Mensaa...Mensii....Mensuuu...

During school days, the first hour after lunch break started at 01:15pm….You can imagine how we kids would be…after a heavy lunch the first class was always hell…drooping down with sleep and even snoring at times…

There were students who could even sleep with their eyes open…I have tried…never could succeed…somehow, my head hit the desk top many a times with a bang and I would try covering it up by acting as if I was just kneeling down to take some pencil or book from the floor…To be frank, I used to even deliberately drop things to the floor and then stoop below the desk just to close my eyes for atleast 1 minute…

Now to my story…That year, most of the days in a week, the first hour after lunch break was Mathematics…and we were taught by a Nun…We called her Sister Theo…She was damn strict and did know real Mathematics…Yeah, she really knew all the mathematics that her students could play with her…Naturally, she had crossed our age long back and didn’t need much intelligence to understand that she could find majority of her students sleeping off…

To avoid this situation, one fine day she came up with her so called BRILLIANT IDEA…(brilliant just to her…and for all of us, it was the worst idea to be implemented ON us….) Uhmm…so, what she did was…every day, during her class, she kept aside the the first 10 minutes for Exercise…grrrrr…Yeah, u guessed right…the real 1(Hands Up)…2 (Hands Down)…3 (Hands to the Side)…4 (Hands Down) Exercise…and it didn’t take much time for us to HATE her idea…and start praying if she had fallen sick and didn’t come to the class…lol!!!

Anyways…days passed…we used to get upset just by the thought that we had to go through this Exercise routine soon after lunch…Jumping and Running…Hopping and Shaking…Gosh…Wasn’t it boring…Ask me…The worst was that we had to witness occasional glances and sarcastic smiles from onlookers….uhmm…when someone cross our classroom door…and they see the students doing such silly exercises inside the confined space of the classroom…they could never go off with a Laugh…and we, students, did our level best not to end up looking like FOOLS….

In between, students started coming daily with excuses to not to do the exercise each day…Some had headache, some had fever, some had asthma…some had this…and some had that….as the number of excuses started soaring, Sister Theo gave her next RULE…. “NO EXCUSES…”…Even if you are going to faint, still you have to participate in this exercise regime…

Point to be noted here was…Till that day, I was Sister Theo’s pet…I was the Best Girl for her…I did everything she asked to…I was punctual, clean, well dressed etc…and now I was in a tiff…I hated the exercise, but couldn’t show it out..as it could affect my reputation…uhmm…I had to go through the PAIN daily…with 100% smile and enthusiasm on my face and frustration and desperation (for the damn thing to get over) in my heart….Anyways, I never came up with any excuses…It could tarnish my personal stand with Sister Theo…lol!!!

The D-Day…I was having a real bad headache and really didn’t wanted to exert myself with the daily routine…I knew, my excuse might not work with her…and I didn’t wanted to either try my luck as I didn’t wanted to risk myself getting embarrassed IF SHE SAID NO EXCUSES…lol!!

Sister Theo entered the classroom…there was a sigh of dismay amongst the students…how much they wished if she hadn’t come that day…uhm…Me too….!!! Soon, I saw a number of my classmates walking towards her with their Bundle of Excuses…and soon I heard Sister Theo shouting…

“Everybody listen, I don’t want any of you to come to me with excuses… I am not going to accept any such thing from any of you…Only those of you are having Me_ _ _ can skip the exercise…Rest all of you start with me…”

Now, I wasn’t actually listening carefully to what she was saying… For the same reason I didn’t exactly hear WHO SHE HAD GIVEN EXEMPTION TO…I just heard some word that started with "M" and I assumed it to be Migraine…and there goes me…plunging down into my seat….I was finally happy…Sister Theo was so understanding to know that I had Migraine and she exempted me from exercise, I thought thankfully…

But what I missed was a sudden rush of whispers between my friends in the class…They started looking at me in the most ODD way…I wondered WHY…WHAT… I guessed, “Uhmm, maybe they are thinking I am lying…” …I looked at them and showed action that I was not lying and indeed I was not well…They were laughing at me with alarming looks in their eyes…I was like… “Uh…what is the problem with them…”… Unexpectedly, I found that I was the only person who had Headache that day and the rest of the class had already started their exercise…I was comfortably sitting in my chair when I saw different Hilarious poses as my classmates did their exercise…hehe!!! It was fun…

Exercise over…a set of mathematics class also done…finally the bell rang …time for the next teacher to come in…As soon as Sister Theo left, I saw my best friend S and R running towards me…some others too joined…they were excited for some reason…and S asked…

“Hey, you…why did you lie…Why did you sit…”

I said, “No, I didn’t lie…I was really having headache…”

R said, “But Sister didn’t ask you to sit for headache…then how could you sit…”

I said, “Noooooooo…Sister told…She told all those who had migraine to sit…and I have migraine…”

S and R started laughing… “You idiot….She didn’t say Migraine…She said Menstruation…Do you even know what does that mean…and u openly told in front of all other students you have it….haha!!!”

I still couldn’t get the joke of it…as stupid enough I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WAS MENSTRUATION….grrrrrrrrrr…

I was sweating by now… “Hey, but then what does this Mesi…Mensa...Mensation mean…”

S continued.. “Stupid…Not Mensation..Menstruation…GO ask your mother…” and then all of them dispersed laughing to each other…ON ME….

I was left wondering…WHAT THE HELL…

Finally, I had to go home and after much hesitation had to ask mom “afterall what was this Mesn….” Gosh, I could never pronounce that word for long time…Anyways, my mom explained in a short way…Think, even she was a bit embarrassed to explain it to a girl who was just 10 years old…

But you can imagine, my situation in the class after that day…For long time I was teased by my class mates…They never left a chance without pulling my leg on that incident...Very often as I walked by, I could hear them calling out…

“Mensaaaaaa…..Mensiiiiiii……Mensuuuuuuuuu…”