My Terrible School Trip
Our school would always take all the SSC students to Hyderabad for a trip, in the final year and I was already skeptical about travelling via train because it’s a completely different state and we were all young girls accompanied by none other than sisters, nuns & female teachers, there was hardly any male staff. Yet I just hoped for the best while my mother said, “Dont ever return” before I left. We have always shared an estranged & bitter relationship... I’m still quite innocent and vulnerable so I get swept away by emotions very easily and I keep forgiving her and acting like nothing’s happened but she is a bit vindictive. Its not even like I fight or start any arguments, in fact I’m the one who keeps asking, “Why are you shouting and fighting with me?”
I’m bed ridden, even now my head is paining a lot and I don’t have any energy for squabbling or drama. It’s not even healthy and I just don’t know what to do about it. Anyway (while I was on that trip) she would still call my friends, probably just to tell them that I’m not answering her calls and I wasn’t deliberately doing that, my phone’s battery would keep dying and there was some network issue, I wasn’t getting her calls.
As expected, we were harassed on the streets by not only Eve teasers but also the hawkers and bangle, biscuit/cookie sellers (the almond biscuit was apparently one of their specialities there) They were almost molesting us instead of making sales and we were left on our own by the irresponsible teaching staff! The girls were busy saying, “I’ll slap you and kill you... stay away from me, dare you touch me motherf*cker!” and everything was a complete mess! I wasn’t even interested in buying anything anymore, none of us were.
It didn’t end there, we waited for our teachers for nearly an hour in the bus because they had not yet finished “shopping”. This clanky metal bus had also become hot due to the scorching heat of the afternoon sun and we were all parched to death.
Things got worse when we were returning home...
Our group (I didn’t want to be with these girls but I had no choice) were allotted a compartment next to random people and the teacher who was supposed to be around, looking after us was nowhere to be found when a group of cheap thugs from the next compartment started harassing us with lewd words and lecherous stares. Some of them didn’t even have a ticket... but since there was no T.C. or anyone else around, they had the whole space to themselves and yet they left that and came to our compartment, where 1-2 were standing while the others were sitting, right there in the door as in the entrance of our area. There were total 5 of them and we had to cover each other to change into our night suits because even there was no bathroom nearby and the other one wasn’t accessible to us... I think it was right next to their compartment. The whole night turned into a nightmare because they were all staring at us, saying cheap things, right since dinner time and all we could do was wince at them out of sheer disgust. They kept flirting, ogling and harassing till we found our teacher and complained about them; we asked her to help us but she never showed up (she didn’t accompany us on our way back and said she’ll see what to do...) and this only made matters worse as it spited these creeps.
They became more aggressive and said, “Let them go to sleep, then we’ll show.” We all made a pact and decided not to sleep and then luckily, a T.C. showed up. We immediately brought all that to his attention and he said he’ll sleep there on the single berth which was again pretty uncomfortable at least for me because I didn’t wasn’t very keen on sharing the same compartment with an unknown uncle (he wasn’t even that old) but we needed someone to help us tackle those men. I was on the left berth and the compartment adjacent to it had a group of youngsters/friends whereas the one on the right obviously had these fuckers... to my shock, inspite of everything, as soon as the lights went out, all the other girls here started cracking disgusting adult jokes! Appallingly, the one on the right berth was extremely shameless and she had the dirtiest things to say... dude it’s not funny! Her berth was right beside the deadly cheap zone which was accommodating those desperate ghettos/potential rapists... are you kidding me? They were busy laughing hard at things that were making me nauseous, my ears were almost bleeding and I wasn’t the only one. Eventually someone from the left went “tsk tsk tsk...” and I was like Thankgod!! They obviously had to stop after this much needed remark but then they went straight to sleep. I asked one of them about the pact and she was like no just chuck it.
So I knew I was on my own and I had a back up plan in mind to help me keep awake... most of us were carrying 2 phones, as in one extra in spare, so when the first one’s battery died, I continued listening to music on the FM Radio of the spare good ‘ol Nokia phone... the T.C. asked me to go to sleep but I knew I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. There were times when I felt like giving up but I was way more farsighted than any of them... I didn’t want to regret anything, I kept looking at the clock and I managed to persevere all the way till 7 am, even after that I didn’t sleep till I reached home. And I’m glad I was up. Two of them came to our compartment after they “thought” everyone had slept... they came near that girl on the left berth who was entertaining them with a porno narrative and then they saw me wide awake staring at them in sheer contempt. My face was almost as if I‘d would throw them out of the bloody window itself! One of them went and told the rest, “Ek Jaag rahi hai” and their change of plans waali khus pus woke up the T.C. and I was like, “Finally!”
He was supposed to protect us right? Wasn’t he asking me to go to sleep? Anyway, he asked them what their problem was and gave them a warning... after a while a few police officers boarded the train and they too were right there, in sitting in our compartment, on the lower berths (brilliant) but frankly that was relieving, it made me feel safer tbh. After that when everyone else woke up... the teacher came there out of FAKE concern and started reprimanding the T.C. Our teacher-student relationship was over that day, so you should’ve seen my face when I told her, “It wasn’t him.”
Well I’m glad she was offended. All the other girls were still busy doing chamcha-giri and buttering, they had even purchased her gifts from all the stalls there for extra marks (scores) and she was taking bribes from them...
It was so damn appalling. Now these men were like, “Let them get down at the station, then we’ll see them.”
I told them, I know all the spots where they have a chain and I’m gonna go and pull every goddamn chain like a fucking trigger till the entire train gets acquainted with who they are! Tum log Khud station pe Uttar Nahi payenge...!” The look on their face was priceless... Even after they got down, they were busy staring at us from the window and they kept repeating this just to satisfy their Male ego (they were not even males tbh, they were spineless) “Let them get down, when they are alone... we’ll see!” and all the other girls had to stop me when I was like “Tu Mumbai main dikh saale.” Dude... what else do you expect from someone who’s been up all night guarding everyone.