The Marksheet Trembled in his hands
Not because his hands were shaking — they were perfectly still. It was the wind. A February wind that came through the broken corner of the classroom window, the one that had been broken since last monsoon and would remain broken until some inspector decided to visit.
Digvijay Pratap Raj looked at the number.
"48%"
Around him, the classroom was chaos. Boys comparing marks. Some crying. Some laughing. Some already planning celebrations. The girls sat in clusters, some hiding their marksheets against their chests, others displaying them like small trophies.
He looked at the number again.
It had not changed.
---
"Digvijay."
The voice cut through the noise like a rusted blade — blunt, graceless, but effective.
Mrs. Kapur stood at the front of the class. Mathematics teacher. Fifty-three years old. Known for two things — her ability to make even the brightest students feel inadequate, and her collection of identical brown sarees that she rotated through the week.
"Stand up."
He stood.
Around him, the chaos softened to whispers. Eyes turned. He felt them on his skin like insects crawling across his neck, his arms, the exposed parts of his wrists where his blazer sleeves had grown too short over the past months.
"Show the class your marksheet."
"Ma'am—"
"Show it."
He raised the paper. His arm was steady. He had learned early that showing trembling was the same as showing blood to creatures who could smell weakness.
"Forty-eight percent," Mrs. Kapur announced. Her voice carried the satisfaction of someone who had predicted a tragedy and been proven right. "Forty-eight. Not even fifty. Not even the dignity of a round number."
Someone laughed.
He did not look to see who.
"Do you know what forty-eight percent means, Digvijay?"
He knew the script. The ritual humiliation. The public confession.
"It means I need to study harder, ma'am."
"It means," she said, stepping closer, her voice dropping to that register teachers use when they want cruelty to feel intimate, "that you have wasted your parents' money. You have wasted your teachers' time. You have occupied a seat that could have gone to someone who actually deserved it."
The wind blew again. The marksheet fluttered.
"Sit down. I cannot bear to look at you."
He sat.
---
The auto-rickshaw ride home was twenty-three minutes.
Usually, he took the school bus. But today he had missed it — deliberately, though he would not admit this to himself. He had waited in the empty classroom until the bus left, then walked to the main road and flagged down an auto.
The driver didn't speak. Small mercy.
Digvijay watched the town pass by through the gap in the auto's covering. The vegetable market. The temple where his mother went every Tuesday. The park where children played cricket. The colony where houses grew progressively larger as you moved toward the center, where the doctors and lawyers and senior government officers lived.
His house was not in that center. But it was not far from it either.
His family was comfortable. Not wealthy — but comfortable. His father rode a bike to work normally, maintained it religiously. When the family went out together, they took taxis — not autos. His mother wore gold on festivals — not heavy gold, but real gold. His sister attended a decent school, wore clean uniforms, had new notebooks every term.
They were not struggling. They were simply... expecting more.
And expectation, Digvijay was learning, was its own form of poverty.
---
The house was a two-story structure in a middle-class colony.
Painted cream and brown. Small garden in front where his mother grew tulsi and marigolds. A garage that held his father's bike and, occasionally, the hope of a car that never materialized. Three bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen that always smelled of something his mother was cooking.
He paid the auto driver. Walked to the gate. The hinge squeaked.
His father's bike was in the garage.
This was wrong. His father should have been at work. The government office didn't close until five-thirty, and it was only three-fifteen.
But the bike was there. Which meant his father was there. Which meant—
"Come here."
His father was sitting in the living room. Not on the veranda, not in the bedroom — in the living room, in the chair that faced the front door, as if he had been waiting for exactly this moment.
Digvijay walked in. Removed his shoes. Placed his bag on the floor.
"Give me the marksheet."
He gave.
His father looked at it the way a man looks at a diagnosis he had suspected but hoped to be wrong about. The way a man looks at something that confirms his worst beliefs about the universe, about his life, about the specific cruelty of having a son who was not what he was supposed to be.
"Forty-eight."
"Father, I—"
The sound his father made was not quite a laugh. It was something darker. Something that had been building for years and had finally found its release.
"Forty-eight percent. My son. Forty-eight."
"I can explain—"
"Explain?" His father stood. He was not a tall man, but in that moment he seemed to fill the room. "Explain what? That you're stupid? That you don't care? That everything I've done for this family means nothing to you?"
"That's not—"
"Do you know what I could have done with the money I spent on your school fees? Your books? Your uniforms?" His father's voice was rising now, each word a small hammer. "I could have bought a better bike. I could have taken your mother on a holiday — she's never been on a holiday, did you know that? Fifteen years of marriage and not one holiday. I could have saved for your sister's future. I could have done a hundred things."
