There are several ‘Me’s frozen in different times of my life. And ironically, I get transported to these frozen Mes through a shaft of sunbeam…
I have always wondered, what is it about the noon that makes me stop and think? I don’t even know what I think, it only reminds me of a lost time which I can never get back. A strange and sweet sadness fills the heart. I long for something I left back.
Looking back now, it is not only one such memorable moment. There are several moments where I got frozen and my today’s self longs to visit those moments again, just to live.
A quiet afternoon spent in my home in my childhood… just me and the sounds of birds chirping… here and there, a lazy cat purrs while a utensil falls down in some kitchen… the smell of lunch being prepared in my neighbour’s home… a sweet nap of about fifteen minutes… the aftermath of the nap depended on the season. If it was winter, after waking up, I would feel colder while I would sweat profusely during summer after a nap.
And then, sharing a cup of coffee and some biscuits with my mom. There wasn’t conversation always, but it felt soothing. Like a daily routine. A part of me has frozen here forever.
Then, there is that classroom in my school. The period after lunch. All the kids are feeling sated and sleepy but jot down notes dictated by the teacher. Here and there, you can hear a whisper ‘What did she just say?’ or ‘Did I hear it right?’ faint voices of teachers teaching in another classroom can be heard during moments of silence. At times, the school peons shout at each other. There is very little sound coming from my classroom except for my teacher dictating. And the students blissfully jotting down without a care in the world. Because, they still have someone to teach them now. After a few years they will be expected to peruse enormous books on their own, prepare answers themselves to questions which seem to be meaningless. All without anyone’s help. But for now, the teacher is there, and all we need to do is write what she says. Blissful. You will find a part of me frozen here too.
You know what summer is all about? Friends and Vacations! I am about 12 years old, playing pakda-pakdi with my entire group ( Dharni, Chitra, Meera, Reshma, Maya, Amit and Akshay). As usual, Amit and Akshay have decided to target me. And so, though the other girls are squealing with glee and running right in front of them, these two decide to divide and attack me. Amit runs after me from one side and I run as if my life is at stake. All of a sudden Akshay comes right in front of me from the other side. And to my intense embarrassment, these two pick me and lift me on their shoulders and march proudly. What a way to be ‘out’!
Kho-kho match in school. There are several teams from many divisions. Each one practices like it’s a matter of life and death. We all run like we have never run before, till our legs seem to be on the point of giving up. And then the actual match. The cheers, the loud swearing ‘She was right in front of you, how couldn’t you see her?’, the over-acting by our school champion Smitha (come on, eating glucon-d powder right during the game while she’s running? A bit far-fetched, if you ask me) and then she would dramatically fall down to oohs and aahs from guys. Then she would make a gesture of sweeping dust from her foot, grimacing just enough to show that she is in pain but carrying on bravely and then running again like nothing happened. After a while, the guys used to shout ‘when you gonna fall, come on, we are waiting!’ the guys seemed to be rude, for they used to tease us and pass such comments. Looking back, that was only teasing or passing comments, not breaking promises or hearts. Much more innocent…
Myself and Meera are ‘studying’ in her home. She has closed the door of the room, though hasn’t locked it. Her mother thinks we are studying while Meera is actually regaling me with stories of her tution class. I try not to laugh loudly, but it is difficult, being with Meera. And then meera’s mom peeks inside the room without a sound. But we aren’t new to this. The moment she peeks inside, one of us starts reading loudly from her book while the other one gives no surprised reaction to this sudden change in the topic. There is like, an in-built radar inside both of us, that alerts us to her mother’s unexpected and apparently hidden presence in the room. Cant say that our studies improved, but our mutual understanding and telepathy reached new levels because of this. And after a while, when her mother used to sleep in the same room where we were studying to not to let us talk, we started exchanging notes. Silent but very effective way of communication…
The scene changes... Now I am at Chitra’s house. We are in the tenth standard and supposed to study seriously. Normally we do, but today none of us is in a mood to read. We try really hard to concentrate but can see its plainly not working. I steal a look at her and find her grinning at me. Suddenly our books are thrown away and we both start giggling. We start fighting with each other, tickling each other and are giggling helplessly when all of a sudden Chitra’s mom walks inside. There is anger, lots of anger in her face. And why shouldn’t be? Our prelims were scheduled for the next day, after all….
