Greentext · 3 minOne Letter, Three Boys

>be me, class 9

>three of us on the same bench

>me, ramu, sampath

>ramu's cousin is coming from hyderabad

>with a video game

>the one with the cassette

>contra, mario, the duck shooting

>cousin is coming friday morning, going saturday night

>friday is school

>we sat on the bench and looked at each other

>sampath said "leave letter"

>ramu said "my nanna will not write"

>sampath said "my nanna also"

>they both looked at me

>my nanna works in the sub registrar office

>he writes all day

>i have seen his signature one thousand times

>on every letter, on every form, on the ration card

>a small line, then a big curve, then a dot

>"i will write" i said

>that night i took one sheet from the middle of my telugu notebook

>wrote in my best english

>"respected sir"

>"my son and his two friends"

>"are going with me to a family function"

>"please grant them leave on friday"

>then i thought

>a father does not say "and his two friends"

>so i crossed that out

>that looked bad

>took another sheet

>wrote three letters

>one for each of us

>same words

>all three in my handwriting

>then the signature

>small line, big curve, dot

>three times

>the third one came out best

>i gave that one to ramu

>friday we played contra

>till my thumb went red

>monday we gave the letters

>class teacher was shanthi madam

>english madam

>she took all three

>read the first one

>read the second one

>read the third one

>then she put them side by side on the table

>and looked at them for some time

>"same handwriting" she said

>"yes madam" ramu said

>"our fathers went to the same school madam"

>i do not know where he got that from

>madam did not laugh

>she picked up mine

>"what is your father's name"

>i told her

>"spell it"

>i spelt it

>she turned the letter around and showed me

>at the bottom i had written nanna's name under the signature

>like he does on office letters

>and i had written it wrong

>one letter missing in the middle

>i had seen the name one thousand times

>and i had never once read it

>"your own father's name" she said

>very quietly

>that was the worst part

>she did not shout

>she wrote one line on a slip

>"please meet me"

>and said "give this to the man with the signature"

>i gave it to nanna

>told him everything before he read it

>he read it anyway

>then he read my letter

>she had given it back to me

>he read it two times

>he was not angry about the leave

>he was not angry about the signature

>he was looking at the name

>"you wrote my name wrong"

>"yes nanna"

>he was quiet for a long time

>then he took a pen

>wrote his name on the back of the letter

>properly

>"write it ten times"

>i wrote it ten times

>he checked each one

>then he signed under the tenth one

>his real signature

>small line, big curve, dot

>"now you know what you were copying"

>next day he came to school

>talked to shanthi madam in the corridor

>i do not know what they said

>she gave all three of us one week of standing in the last row

>that was all

>i still have that paper

>ten times nanna's name in my handwriting

>and his signature under it

>he passed away four years back

>that is the only paper where we both wrote