Lost in Memories
Still fresh like it all happened last week… I, Shikha*, my schooldays- made me feel nostalgic after that train journey (http://sunilsvoyage.blogspot.in/2014/07/girl-from-4th-grade.html).
Monsoons of 2001…
I was short but fair, naughty but innocent and was one of the
talkative brats (according to teachers) in my class. Teachers tried all their
ways to make me talk less in the class, but in vain. I escaped most of the time
from the bamboo sticks since I had a poor physique.
Fellow mates called me ‘kullan’(midget) since I stood first in the
assembly line. Often I forgot my name itself when those idiots used it like my
pet name.
Start of another academic year, the rains lashed all the day while
the teacher’s slashed the sticks on the bench to make us silent. Even though I
was little naughty I was good in studies and teachers were little lenient about
me being talkative.
That year we had a new face in our class...I still don’t remember
whether she was a new joiner/moved from the next division/a drop-out (sheer
chances since it was IVth grade).
As usual the days passed
like the previous year with books & homework, games & fights, Exams
& punishments and so on…
Strategy
To make us disciplined, the teachers came up with a new strategy -
Make them sit with girls!!! It was the most embarrassing moment at that age (if
it was now – we would have taken a selfie/tweeted about it). The new face in
the tinsel town was asked to sit beside me. Yuck!!! That was the feeling, not
because she is ugly or stingy but because of my fate - sitting with a girl!!
Usually after the classes I would be worried about the math’s
homework, the study time with my tough Dad, the leftover in my lunchbox &
my mom’s scream when she sees it, the brother who pester me, the games I am
going to play with my grandmother and so on… But on that day I was thinking how
to get this girl flee from my place.
Few ideas popped up in my little head- Pinch her, scratch her,
make fart sounds in class and disturb her… These were my plans. Since I was in
the fourth grade, I could only imagine those things… but nothing worked out.
I tried few but nothing made her feel annoyed. I was amazed
at her reactions. She was just opposite to what I have presumed.
“Your presumptions about a person can make your life complex”
Breaking the ice
As usual she came just before the bell rang. I started
with a smile, “that’s how we start right ?”
"The curve that makes everything straight"
Within one day we started talking and I noticed that she was
giving me some space too & was helping me in home works, impositions and
even helped me during exams. But one day she asked about the girl whom I
gawked. The girl to whom I had a crush on!
I was born with attitude and I showed my real face to her on that
day by yelling at her “Don’t think that you are my mother to ask me such
questions!” with bad words (all I could get from 1-4th standard).
First time I saw tears in her eyes… I was frantic and I ran
to the rest room and came after 10 minutes like a culprit.
“Did you complain about me to the teacher?”
She said “No...” I sighed and attended the classes. While going
home I saw her walking away with the eyelashes spread all over her face.
I felt bad about it and thought not to scold her like that in future.
But such incidents happened frequently.
“ What goes inside someone’s mouth doesn’t defile them but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them "
Love Transforms
We played ‘Police and thief’, ‘hide and seek’ and after every game
we used to splash tap water on each other’s face, which was the best thing I
enjoyed during those days… She was so silent and I was quite violent but both
of us liked each other the most.
It was the next day I noticed someone has written “I Love you” in
my work book. First shocked, then amazed and later worried. I erased it
immediately so that no one finds it especially my DAD. I told ‘Shikha’ about
the same for which she laughed.
“The worst thing you can see is when a person laughs at your
problem making you feel that your problem is too small”.
I got
frantic and the whole day I was noticing all girls in the class. But the next
day I caught her red handed. It was her- Shikha. I shouted at her, making all
promises fly in the air!!!
But she
didn’t stopped the practice of writing the same in my books and telling me at
least once a day. All this made me feel more worried and I tried to stop
talking to her and warn her that I will inform teachers and her parents.
It was the most disgraceful thing which you can do to a girl but at that time I
was worried a lot (May be not knowing what she really meant).
To add fuel to the fire, the teachers shifted her place and my
friends came back to my place. From that day we talked little. But whenever we
had recess, she came to my place. But mostly I avoided her.
“ Never think what others think about you, just follow the
instincts “
House of cards
Time passed and the bond between us was breaking down… I still
remember the day when she was called by the teacher and a person (whom I think
is her father) picked her from school. She left the class with tears, she saw
me before stepping out. But at that time I was not knowing it was her last day
in school. Later I came to know that she got transfer certificate and moved out
of school…
I couldn’t even believe that, every day I thought she would return
to the class…but in vain…
It was not love, it was not friendship, it was not affection and
it was neither an infatuation nor an admiration…. Even before I know the
meaning of all these, she walked into my life… But I was unable to realize her
and the happiness when she was with me!
The rains receded… Its stepping to autumn and the trees started
shedding… The fallen leaves and flowers turned the road to a red carpet. As the
seasons change, our lives too… good to bad, comforts to struggle, luxury to
austere, love to hatred, friendship to foe or in the reverse cycle…
My life also changed… never will those days come…never those
faces… But when I turn into ashes I have some good moments to cherish and some
smiling faces to remember…
“He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened”
In these 15 years, I saw her just twice …Once it was a glance of
her waiting in a bus stand while I was passing in another bus.
Another one few days before … To be more precise, the second week
after I started writing this. It can be a coincidence or a miracle. I
recognized her, I went and talked with her, neither her husband nor the kid in
her hand made me stop talking to her...
We seldom realize the importance of people around us when they are
near… Sometimes life makes you go through such moments which cannot be
expressed but should be felt. It may feel so silly for few, heavy from some and
nothing for most.
Gud one
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