Recess Period

Lifelong friendships and life lessons

By: Devna Panda

I did not have too many friends in Mrs. Brooks’ 3rd grade class. I was one of the few kids of color, and I didn’t connect with many of my classmates, to the extent that eight-year-olds can connect with each other. But I do remember how I felt after talking to one Kavya Karthic at recess: here was another kid who seemed to understand me and was easy to be around. In nearly eleven years of friendship, that much hasn’t changed. 

Our first interaction took place during recess. These twenty minutes were an opportunity for us kids to chase each other around the playground, ride on the swings, and generally do as we pleased. It was a chance to practice being instead of feeling caught in a continual state of doing. 

I still vaguely remember my first conversation with Kavya. There’s a radio station that anyone from the metro area would recognize. The jingle goes, “101.3 KDWB, Minneapolis, St. Paul.” At the time, it was a topic of conversation I apparently broached often. As soon as Kavya and I began discussing the station, we realized that there was no end to the list of things we had in common. Not only did we both love KDWB, but we also liked embroidering peacocks and reading fantasies. In retrospect, I might have felt connected to her because she was also a child of immigrant parents in a predominantly white space. As a kid, I felt a sense of aversion when I thought about the fact that I was Indian-American; thinking of myself as “other” made me want to avoid the other Indian kids around me. My hesitance to make friends with kids with similar backgrounds became evident to me when I met Kavya. However, our conversation sparked a true friendship. I couldn’t see why I had been trying to steer clear of that.  

Since then, Kavya and I have had a million adventures, including oversharing during our high school commencement speeches and spontaneously flying across the country. She is the family that I have formed for myself. 

Friendship can enrich your life in various ways, such as by finding a genuine connection as Kavya showed me. Friends are also supposed to challenge you to think differently. If the rest of the world is a ray of light, your friends are the lenses that refract and bend the light to ultimately transform your worldview.

When I was ten years old, I met Favour Oladimeji. What struck me about Favour was that she was a straight shooter. She wasn’t afraid to ask me about my NWEA scores nor did she hesitate to tell me that hers were higher. She was like that with everyone. For instance, when someone did something that she thought was inherently wrong, she made her frustration known to them. She was not afraid to defy the status quo, which was a novel perspective on life to me, at 10 years old and at 18 years old.

Being in Minnesota, even in below-freezing temperatures, our elementary school made us go outside for recess, which felt like cruel and unusual punishment to a group of sixth graders. Though we all complained about this fact, Favour was the only one courageous enough to suggest that we take matters into our own hands and start skipping recess as a sign of protest. As she so wisely pointed out, they could not technically make us go outside. Every day, for twenty minutes, we began sitting in the girls’ bathroom during the recess period. A few short years ago, I had been hoping to conform with the other kids as much as possible. Favour’s attitude and our act of defiance made me realize that being different could possibly be a positive thing.

As Favour and I grew up together, I continued to look to her as an example of how to stick to my principles. Though I didn’t always succeed, I knew I could count on her to never waver from her moral code. 

Recess afforded me the opportunity to use my time as I saw fit and exercise my free will. More importantly, it gave rise to friendships that taught me more than merely playing on the playground equipment ever could.