"Father—"
"But I didn't. Because I invested in you. In your education. In your future." He held up the marksheet. "And this is my return? Forty-eight percent?"
His mother appeared at the kitchen doorway. He saw her face — the expression she wore when she wanted to intervene but knew intervention would make things worse.
"You are an embarrassment." His father's voice dropped. This was worse than shouting. "Do you understand? An embarrassment. When Sharma asks about you at the office, what do I say? When relatives call during Diwali, what do I tell them? My son scored forty-eight percent. My son is a failure."
The word landed.
*Failure.*
It landed, and it stayed, and it made a home somewhere between his ribs.
"And the worst part," his father continued, "is that you had everything. Everything. A good home. Food on the table. Parents who care. A school that costs more than most people earn in months. You had every advantage. And you still failed."
"I didn't fail. I passed—"
"Forty-eight percent is not passing. Forty-eight percent is surviving. There's a difference." His father threw the marksheet. It fluttered to the floor, landing face-up, the numbers visible. "Get out of my sight. I can't look at you right now."
Digvijay picked up the marksheet. Walked to his room. Closed the door.
---
Dinner that night was silent.
His mother had made chole bhature. His favorite. Neither of them acknowledged this. His father ate without looking up. His younger sister, nine years old, ate with her eyes on her plate.
After dinner, Digvijay went to the terrace.
The terrace was his place. Fifteen feet by twenty feet of concrete and sky. His mother kept some plants here — money plant in a corner, a dying rose bush, sanke plants for oxygen and some smaller bamboos which were gree, some herbs she used for cooking, clearly a sign of good decoration sense by using nature. But mostly it was empty space. Space to think. Space to breathe. Space to be something other than a son who had scored forty-eight percent.
He sat on the concrete ledge and looked at the town.
From here, he could see the main road where the auto had brought him. The temple's spire, lit up with yellow bulbs. The colony's water tank, squat and municipal. The distant glow of the market area where, even now, shops were closing and vendors were counting the day's earnings.
He thought about Mrs. Kapur. The way she had made him stand. The way she had announced his percentage like it was a death sentence. The way the class had laughed.
He thought about his father. The word *embarrassment*. The word *failure*. The way the marksheet had looked, fluttering to the floor.
He thought about what he was.
Forty-eight percent. That was what he was. A number. A statistic. A disappointment given human form.
But even as he thought this, something else stirred. Something that was not shame. Something that was not acceptance.
Something that felt, strangely, like anger.
Why?
The question came unbidden. From somewhere he didn't recognize.
Why should their judgment define me? Why should a number on a piece of paper determine what I am worth? Who gave them that power?
He didn't have answers. Not yet. But the questions themselves felt like a beginning.
---
The admission to the new school came through in April.
SVM Senior Secondary School. "SVM." The kind of institution that should not have accepted a student with forty-eight percent. It had a reputation. It had alumni who had become doctors, engineers, IAS officers, businessmen, managers and many other reputated posts of job like Scientists too. It had standards.
But his father knew someone who knew someone. And certain arrangements were made. Not bribes — his father would never call them bribes — but "donations." "Contributions to the school development fund."
"This is your last chance." His father, the night before the first day. "Your last. The money I spent on getting you into this school — do you know what it cost me? Do you have any idea?"
"I know, Baba."
"You don't. You can't. But you will repay it. With results. With marks that I can actually be proud of. Or I am done."
---
The first month at SVM was an education in hierarchy.
The school was larger than his previous one. Better facilities. Better teachers. Better students — or at least, students who were better at appearing better. They wore blazers that fit. Shoes that shone. Watches that cost more than his monthly pocket money for a year.
He observed. Catalogued. Learned.
And then, in the second week, he was found.
---
It happened during lunch break.
Digvijay was sitting alone under a peepal tree at the edge of the playground, eating the paratha his mother had packed that morning. The shade was good. The solitude was better. He had learned quickly that being invisible was safer than being seen.
But invisibility, it turned out, was not his choice to make.
"So this is where you hide."
He looked up.
Five boys. Standing in a loose semicircle. Blocking the sun.
The one who had spoken was tall. Fair-skinned. Sharp features arranged into a smile that seemed designed by committee — pleasant enough to disarm, empty enough to mean nothing. He wore his blazer like it was tailored specifically for him, which it probably was.
Devansh. Digvijay had heard the name in whispers during the first week. Son of some businessman. Influential family. The kind of student teachers called "promising" and other students called "untouchable."
