ONE-ce upon a time

Once upon a time, there were four friends, really close friends – one, two, three and four. They used to go to school together in their bicycles blocking up the entire road oblivious to the car honking behind. They were in the same batch from class 7 till class 9. After class 9 two moved out of that school to a different school because he couldn’t cope up with the high standard of education at his present school. One, three and four understood his plight and life went on. One and three lost contact with two because he lived far away from their place .After the class 10 board exams three decided to go back to his hometown to complete his studies because he was now living at his uncles place, and his uncles attitude towards him seemed to have changed.

Come class XI, one and four were in the same school, so they continued their tradition of blocking the road. Four was outgoing while one was shy .Both class one and four were good at studies and there was always a healthy competition between them but one always used to outscore four. Time went on, four started coming to one’s house on the eve of exams and used to get some useful tips before the exams. As class XII board exams came nearer the number of visits became more frequent. Both one and four discussed a lot of concepts the day before the exams. The exams got over, both had done well. During the holidays one was confused- why didn’t his friend turn up, for all these five to six years even during the holidays four used to come to his house and they would play together or go someplace. But now, all of a sudden there was no four. He went to four’s house to see if four had gone to his relative’s house for the holidays. No!! there he was, sitting in the couch watching T.V. Anyway since he was there now, both friends played for sometime, chatted till it was late into night. One went to fours house once in a while but four never came to his house now!! . Then one day one met his other classmates, they said that all of them and four had gone to a cinema sometime back. One was now really confused, why didn’t they call him? Had he done something to offend his classmates and his friends? He had no answer. Time went on, now three came back from his hometown and had joined the same college as four while one was in a different college. One felt happy that his other friend had come back, but three never came to meet him! Two had also joined a nearby college now. One used to meet his old classmates from school whenever time permitted. He gave his new phone number to all of them hoping that atleast one of them would call. But the call never came. So, he started calling them but the responses he got drowned his spirits. Years passed one finished his college, his college friends were really helping him out but he hadn’t forgotten his old friends two, three, four and a countless others he had thought were his friends. The one thing which really hurt him was that the rest of them had frequent get-together’s and still maintained contacts while he felt they all ignored him. Time will tell what will happen to one and his friends.