I am in my college now. Its not as much fun as school. A lot more difficult to make friends and almost impossible to retain them… I am not feeling at ease here. There is more of self-consciousness. More focus on how I look and the way I walk or how my voice sounds. I don’t like it here. But still I would stay here for the next five years. I would have a group which would be good but I would not have fun. We would all go to college together for five years and return back to homes after college. There would be no hanging out, or loitering in the campus after college hours. Its as if, we all would seek our homes to escape from the college. But still five years will pass by. A part of me froze here too, though I didn’t like it.
Now I am at my home in Vepampattu… All my cousins are there in the house. Sushil, Shilpa, Roopa, Sandhya, Vivek, Shiva and Harish… We all are standing in the terrace of our home… its going to rain… and how it rains! It feels like someone from above is pelting rocks at us, it rains that hard… we all shriek with cold and enjoyment.. and there is also a strong wind… Shiva and Harish are unsuccessfully trying to drag us into our homes while the others are simply refusing to even move from their spots… and then, suddenly a heavy gust of wind blows my dupatta away and it lands in a bush in a plot of land next to our home.. Shiva and Harish run (as it happens in cinemas) and jump into the plot and after heroically struggling with the thorny bush, they take out my dupatta and bring it back proudly returning as if warriors after a conquest…
We are again in Vepampattu… I am sitting at the backside of my house opposite to our Tulsi plant and simply staring… I am thinking of how difficult it is to leave this vacation home and return back to Mumbai… I get a bit gloomy thinking about it… and then, as if from nowhere, Harish jumps in front of me… He has attached a pipe to his back side in his trousers and shouts making a swollen face and mouth (like Hanuman): ‘Aanjaneya Veera!’… I burst out laughing…
Off course, after few years, Shiva would abruptly stop all contact with us. He would become a stranger to us. Shilpa would leave us forever… and it would sort of change Sushil who would become more withdrawn with the passage of time.. We all would never again get to enjoy like before…Our Harish, who always wanted to stay lavishly and have a luxurious life, would suddenly give up on materialism and get more spiritual…
May be, that’s why a part of our selves freezes at some moments… because somehow, we know that this will not happen again… somehow we don’t want to leave this moment..
So, where is noon in the whole picture, you may ask… It was there the whole time with me in all the above moments… and maybe that’s why I get transported back to the past when I see a shaft of sunray falling to the ground… It as if, opens a portal… taking me back to happier times…
I have always wondered, what is it about the noon that makes me stop and think? I don’t even know what I think, it only reminds me of a lost time which I can never get back. A strange and sweet sadness fills the heart. I long for something I left back.
Looking back now, it is not only one such memorable moment. There are several moments where I got frozen and my today’s self longs to visit those moments again, just to live.
A quiet afternoon spent in my home in my childhood… just me and the sounds of birds chirping… here and there, a lazy cat purrs while a utensil falls down in some kitchen… the smell of lunch being prepared in my neighbour’s home… a sweet nap of about fifteen minutes… the aftermath of the nap depended on the season. If it was winter, after waking up, I would feel colder while I would sweat profusely during summer after a nap.
And then, sharing a cup of coffee and some biscuits with my mom. There wasn’t conversation always, but it felt soothing. Like a daily routine. A part of me has frozen here forever.
Then, there is that classroom in my school. The period after lunch. All the kids are feeling sated and sleepy but jot down notes dictated by the teacher. Here and there, you can hear a whisper ‘What did she just say?’ or ‘Did I hear it right?’ faint voices of teachers teaching in another classroom can be heard during moments of silence. At times, the school peons shout at each other. There is very little sound coming from my classroom except for my teacher dictating. And the students blissfully jotting down without a care in the world. Because, they still have someone to teach them now. After a few years they will be expected to peruse enormous books on their own, prepare answers themselves to questions which seem to be meaningless. All without anyone’s help. But for now, the teacher is there, and all we need to do is write what she says. Blissful. You will find a part of me frozen here too.
You know what summer is all about? Friends and Vacations! I am about 12 years old, playing pakda-pakdi with my entire group ( Dharni, Chitra, Meera, Reshma, Maya, Amit and Akshay). As usual, Amit and Akshay have decided to target me. And so, though the other girls are squealing with glee and running right in front of them, these two decide to divide and attack me. Amit runs after me from one side and I run as if my life is at stake. All of a sudden Akshay comes right in front of me from the other side. And to my intense embarrassment, these two pick me and lift me on their shoulders and march proudly. What a way to be ‘out’!