"New admission, right?" Devansh continued. "The forty-eight percent guy?"
Digvijay set down his praise. "How do you know that?"
"Everyone knows." Devansh sat down next to him — uninvited, casual, as if the ground belonged to him and he was simply allowing Digvijay to share it. "Office staff talks to peons. Peons talk to seniors. Seniors talk to us. Information flows. That's how things work here."
The other four sat as well. Surrounding him now. A formation that could be friendship or interrogation.
Digvijay studied them quickly, cataloguing details the way he had learned to do.
The one to Devansh's left — shorter, darker, with eyes that moved constantly, calculating angles. This one had not smiled yet. Had not spoken either. Just watched.
Yug. Digvijay had seen him in class. Back bench. Never answered questions, but always seemed to know the answers. The kind of student who was smarter than his grades suggested, which meant he was hiding something or saving something.
The other three were less distinct. Hitesh — average height, eager face, laughed slightly too loud at things that weren't funny. Mihir — quiet, observant, the kind who followed rather than led but watched everything with careful attention. And Krish — athletic build, easy manner, the one who probably kept the group from looking too predatory.
"We're not here to rag you," Devansh said. "That's for the seniors, and they're busy with board prep anyway. We're here to help."
"Help?"
"You need friends." Devansh's voice was reasonable. Almost kind. "New school, no connections, everyone knows your marks. That's a vulnerable position. Trust me."
Yug spoke for the first time. His voice was softer than expected, almost gentle — which made it somehow more unsettling.
"We've all been new at some point. We know how it feels. The school can be... difficult. If you don't have the right people around you."
"And you're the right people?"
Devansh laughed. It was a good laugh — warm, inclusive, the kind that made you want to laugh along even when nothing was funny.
"We're the people who are offering. That's more than anyone else has done, isn't it?"
Digvijay looked at them. Five boys. Five smiles. Five hands extended in what looked like friendship.
He should have seen it. Should have noticed how Devansh's smile didn't quite reach his eyes. Should have caught the glance that passed between Devansh and Yug — quick, almost invisible, loaded with something that wasn't warmth.
But he was fourteen. Alone. Desperate in ways he couldn't admit even to himself.
"Okay," he said. "Friends."
Devansh's smile widened. Yug's didn't change at all — which, if Digvijay had been paying closer attention, would have told him everything he needed to know.
"Good." Devansh clapped him on the shoulder. "You won't regret this."
---
The friendship settled into a pattern.
They ate lunch together. Walked between classes together. Sat in a cluster during assemblies. From the outside, it looked like belonging. From the inside, it felt like a transaction whose terms had never been fully explained.
Digvijay helped with homework. This was his primary function in the group — he was the one who understood the concepts, who could explain them in ways that made sense, who would let them copy his work with just enough variations to avoid teacher suspicion.
In return, they gave him access. To conversations. To information. To the invisible social structures of the school that would have taken him months to navigate alone.
Fair exchange. He told himself this.
But there were other things.
Small jokes at his expense. About his clothes — clean but obviously not branded. About his lunch — home-cooked while theirs was canteen-bought or delivered from restaurants. About his haircut — his mother still cut his hair at home.
He laughed along. This was the price.
Tasks that somehow always fell to him. Fetching things from the canteen. Carrying extra bags during excursions. Taking blame when they got caught doing something they shouldn't.
He accepted. Adapted. Became what they needed him to be.
And Devansh watched. Always with that smile. Always with that warmth that felt performed.
And Yug watched. Always without expression. Always calculating something behind those quiet eyes.
---
But something was changing in him.
Slowly. In the spaces between classes and homework and the small humiliations that had become routine.
He was getting better.
Not dramatically. Not in ways that drew attention. But incrementally — like roots growing in darkness, spreading without anyone seeing.
He started studying differently. Not just reading, but understanding. Not just memorizing, but connecting. He would sit with a problem and instead of giving up when the first approach failed, he would try another. And another. Until something clicked.
Sixty-two percent in the first unit test.
He didn't show anyone. Folded the marksheet and put it in his bag. But Yug noticed anyway — noticed the way he tucked it away, the speed with which he did it.
"Good marks?" Yug asked later, voice casual.
"Okay marks," Digvijay replied.
Yug nodded. Said nothing else. But something flickered in his expression — a calculation being updated, a note being filed away.
Sixty-seven percent in the second unit test.
This time Devansh asked to see it. Digvijay showed him. Devansh smiled, clapped him on the back.
"See? This is what happens when you have the right friends. You're improving already."
