By Just before the summer vacation, she seemed child-like (obviously as I thought it to be childhood), waiting to be told what to do with the backdrop of the terror of examination in her thoughts. Somehow, she was able to squeeze through the so-called most-important examinations of her century – the Board examinations.
Finally, the summer-break arrived, everyone bid adieu to each other, with empty promises to always stay in touch and to communicate with each other. I do not call them ‘empty’ because they were in the era before mobile phones were common, they are empty because of their very nature- as if these promises were made to be broken.
Why were these promises made? – both the maker and the taker did not know. However, as a nonchalant observer they seemed empty. If both the parties did not mind this emptiness, could I mind?
Finally, the holidays ended and those who came back; greeted each other and those who didn’t were gossiped about. To me, everything seemed unrecognizable. Did I miss something? Did a different sun shine upon me?……different from theirs?
She too seemed different to me – some loose threads dangling from the past perhaps made me recognize her. She had made numerous attempts to seem grown-up, no longer was anything the same, her hair seemed forcefully straightened, her teeth were covered by braces, her socks pulled down and her skirt seemed to have shrunk over the summer break exposing her glossy calves. To make it even stranger – her talk too seemed distant, no topic was familiar.
Was there a competition that I was not aware of? What were the parameters of that competition? But every now and then buried in those distant talks, I could once again hear a glimpse of her child-like talks, even though momentarily.
Did she prematurely kill her childhood? Or was I too slow to catch up? Have I caught up now?
I don’t know- perhaps the roots of childhood which I held so tight, have now fallen rotten, forcing me to look nowhere but above – a step towards adulthood and closer to death.
