It Began With a Quarrel
They say you never forget your first love. And here I am, proving it.
Ours wasn’t a fairy tale. It didn’t begin with stolen glances or sweet notes tucked into notebooks. It began with raised voices, hot tears, and the dusty chains of a rusty old swing. It began with a quarrel. A swinging quarrel, to be exact.
We were only children then—Grade 1, in a small rural school where dreams were stitched together with muddy puddles, chalk-stained fingers, and the kind of scraped knees that left scars we wore like medals. The school was nothing grand. Just a row of simple classrooms, tin roofs that sang under the rain, and a playground that belonged more to chaos than to order.
And in that playground stood the treasure of our childhood: two swings. Only two.
It is funny now, looking back, how those two iron swings could carry such weight, such power over our tiny lives. They squeaked with every rise and fall, their metal seats chipped and cold, their chains rough against our hands. But to us, they were golden thrones. Whoever sat there ruled the playground. Whoever swung highest was untouchable, flying above the dust, almost brushing the sky.
But because there were only two, they were always a reason for war.
That day, the boys had claimed both swings. They sat proudly, legs pumping hard, soaring higher and higher, their laughter echoing across the yard. My best friend and I stood nearby, arms folded tight across our little chests, feet stomping the dirt in frustration. We wanted our turn. We always wanted our turn.
“Come down!” I shouted.
“It’s our turn!” my friend echoed, her pigtails bouncing with each angry stomp.
But the boys only laughed harder, as if our anger made their game sweeter. They leaned back, showing off, their toes reaching for the sky.
My friend and I looked at each other, eyes narrowing with mischief. If words weren’t working, maybe something sillier would. So we cupped our hands around our mouths and began to chant.
“Frog father! Frog father! Give us the swing!”
It was nonsense, a silly name we invented on the spot just to annoy them. But to little boys with fragile egos, it was enough.
Their faces turned red, their swinging slowed, and in the next moment, they leapt off the swings and came charging at us like angry bulls.
“You little—!” one shouted.
And before we knew it, their hands smacked our arms, our shoulders. Not too hard, not enough to break bones, but hard enough to sting. Hard enough to shock us into silence.
I remember standing frozen, my mouth open in disbelief, then the burn of tears rising to my eyes. My friend’s sobs broke first, loud and shaky, and then mine followed, my cheeks burning hotter than the midday sun above us.
Later that afternoon, when my mother came to pick me up, I ran straight into her sari, pressing my wet face into the safety of her waist.
“Mum,” I sniffled, hiccupping between tears, “the boys hit us.”
Her eyes widened, sharp and fierce. I saw her whole face change, her brows drawn like storm clouds. She gripped my shoulder, turned toward the classroom, and marched in with a voice like thunder.
“Who dares hit girls here?!” she demanded, her words slicing through the chatter of the room.
That was the first time our paths crossed—mine and his.
The boy who would grow up to become my friend, my laughter, my heartbreak, and my love, though at that moment, he was only the boy who had hit me for a swing.
We hit them first because they called us ‘frog fathers.’
It started as a chant, but at some point, in our frustration, we pushed and slapped too. And yet, when the story reached my mother’s ears, none of that mattered. In her eyes, I was guilty simply because of who I was.
“You’re a girl,” she hissed later that evening. “You should behave. No fighting.”
Her words burned deeper than any slap ever could.
But what about the swing? What about the unfairness of always being left out, of never getting a turn?
At home, I was the perfect daughter—the quiet one, the polite one, the girl who followed rules. But school was different. School was my kingdom. My only kingdom. I had no cousins nearby, no siblings close to my age. That playground was my freedom. There, I wasn’t just a girl with books and ribbons in her hair. I was fast, wild, and fierce. I was one of the best students in class, always among the top ranks. But I was also the girl who could outrun boys, who would climb trees, scrape her knees, and fight for her right to a swing.
Even at seven, I knew it: there was a me at home, and there was a me at school. And they were not the same girl.
The quarrel didn’t end with swings.
One day, during a silly game, he came crawling toward me on hands and knees, barking like a dog, his teeth bared in exaggerated play. The whole class giggled. I froze, my heart pounding with the thrill of opportunity. This was my moment—my chance for revenge.
I grabbed a stick from the ground and swung it across his back. Once. Twice. Again. The other children laughed, cheering me on. To me, it was just part of the game, a silly way to even the score.
But then, silence.
His mother appeared. And mine too.
I can still see it: his shirt lifted, his small back revealed, angry red marks scattered across his skin. The laughter around us died instantly. My breath caught.
But his mother said nothing. Not a single word. She simply lowered his shirt, took his hand gently, and led him away.
My mother, on the other hand, erupted like fire.
“You’re a girl ! How dare you hit boys?!”
Her voice echoed in the courtyard. Heads turned. My cheeks burned hotter than ever.
At home, the storm continued. My whole family scolded me, their words heavy with disappointment.
“She’s becoming wild,” they muttered.
“Naughty.”
“She hit innocent boys!”
No one cared that we girls had been denied the swings, that we had been hit first, that I was only fighting for fairness.
No one cared, except him.
Because after that day, something changed. He never complained. He never told anyone that I had hurt him. He never sought revenge.
And slowly, strangely, the fights stopped.
The quarrels ended.
The silly revenge faded.
Instead… we became friends.
Not the polite kind of friendship you find in storybooks. Ours was born from chaos—from swings and sticks and tears. But it was real. And in the years to come, it would grow into something far deeper than either of us could have imagined.
When I look back now, I realize how strange it was that our story began that way. Most love stories begin with glances across classrooms, or shy notes slipped between books. Ours began with “Frog father!” and angry mothers.
But maybe that’s why I never forgot it. Because my first love wasn’t wrapped in sweetness. It was forged in fire.
And maybe, just maybe, that was why it lasted so long in my heart.
