What it means is an Islamic cleric. It was also the name of
a feared childhood friend. Trust me, for what he was; even clerics would have
been afraid of him.
I saw him for the first time in the 6th grade. He
was already a legend, and he was repeating his term for a second time with us.
Rumours about his evil had done their countless rounds, even before he made his
first appearance in class. They were nerve-tingling scary; he had slapped an
Indian kid for not showing him the answers in an exam – some claimed the kid’s
left cheek turned blue. Stories like that helped in concocting a fierce image,
perhaps a fiercer image than he actually was – a burly 6 foot 2 inch dark
monster bearing flaming eyes, fire-breathing nostrils, and walking with footsteps that liberated a gut-wrenching
noise.
Except that when we saw him, he was exactly what we had
envisioned. Minus the fire from the nostrils, of course. Our disbelief caused
his movement to appear in slow-motion, accompanied by some crappy death-metal
music playing in the back of my head.
He was from a troubled family, and this reflected in his
attitude and in his studies. Our school tried numerous methods to mend him; extra
attention from teachers, photocopies of their notes, appointing him as a house
prefect (in the hope that a little responsibility would change him for the
better), etc. But he was as stubborn as a dog’s curly tail could be, and his character
improvement plot made little or no progress.
Until one day my class teacher came up with an ingenious
plan – “to make Mulla sit with the topper of the class, so that he may watch
and learn from his traits, which will be of utmost benefit to him.” Okay, it
may seem like I’m gloating here, but being the one bestowed with this coveted
opportunity wasn’t exactly the reward I was looking for. How did I feel when I
first heard it? Similar to what Frodo Baggins would have felt if Gandalf asked him
to go for a picnic with the Witch-king of Angmar.
I was infuriated at leaving my friends to sit with this illiterate
and immoral creature. The very thought of sharing my notes with him disgusted
me. I felt he just wasn’t worth all the effort - a person not up to the
standards of begetting my friendship.
First few days went without any incident. I would stare
longingly at my previous place, and my neighbours having a good time. Then
there was the occasional bullying – he would simply push my chair forward in
order to make himself space to move out (C’mon, he was 4 years older and had
the strength of a horse – If I was of his size I would have moved the chair
myself).
I would be blamed for his disappearances between classes; so
at this one time I showed the futile courage of not budging when he tried to
escape. When you know you are going to get hit, your eyes attain a supreme ability
to multi-function. I was looking at his eyes, yet I could notice the
micro-movements of both his hands. Surprisingly he grinned – this was the
ice-breaker.
We got along pretty quickly after that. People were now
cautious with me –I had the dubious privilege of anyone getting beaten up if
they messed with me. I too thought the same, until one day I was given a task
to prevent students from buying from the old canteen (as their tender had
gotten over). There was this Arab dude, similar in stature to Mulla, who was a
regular buyer. One day I asked Mulla to have my back when I confronted him. I
blocked that dude from reaching out to his food. “No it’s against the rules,
you can’t have from here.”
FWWATISH!!!
(Yes, I it was this very filmy sound. I remember clearly ‘cos
it echoed a good number of times in my ears after the impact)
I was slapped to the ground. You know how cartoons depict
birds hovering around a head after a bad bump? Well the experience was almost
similar; except in reality it were the floaters in my eyes that were twirling.
I shook my head and opened my eyes hoping to see Mulla have already
beaten down that hooligan to a measly pulp. Sadly I was mistaken…they were chuckling
together! I got enraged, unmindful of the slap I had just received and the
harder ones that could follow, I stood up to Mulla and yelled,” You should
learn to stick to your word, Mulla! I thought you had my back!”
To which he replied,” Yes if you hurt, I call nurse.”
“You could have told me that before I stopped him na?!!”
“We fight own battle, we win, we feel like strong man…”
I didn’t have a reply; on the contrary I mellowed down (like
I had a choice!) and had a good laugh with both of them. It wasn’t only my
sensory nerves, but also my ego that had taken a resound beating. Looking back
at those six months which were meant to improve him, it had in fact improved me
to an elevated level of maturity. Everyone now was an equal to me.
Teaching him was a jolly good exercise. Once he had gotten
on my nerves for some reason and kept on provoking me. He asked, “How you study
like this? How you remember all these big-big answers?”, to which I retorted
this nonsense, “Stare at the book for 5 minutes and then look up.” The entire
class, including the teacher, heard this dialogue, and watched him in silence
as he did exactly what I told. He looked up and exclaimed “Oh I see the
answers! There on the ceiling! Now I know your secret, hah!” This got everyone
into splits.
He passed that year, but unfortunately he dropped out of 7th
grade, and he was never heard of since. I sincerely hope he’s doing well
out there somewhere (not as a henchman or a drug-lord!), ‘cos he was the one that
led me to believe that whatever element, good or bad (however you perceive it),
if experienced in the right way, invariably lends us a lesson to be learnt.
