My Bullying Story

It was two of the afternoon and this time also Shreya was waiting outside with Ananya to pick at me. Yes, that activity also came under their daily schedule.

Oh, I am so stupid, I forgot to introduce myself only!! I am Zivaa. I recently came to Delhi with my mom. Yes with my mom, she is my everything and I am her everything after she got separated. She works in a bank, last month only she got transferred to New Delhi.

Though this is not her first transfer, she had many. I got to live in Pondicherry, Shimla, Manali, Dehradun and this was Delhi.

The point is that Shreya and Ananya made fun of me every day since I joined the school. They did it not once, not twice not thrice but, four times a day.

First, in the zero periods, they would make fun of me, then in the break. They would not miss the chance of bullying me in any substitution and the p.t period. Bullying me when the school would get over was like a bonus time for them to bully me.

They always asked fixed questions from me.

The first one was to pronounce dahi. I am a Bengali and Bengali is my mother tongue and so they make fun of it.

The second question would be if I had any other colour of bindi to wear instead of the red bindi that I wear on daily basis.

The third would be if I had any new and designer clothes or my mom would ever take me to any clothing store.

Yes, I never told Ms Tripti Tirpathi about it, because I never felt like complaining about it to her. I felt that someday both of them will stop doing it.

But one day they crossed their limits. As usual, they were mocking me, but I did not know that they were recording it with a camera. But the worse was yet to be witnessed by me.

I did not notice the camera much because I thought about what it can do? But it turned out to be a serious issue the next day. The next day at school was passing as usual, with Shreya and Ananya bullying me.

It was until students of my school showed that video to me. Yes, indeed Shreya posted that video on TikTok and it got around two million views in a day.

I was speechless, at that time only my eyes said with its flowing tears. It felt like someone robbed me of my personality, that someone mocked at my dignity.

That day was the game-changer of my life. I walked back home with swollen eyes, red eyes and itchy cheeks.

My efforts to conceal it from ma were in vain. She could make out in a jiff that I was in serious discomfort with her experience of knowing me thoroughly and living with me for a good amount of time about sixteen years.

It took her not more than a minute to pick her phone up and organise a meeting with my class teacher and the school principal. She talked to them without mincing her words regarding the videos and about the brutal treatment that was given to me. When it came to me I prefer to be silent and did not complain much to them.

Though I did not want Shreya and Ananya to get punished. My intentions were not even to complain to their parents about it. I forgave both of them long ago.

But somehow I managed to stop her and not to complain to Shreya's and Ananaya's parents regarding that. Though her anger was at its peak. She did take my transfer certificate and got my admissions done in a good school in South Delhi.

I studied at a good Girls school in South Delhi and now I am serving as a lawyer for Bullying and Harassment at the workplace. Even today I have the same feelings for them.

Pragati Sharma

Sadhu Vaswani International School for Girls