The Race

when the gate of Kavimani primary school was about to close. 

At the far end of the street, two small boys Mukesh and Sathish, of age 10 look at each other and a gate at the other end of the street, each pedalling faster than the other, wiping the sweat across their faces.

 Mukesh is neatly dressed with combed hair with a bag on his shoulder and a lunch bag hanging at the steering bar. 

Mukesh has a new Hercules cycle which his dad bought for him when he got the first rank in class. Sathish's dress looks faded in spots, he puts a pin in the spot of the button. 

His shirt collar looks dirty. His cycle has rusted spots with rusted chains. Mukesh bumps into a speed breaker and became slow when Sathish chases him.

 when they are about to reach the gate, Sathish misses his balance when his chain got stuck.

 Mukesh skids at the gate, and pass through the closing area. Sathish gives the watchmen, a candy. The watchmen close the gate with a smile.

Mukesh stops his cycle and looks back when Sathish parks near him. Mukesh asks him to get him ice cream for losing the bet.

 They drive the cycle slowly towards the ground. Satish asks for a rematch. 

Mukesh tells him this is the 10th rematch they are having. As they park their cycles, Sathish laughs telling him that Mukesh is afraid of losing the match if he comes.

 Mukesh groans and agrees to have the match after school. when both walk into the corridor, Mukesh tugs his shirt and adjusts his pant, and combs his hair with his hand. 

Sathish wipes his hand over his oily hair and takes it to his dirty shoes and applies it to make it look polished. 

Mukesh before walking to his class says let's see at the match..he walks into 5A. Sathish nods his head as he walks into 5B.

Mukesh and Sathish are friends. 

They live in the same neighbourhood. Mukesh's father, Kumar works as a clerk in the collector's office and his mom Sumathi is a kindergarten teacher in the same school as he is. 

He has his own house and his own room. Mukesh doesn't know why his parents don't like Sathish or why they don't treat him the way they treat other friends. 

Sathish's parents Pachamuthu and Saraswathi works as construction workers. They live in a house with two months' pending rent. 

when they were in class, there comes a circular saying, there is gonna be a function on world peace day on 21 September, where the district collector will release a dove for world peace. 

Two students(a boy and a girl) representing each class should participate in a competition.winner(a boy and a girl)will accompany the collector on releasing the dove. 

when the circular travel to all classes from 1st to 5th, there starts a discussion among the students during break time, during lunch. 

After lunch, each class teachers announce their class representative for the competition.

Mukesh and Sathish are selected for their classes.

 There has always been a rivalry between the 5th class A and B. 

It didn't start with students but with teachers. The teachers Sundaramoorthy representing 5A and Krishnammal representing 5B, are aiming for promotion which is based on their class performance. 

so they train the students to be better than the other section. sometimes it also leads to class fights.

teachers of both classes are preparing to win this competition or war. 

As the race begins on an empty street near their neighbourhood, Mukesh and Sathish flies faster than before with smile on their face, as they bend towards the road, crosses the pits and falls to the ground, and jumps higher on the speed breaker. 

as they rode towards a slope Satish tries hard to ride his pedals, but Mukesh changes his gear and rode to the top and wins again.

Mukesh and Sathish are sitting at the park and having the ice cream Sathish bought with his coins which he saved for the past month. 

Sathish says if he had a cycle like that, he would have won. Mukesh digresses and says he won because of his talent. 

After a long fight with words, they came to a conclusion that in tomorrow's race the cycle will be exchanged. 

Each person should ride the other person's cycle.

during dinner at the table, Sumathi says Mukesh was selected from his class because of her recommendation and also if he wins she will gain respect in college. 

Mukesh keeps eating his food.

 Kumar stops eating and looks at Mukesh and says if he wins this competition, it will make him proud and will get a good name in the collector's office and collector too. Mukesh nods his head.

Sumathi looks at dad and says there were ice cream stains in his school uniform, Mukesh keeps looking down.

Kumar hits Mukesh in the head and warns him.

 Saying, if he sees him again with the other street fellow, he would kill him. Sumathi also says Sathish is selected from his class. 

Mukesh looks at his dad with tears flowing in his eyes. Kumar tells that Mukesh needs to win the competition and not let Satish win the race.

 Everyone in Sathish's house is having dinner, sitting on the floor. When he tells them that he is selected for his class. 

they were crying in happiness. Pachamuthu hugs his son saying, Sathish should study well, get a good job and not become like his parents. 

And also says he feels proud of his son.

when going to sleep Saraswathi tells him, that even if he loses she will be happy and not to be get worried about winning or losing. 

she explains participation itself makes them proud more than winning. The next day Sathish waits at the corner for Mukesh. 

Then as he rides to school he came to through the watchmen that Mukesh has already arrived.

 Mukesh's friends and other students from his class tell him that if he loses in the competition they won't speak with him. 

The class teacher also tells him to protect the class name. Here, Sathish's classmates tell him the same thing. His class teacher asks him to win or she will reduce his mark in exams. 

A whole week of training has been given to each set of students by the class teachers and their friends. Sathish and Mukesh never look at each other during practice. 

Hatred slowly starts to grow among each other.

On the day of the competition, there were three sections academics, sports and art. 

The winner will be selected based on the total marks of three. At the academics, there was a 400m race in which the students has to run one full circle on the ground. 

when Mukesh and Sathish stand at the line when the whistle blows they both ran as fast as they could. Sathish runs faster at first chasing Mukesh. 

Mukesh runs slowly at first then takes a sprint at the end and wins the race. In academics, they both have to prepare for a topic which will be given 10 minutes before the start. 

Mukesh gets a note from another student about the topic he is gonna get, before lunch. Mukesh wins again. 

At the function, Mukesh among other students stood with the collector and releases the dove for peace.

 Sathish while riding back to his house on an empty street, he stopped when he heard a bell sound.mukesh stops near him.

They both get down from their cycles. 

Mukesh looks at Sathish and says,he won by getting help from his mom or else Sathish could be the winner. Sathish asks if they could have a race.

 Mukesh smiles. They place themselves at the starting line they drew. 

They start the race on the count. Sathish drives faster than before taking turns, skidding with the brakes,he pedals faster in slope. 

Mukesh slows himself down without Sathish noticing.and he made Sathish win. 

They were sitting with the ice cream that Mukesh bought for losing on the match. 

The melting ice cream made stains on their white shirts