It was just another Monday, but then it was also a crime ridden Monday for we, Alan, Vijay and I stood on the nursery corridor for an act which still didn’t feel crime to me.
It started off with our awakening to gender talk.
Alan said nuns were male, I felt they were neuter gender, Vijay claimed they were female.
In the end, Alan suggested that we lift Sr.M…. veil to check if she had long hair like a woman or short like a man. Of course he did give a momentary doleful glance at my unruly an inch above ear hair. (for then he always saw me his future wife).
We finally sped fast past immaculate Sr. M… and as we whizzed past her Alan and I together flicked up her white veil that hung down her head that seemed to be always at peace.
That fateful Monday morning Sr. M…lost her cool and after enough reprimand we stood heads hung down as she lectured on how sinful we little devils were.
I think it was also the day our innocence was broken forever…
Soon after the reprimand session, the trio was called by the moral science teacher who tried to preserve our convent innocence though in the end she managed to only break it into chaos.
She explained to us that a boy is a bee and a girl a flower and one day when we are blessed by the almighty to live together the bee shall own the flower.
At the end of her narration Alan turned to me and whispered in endless excitement, “Am your bee”
I didn’t like the idea of a being a flower, so I almost shouted,
“ Am a bumble bee”
Alan began to smart in his eyes, I sensed they were tears of frustration and helplessness as he mumbled, “be a bumble bee”
Somehow, that moment I think Alan and I recognised only one can be a bee and the other a flower.
That sense of being different just broke through an innocence for everything till then had meant sameness for us.
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