Years at a time pass by’ between the whiles,that we never forget”. Not an original observation that I read it somewhere. But , when I look back, I see the truth in those lines. For it is some of the inconsequential things that, like lichens on a rock, forms vignettes in my mind.
My first school. The Goodwill Girls School in Bangalore. It is not the building , not the teachers, but a stone bench inside a barbed wire fence and I eating some dry lunch (cutlets)? On some day, that somehow lurks in my mind. Then the St Josephs School in Bangalore. I just remember my class was in a corner , standing on the bench was degrading, and textbooks were so smooth, so well printed. Kamala Bais ( I had a nomadic school life). The stone-walled grey building, the green stretch of lawn, overlooking a lake, the red school buses, and the poem ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’. And , of course the Sacred Heart School in Tellicherry. The gang of friends, rushing up and down, getting red as a berry on the school ground., the anxiety and excitements over competitions and exams.. Exchanging gooseberries for Jesus pictures; agh, gooseberries secreted away inside petticoats, who cared for perspiration!
Why do I remember , a black and white crepe satin frock? And why do I remember a certain long stemmed white flower, that blossomed on tall trees. I haven’t seen that particular kind of flower since, but should I do so, I’ll pick it up with nostalgia!. Talking of flowers , I remember a jasmine bower in a friend’s house, which was on my way to school. The stone flagged walk would be wet with the morning dampness, and the tiny white flowers that bloomed in profusion, gave forth such a heady fragrance, that in retrospect, I can almost smell it.
I remember as a child , sitting on the broad bay window, making a game of guessing from which side a vehicle would come first. Simple games. There was too, a game with cigarette packets. The thing was to throw a piece of stone, in such a way as to push the packets out of the circle encompassing them. The one who succeeded in pushing out the most number, won. Does no child play such games any longer? No they don’t. For it is the age of electronics and TV and video games. So that even hop scotch and I spy is a forgotten game, and it is Barbie dolls for ,the richer kids. But I think no child with a Barbie doll , ever has
the fun and the attachment that I had to my little wooden doll. A stiff little thing, who did not have eyes that closed or hair that curled nor limbs that moved. But now when I look back, it was to me a treasure, that gave me a world of pleasure, though it was an unpretentious thing.. I think nowadays there are no such cute wooden dolls.
And teenage, and tantrums. When one day you were on top of the world because you thought you were in love, as no one had ever been before and it was laughter and roses all the way. But the next day you were out of love, because, he stuck out his tongue at you and you saw he had pimples, and it was all thorns and nettles all the way. The whole world was with you one day, against you the next. One day you wanted to die-die-die because it was a hateful world. The next day you wanted to live a hundred years and more, because the world was right as rain! Oh those teenage years of uncertainty, unlike the teenagers of
today who are so cock sure of their ground.
And the I married, well may be not the knight in shining armour, but the one I was fated to and with maturity the realization came, that the stuff of dreams, is not the stuff of reality. But it is the later, that counts. And so it is, that the years have slipped by wearing the warp and the woof of my sojourn. And along the way, the children grew up, and struck out on their own, and one by one, I had to let them go. From their childhood days, I can remember stray incidents, stray happenings, stray remarks. Like the son ,who took a long time to weaned, and when refused the breast made the classic discovery “Mummy you have two! But now it seems to me, they have grown up all too soon. Was it aeons ago, that they asked me questions. “Why does the bird have wings, and cow has not? Why does a rose not grow on a mango tree? Why is the rat smaller than a cat? And the children round the tea table , and my elder son asking the key question. ‘For one man how many?’ (Meaning how many snacks, he could help himself to.)
I see the carom board that resounded, staying forgotten, and the hockey stick in a corner. I remember the days, of their , childhood; were the days of our glory! When the boys or girls were playing in tournaments, how avidly we read the news to see, if their teams had won. And when they put in a goal or basketed a score, we went over the moon! Now it is not the playground for them, but the battlefield of life.
There is one fledgeling left, and when she too will have fled , what will remain for us? Memories that lurk within these walls? Will we face a winter of loneliness, or in yearned for re-unions when they come back to us now and again, with their own children, find the old forgotten threads, to weave again, a new tapestry in our lives? Till one day we find an answer to that unfathomed question – quo vadis?
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