Mulla

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 6^th 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 7^th 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.