I am talking about the year 2005, when I was in Tenth grade. As per the rules, I had to tie back my long hair in 2 braids/plaits. I did have one picture of myself all dolled up in school uniform. I tried finding it but now it's just not there where I kept it. Anyway, back to the story.
Our SSC examinations were to begin in March. One fine morning of January, our class teacher Miss L took the entire class to the Science Lab for revision. We were free to pick an experiment. I choose to conduct this small experiment again where we had to heat the alum in a tiny crucible over the spirit lamp until it loses its water of crystallization and turned amorphous. There was nothing fancy about it. It's just that I didn't get it right the first time. Hence given a chance, I chose to do it again.
I was a chatterbox during my school days. I couldn't sit quite for a second. I would either talk, make faces, make eye expressions or giggle with my bestie all the time! That day my bestie was standing on my right side as I was setting up the apparatus for the experiment. I put the tripod stand in place and the wire gauge on top of it. I placed the crucible containing a crystal of alum over the wire gauge and then set the spirit lamp underneath it. I lighted the lamp as I was talking to another girl standing opposite to me on the other side of the platform, conducting her experiment. I happened to bend down a bit and I don't know how the end of my right plait got stuck in the wire gauge. The girl I was talking to let out a loud shriek with an expression so horrible that it scared the hell out of me. For a second, I was like WTF? I was looking at her amused at the same time!
The next moment she shouted, Manju your hair are on fire! I involuntary moved backwards in utter horror and the wire gauge got pulled off from its place, causing the tripod stand to collapse hitting the spirit lamp. The lamp went rolling along the length of the platform as some spirit got leaked and the platform was on fire. A classmate quickly got hold of the lamp and put it off. The crucible shattered into pieces when it hit the cold floor. The lump of alum was nowhere to be seen. As I was witnessing all of this with my frenzied eyes, my bestie was blowing over the fire engulfing the ends of my hair in an attempt to put it off. She finally used her hands and the fire was gone! So much to happen in just 10 seconds!
All the students had already gathered around us and Miss L was so shocked and worried that she almost hugged me. I could sense terror in her trembling voice as she asked me if I was okay. My feet were shaking due to the adrenalin rush and my heart was almost in my mouth. But I managed to play it cool like nothing happened. I grinned and said to her "I am alright, don't worry! It's okay!" You know why I did that? Because I had a huge crush on this guy in my class and I didn't want him to think I was some kind of a dork! So much to handle for a 15 year old me!
Our 10th Std Class Teacher Miss L on the Farewell Party in Feb 2005!
Miss L didn't let me near the apparatus again that day. She didn't let me perform the experiment. We all went back to the classroom after the revision session, where my bestie had to tolerate the weird fume-like smell coming from the charred ends of my hair all day long! She sat on the right side of the desk. She had put the fire off just in time. No wonder, I didn't even lose half the inch of my hair length.A recent pic of my bestie and me. Sleepyheads!
Later on, we realized that while my hair were caught in the wire gauge, they weren't on fire. Had that girl not let out a horrifying shriek, I wouldn't have backed off violently. My backing off was the reason the fire touched the hair.We don't know why we find this incident funny? I almost gave a heart attack to my class teacher. The look on her face! Oh my! Not to mention I almost made a fool out of myself in front of my crush. I mean, what kind of girl is so reckless that she accidentally sets her hair ablaze?? Bestie never forgets to tease me by saying "Thank God you were wearing a sweater that morning or you know how our shirts were". The sweater indeed was a lifesaver. Else there would have been a bigger embarrassment.
So, this is all for today! I got university exams from Monday! Wish me luck!