Fighting The Bullies

Bullying is hurtful and long lasting. It affects teenagers and adults to a great worrying extent and can happen to anyone. Everyone at a certain time in their life experienced bullying in its different forms and people often feel powerless against it. It all occurred one fortnight ago. I was shaking uncontrollably and stood rooted to the spot. I replied defensively. On that day, I decided to reveal my tormentors’ real faces to my parents. I possess my parents’ innate capacity of memorizing things. I possess my paternal grandparents’ wisdom and I inherited my maternal grandparents’ degree of naughtiness and undetermined mimicries.

In short, I am the carbon copy of all the brave, fearless and confident human beings in my life. They shape my routine but let me be the captain of my ship. They inculcate innumerable values, and principles to only let me use them whenever I feel their relevance in situational circumstances. But let me tell you that our relationship was not as solid as best friends sharing and guarding each others’ intimate stories. There was a time when we hardly communicate with each other except for preparing my roasted butternut squash soup and buying my Lindt dark chocolates. This drastic overturn occurred when I was in secondary school. Certainly as a teenager, you were not spared of several crushes hitting on you or secretly admiring the handsome guy from the corner of your eyes who crossed your way each day. And the one thing that you would never ever forget was your competitors in class if you happened to top every subject. You guess it right; the bullies. Practice makes perfect and I used to practice lot of questions so as to be able to score the highest marks in class. It was crystal-clear. During the yearly prize giving ceremony, the hall reverberated with the round of applause when my name was called on stage.

Tear rolled down my cheeks and my mind was racing with the thought of facing the bullies who always tried to intimidate me. At first, I avoided the mere threat of their fireballs that they released on me. But days went by and their tentacles sprouted out of their cocoons and I felt menaced. I instinctively knew that they were responsible for spreading rumours about me on the social media. Bullying refers to more than just nasty looks and teasing. They were name calling me every single day and singling me out to make me feel alone or different. The idea to stick my butt on the wooden chair with the help of the power glue even germinated. Soon, I became a laughing stock at school. That day, facing them on the corridors, a note of panic crept in my voice and my mouth went dry. But the least did they knew as well as I knew it at that time that a strong invisible farsightedness hit my blood molecules every nanosecond and light the alarming bell sensor of my brain. I approached my chair, tore the middle page of my copybook and wiped away the not so powerful power glue. I escaped the jaw of their plot. A feeling of merry ignited in me. “Yes, I overcame their red sign.”

Initially, I was patient but they broke loose all of my steadfastness. I was disturbed, gloomy, and lonely. The situation became unbearable. Bullying is mean and the hurtful behaviours that happen again. There were many things that I even jotted down in my notebook in order to come up to solutions to overcome the trouble makers and here were the following points:

• Relate the verbal harassment to my parents.

• Ignore the bullies and walk away.

• Try to reason and talk with them.

• Stay alert and confident.

• Report them to the Principal.

However, my parents noticed my sudden seclusion and they made turns to investigate my abrupt changes as I refused to go to school and I had trouble sleeping. Mustering my courage, I resolved to put an end to my endless verbal harassment. It took me three full months to reveal my miserable conditions at school and till then they became my best friends. They are always active listeners and decided to take the matter in to their hands. Finally, they came to school as they knew that what was happening would not last forever.

Breathing hard on the humid hallway to the lecture theater, eyes bloodshot, I gave them a piece of my mind. They saw the fiery flash in my eyes. Just then, we were all summoned to the Head of School’s office on that intermittently rainy day. Coming out of the room with my parents who stood by my side along with the group of bullies, their lips tightened and they apologised sheepishly. Advice, suggestions and plethora of anecdotes are safely stored into my fourteen billion reel. From that day onward, they understood that it is hard work as well as working smart that pay off in the long run.