But the smile didn't reach his eyes. And the clap on the back was slightly too hard.
Seventy-one percent in the half-yearly exams.
Now they all noticed.
"Arre!, Now you are going to compete for Topper's position ?" Hitesh, laughing. "Forty-eight percent one suddenly scoring seventy-one?"
"Lucky paper," Digvijay said. "Easy questions."
"Lucky." Yug repeated the word. Tasted it. "Sure. Stay lucky, Bro. The boards are coming in the next class. We'll all need... luck."
Something in the way he said it.
The way he glanced at Devansh.
The way Devansh glanced back.
A conversation happening in silence, in a language Digvijay couldn't read yet.
He filed it away. Didn't understand it. But filed it away.
---
The ninth grade results came on a Thursday.
**68%**
Twenty percentage points. One year. From forty-eight to sixty-eight. From failure to almost-respectable. From embarrassment to something that might, in generous lighting, look like potential.
He took an the bus for home. The ride felt different. Lighter. The vegetable market smelled less like rot. The temple bells sounded less like judgment.
His father took the marksheet. Looked at it for a long moment. His expression moved through several phases — suspicion, verification, something that might have been surprise.
"It's still not enough."
But his voice was different. There was something in it that hadn't been there before. Not pride — his father didn't offer pride freely. But an absence of complete disappointment. A crack in the wall.
"Tenth is what matters. The boards. The national exams. That's where we'll see what you really are."
"I understand, Father."
"Do you?" His father handed back the marksheet. For the first time in over a year, their fingers touched during the exchange. "Tenth is different. The whole country takes those exams. Your marks will be compared to lakhs of students. That's where the truth comes out."
"I will do better, Father."
"You better." A pause. Something shifting in his father's face. "Sixty-eight is... it's not bad. For now. But don't let it get to your head."
It was the closest thing to approval Digvijay had received in over a year.
It felt strange. Like wearing clothes that didn't quite fit.
---
That night, on the terrace, Digvijay sat and watched the stars.
The air was cooler now. Summer approaching, but not yet arrived. Below, the town settled into its night rhythms — distant traffic, a dog barking somewhere, the last call to prayer from the mosque near the railway station.
He thought about the year ahead.
Tenth grade. The board exams. The national stage. The test that would determine which school he could attend next, which college after that, which life.
He thought about his marks. The trajectory. Forty-eight to sixty-eight. What was possible if he kept going. What he could become if he didn't stop.
He thought about his friends.
Friends
The word felt different in his mind now. He examined it the way he had learned to examine equations — looking for variables, for hidden assumptions, for the places where the logic didn't quite hold.
Devansh. Always smiling. Always watching. Always with that warmth that felt like a costume.
Yug. Never smiling. Always calculating. Those soft words that landed like something had been measured and found wanting.
The way they looked at his seventy-one percent — not with congratulation, but with something else. Something that looked, if you squinted, almost like threat assessment.
He didn't understand it fully. Not yet. But something in him — some new instinct that was growing alongside his improving grades — told him to be careful.
They're not your friends, the instinct whispered. They're something else. Something that looks like friendship but moves like strategy.
He didn't know what to do with this thought. He needed them — or thought he did. They were his only social connection in a school that was still foreign territory.
So he filed the thought away. Added it to the growing collection of things he noticed but didn't act on.
Not yet.
He looked up at the moon. Half-full tonight. Or half-empty, depending on how you saw it.
Forty-eight to sixty-eight, he thought. Twenty points. One year.
What happens in the next year? What happens when the stakes are real?
And beneath that thought, another one. Darker. Quieter. Coming from a place in him that had been growing ever since that day in the classroom when Mrs. Kapur made him stand and the class laughed.
What happens when I stop being what they expect?
What happens when I become something they don't know how to handle?
He didn't have answers. But the questions felt important. The questions felt like preparation.
Somewhere below, his mother called his name. Time for sleep. School tomorrow. Another day of being Digvijay Pratap Raj — the forty-eight-percent boy who was slowly, quietly, becoming something else.
He stood. Took one last look at the stars.
Somewhere below, his mother called his name. Time for sleep. School tomorrow. Another day of being Digvijay Pratap Raj — the forty-eight-percent boy who was slowly, quietly, becoming something else.
He stood. Took one last look at the stars.
Something was coming. He could feel it the way you feel weather changing — not seeing it yet, but knowing it in your bones.
Tenth grade.
The board exams.
And whatever Devansh and Yug were planning behind those carefully constructed smiles.
He would be ready.
He had to be.
To be Continued...