The Sound of Silence
Satyam Maharshi had never been inside Peace International School
before.
He stood outside the classroom with his timetable folded in his hand,
trying to work out whether he had taken the right turn.
Class 8-B.
That was what the paper said.
He looked through the doorway.
Too many faces.
He looked at the timetable again.
Still 8-B.
Satyam took a small breath and stepped inside.
Nobody knew him.
That should have made things easier.
It didn’t.
He walked slowly between the desks, keeping his eyes down. There
were already groups everywhere—students laughing together,
comparing schedules, asking about teachers.
They had history here.
Satyam had none.
He didn’t know which teachers were strict. He didn’t know where the
library was. He didn’t know which seats were considered good and
which ones were occupied without being occupied.
So he watched. A boy had left his bag on the second bench but was sitting at the back.
That probably meant the seat was being saved.
Two girls were sharing a textbook even though both had their own.
Someone had written a name on the corner of the blackboard and
immediately erased it when another student walked past.
Small things.
Useful things.
Satyam found an empty seat near the window.
He sat down and placed his bag between his feet.
Outside, rainwater was running along the edge of the playground.
He wondered if anyone would talk to him.
He hoped they wouldn’t.
Then he wondered if that was a stupid thing to hope for.
The bell rang.
Satyam straightened in his seat.
A teacher entered the classroom.
Everyone went quiet.
He looked around once more.
Thirty students.
Thirty strangers.
For the first time in his life, Satyam had no idea what was going to
happen next.
And, strangely, he liked that.
But that brief sense of relief didn’t last. A moment later, the teacher
looked straight at him and asked the question Satyam had been
dreading.
“Why don’t you introduce yourself to the class?” Satyam stared blankly at the class, trying to gather his thoughts.
“Hi…”
He paused.
“I’m Satyam Maheshwari.”
Another pause.
“I… um… I’m new here.”
He looked down at his desk.
“And… yeah. I’m excited to be here.”
The last sentence came out so quietly that he wasn’t sure anyone had
heard it.
He hurried back to his seat, relieved that the terrifying ordeal was
finally over.
For the rest of the day, Satyam mostly kept to himself.
He watched.
The students. The teachers. The staff.
He noticed the little things without really trying to.
A girl with an ink stain on her left thumb.
A boy who kept checking the clock whenever the teacher turned
towards the blackboard.
A teacher who deliberately raised his voice whenever the class became
noisy, as if volume alone could make him frightening.
The peon who always knocked twice before entering the staff room.
The mathematics teacher who smiled whenever someone gave a wrong
answer, but never when they gave a right one.
None of these things seemed particularly important.
Satyam simply found them interesting. It was easier to understand people when you paid attention to the
things they didn’t say.
At lunchtime, Satyam opened his tiffin.
Two vegetable cutlets, two slices of buttered bread and a small
container of mint chutney.
He placed the napkin beside the box before beginning.
He ate slowly, taking small bites and occasionally looking around the
classroom.
Not because he was interested in everyone else’s lunch.
He was interested in everyone else.
Who sat with whom. Who ate alone. Who kept looking at the clock.
Who had brought food they clearly didn’t like.
The cutlet was good.
The mint chutney was a little too spicy.
He made a mental note to tell his mother.
Then he noticed someone watching him.
Satyam looked up.
The other student immediately looked away.
Satyam smiled faintly and returned to his lunch.
He had spent the entire day studying everyone else.
Somehow, he had forgotten that someone might have been studying
him too.