Kho-kho match in school. There are several teams from many divisions. Each one practices like it’s a matter of life and death. We all run like we have never run before, till our legs seem to be on the point of giving up. And then the actual match. The cheers, the loud swearing ‘She was right in front of you, how couldn’t you see her?’, the over-acting by our school champion Smitha (come on, eating glucon-d powder right during the game while she’s running? A bit far-fetched, if you ask me) and then she would dramatically fall down to oohs and aahs from guys. Then she would make a gesture of sweeping dust from her foot, grimacing just enough to show that she is in pain but carrying on bravely and then running again like nothing happened. After a while, the guys used to shout ‘when you gonna fall, come on, we are waiting!’ the guys seemed to be rude, for they used to tease us and pass such comments. Looking back, that was only teasing or passing comments, not breaking promises or hearts. Much more innocent…
Myself and Meera are ‘studying’ in her home. She has closed the door of the room, though hasn’t locked it. Her mother thinks we are studying while Meera is actually regaling me with stories of her tution class. I try not to laugh loudly, but it is difficult, being with Meera. And then meera’s mom peeks inside the room without a sound. But we aren’t new to this. The moment she peeks inside, one of us starts reading loudly from her book while the other one gives no surprised reaction to this sudden change in the topic. There is like, an in-built radar inside both of us, that alerts us to her mother’s unexpected and apparently hidden presence in the room. Cant say that our studies improved, but our mutual understanding and telepathy reached new levels because of this. And after a while, when her mother used to sleep in the same room where we were studying to not to let us talk, we started exchanging notes. Silent but very effective way of communication…
The scene changes... Now I am at Chitra’s house. We are in the tenth standard and supposed to study seriously. Normally we do, but today none of us is in a mood to read. We try really hard to concentrate but can see its plainly not working. I steal a look at her and find her grinning at me. Suddenly our books are thrown away and we both start giggling. We start fighting with each other, tickling each other and are giggling helplessly when all of a sudden Chitra’s mom walks inside. There is anger, lots of anger in her face. And why shouldn’t be? Our prelims were scheduled for the next day, after all….
I am in my college now. Its not as much fun as school. A lot more difficult to make friends and almost impossible to retain them… I am not feeling at ease here. There is more of self-consciousness. More focus on how I look and the way I walk or how my voice sounds. I don’t like it here. But still I would stay here for the next five years. I would have a group which would be good but I would not have fun. We would all go to college together for five years and return back to homes after college. There would be no hanging out, or loitering in the campus after college hours. Its as if, we all would seek our homes to escape from the college. But still five years will pass by. A part of me froze here too, though I didn’t like it.
Now I am at my home in Vepampattu… All my cousins are there in the house. Sushil, Shilpa, Roopa, Sandhya, Vivek, Shiva and Harish… We all are standing in the terrace of our home… its going to rain… and how it rains! It feels like someone from above is pelting rocks at us, it rains that hard… we all shriek with cold and enjoyment.. and there is also a strong wind… Shiva and Harish are unsuccessfully trying to drag us into our homes while the others are simply refusing to even move from their spots… and then, suddenly a heavy gust of wind blows my dupatta away and it lands in a bush in a plot of land next to our home.. Shiva and Harish run (as it happens in cinemas) and jump into the plot and after heroically struggling with the thorny bush, they take out my dupatta and bring it back proudly returning as if warriors after a conquest…
We are again in Vepampattu… I am sitting at the backside of my house opposite to our Tulsi plant and simply staring… I am thinking of how difficult it is to leave this vacation home and return back to Mumbai… I get a bit gloomy thinking about it… and then, as if from nowhere, Harish jumps in front of me… He has attached a pipe to his back side in his trousers and shouts making a swollen face and mouth (like Hanuman): ‘Aanjaneya Veera!’… I burst out laughing…
Off course, after few years, Shiva would abruptly stop all contact with us. He would become a stranger to us. Shilpa would leave us forever… and it would sort of change Sushil who would become more withdrawn with the passage of time.. We all would never again get to enjoy like before…Our Harish, who always wanted to stay lavishly and have a luxurious life, would suddenly give up on materialism and get more spiritual…
May be, that’s why a part of our selves freezes at some moments… because somehow, we know that this will not happen again… somehow we don’t want to leave this moment..
So, where is noon in the whole picture, you may ask… It was there the whole time with me in all the above moments… and maybe that’s why I get transported back to the past when I see a shaft of sunray falling to the ground… It as if, opens a portal… taking me back to happier times…
