you what I was asked to, by the school management.
Mom: His entire career will be in jeopardy if this happens. Just one more year. Please consider.
Mrs Meera: I can only pity for him at this point, but cannot really help him in this matter. This is not our first warning to Vijay. We have been insisting him to take things seriously when he failed in all the subjects except english in his quarterly exams this year. We even sent out a notice to you through him to come and meet us, but neither you nor his dad turned up to collect his marksheets.
Vijay's stood there with his face sinking down in shame while his mom stared at him in disbelief
Mom: We are really sorry, we couldn't make it due to some problems in the family. Please give him one more chance.
Mrs Meera: I actually have his TC with me and the principal did not even agree to change his XI result as a "Pass" in his TC
Those were the final words Vijay heard from Mrs. Meera before his first drop of tears rolled out of his eyes. His schooling has come to a jarring stop exactly an year before he was supposed to complete his schooling and enter a college. Little did he anticipate that he will be sent out of the school and least did he expect his TC will have "Fail" marked in bold red ink which means he cannot even join XII in another school but will have to continue in XI standard again, if at all he was admitted by a different school, which everyone knows has a very bleak chance.
To be continued...
Melody songs of Ilaiyaraja playing in the car, Vijay gently drove his car back home to avoid any incidents as the roads were slippery due to snow. Vijay pulled into his apartment parking lot and began walking towards his home. He could see his 4 year old son already jumping in joy upon seeing the snow through the glass door and asking his dad to take him out to play in the snow. Vijay could very well sense that's exactly what his son was asking him even though he couldn't hear a word. Vijay slid open the door and heard him say "snow la vilayadanum pa". He assured his son that he will take him out to play as soon as the snow stops falling and asked him to get dressed up so that he doesn't feel cold when he plays outside. His son ran towards his room shouting "Amma, pant eduthu kudunga". He freshened up and sat on the sofa and pulled out his phone to check on the notifications he received while he was driving from office. Thank God, nothing from outlook, he dismissed all the notifications and casually logged into facebook and began scrolling through the posts, mostly holiday greetings from his friends. Something caught his attention and he scrolled back up to see the list of friend suggestions. That was a familiar face and name, thought Vijay and clicked on Siddarth's profile. Siddarth was Vijay's school friend, but Vijay had no one from his school on his facebook friend list to receive Siddarth as a suggestion. Not giving too much thought into facebook's friend suggestion algorithm, Vijay browsed through Siddarth's profile. Siddhu completed his MBA from a top business university in India and is now working in Qatar. Curious about knowing about his other friend's from the school, Vijay clicked on Siddharth's friends list and started searching for names that began flowing through Vijay's mind like his class 11 A's attendance register. That was the last year Vijay studied in that school and that was the last time he saw all his friends from that school. Vijay's life had turned upside down after the XI standard annual exam results were published or we should say were withheld, just for him.
Vijay still remembered that fateful final day at his school in Adyar where he was standing in the middle of the playground with tears flowing down his cheeks and everything around him blacked out for few moments. His mom was standing just next to him talking to Mrs.Meera Venkatesh, Vijay's class teacher for XI standard 'A' section.
Mom: Please give him one last chance and I will ensure he does well in his XII standard. We have already arranged for his tuition for XII.
Mrs Meera: Am really sorry, but I do not have anything to say in this matter. I am just conveying you what I was asked to, by the school management.
Mom: His entire career will be in jeopardy if this happens. Just one more year. Please consider.
Mrs Meera: I can only pity for him at this point, but cannot really help him in this matter. This is not our first warning to Vijay. We have been insisting him to take things seriously when he failed in all the subjects except english in his quarterly exams this year. We even sent out a notice to you through him to come and meet us, but neither you nor his dad turned up to collect his marksheets.
Vijay's stood there with his face sinking down in shame while his mom stared at him in disbelief
Mom: We are really sorry, we couldn't make it due to some problems in the family. Please give him one more chance.
Mrs Meera: I actually have his TC with me and the principal did not even agree to change his XI result as a "Pass" in his TC
Those were the final words Vijay heard from Mrs. Meera before his first drop of tears rolled out of his eyes. His schooling has come to a jarring stop exactly an year before he was supposed to complete his schooling and enter a college. Little did he anticipate that he will be sent out of the school and least did he expect his TC will have "Fail" marked in bold red ink which means he cannot even join XII in another school but will have to continue in XI standard again, if at all he was admitted by a different school, which everyone knows has a very bleak chance.
To be continued...
