The second period was over and the third period was about to kick in. Suddenly art mastar, Chandrashekharayya rushed to Sixth 'A', stood at the door with a grave look. The kind of look a predator wears in search of its prey. Then he rushed to the third row and grabbed Ravi. Another teacher whose face was familiar, yet unknown to a sixth class kid was behind him. Though his dark complexion was terrifying, his conduct projected his sympathy towards what was about to happen.
The whole class had its eyes fixed on the prey which was in the grasp of the beast. After a few slaps and thumps on his back, the interrogation started. Art mastar would ask, “Wasn’t that you in the Dharwad bus stand yesterday?” for which Ravi would reply in his terrified trembling voice, “It wasn’t me.”
No matter how brutal art mastar was, Ravi was equally firm with his denial over whatever mastar accused him of. Though he had to go through few more blows, he was finally saved by the teacher who had come with art mastar. He pacified him and made him walk away from that hunt.
From whatever had happened, everyone had a rough clue that it was related to Ravi’s act of absconding the previous day. He was brought to the school by his mama that morning. When the actual story got unraveled slowly, sure all were awed by the stunt Ravi had pulled off. No wonder why art mastar was furious.
That day when Ravi had become Andy Dufresne, he was caught by art mastar in Dharwad bus stand. While Ravi waited for the bus and art mastar had made Ravi realize his worst of the nightmares, Ravi chose his thug life and faced him. When art mastar asked him if he was from navodaya school, he said, ”Ye niv yaar namag gottillari pa. Na namma amman jodi bandeni. Aki ille hogyal” meaning he doesn’t recognize him and he has come with his granny who has left him there while she ran an errand around.
And art mastar had bought it. In a state of confusion and deep contemplation, he had left the place. And that morning when he saw Ravi around the principal’s office, he had realized how he was played by the little brat.
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