Dear diary,
It was the most beautiful day of my life, after my routine dance rehearsal, I left the auditorium. My chauffer was wiping off dust from my car.. He opened the door for me and saluted, “Salaam Memsaab.” He kept my kit and baggage in the car’s boot and dropped me home.
On the way, comes this small convent school, in which, I always see many kids playing in the lawn. But today, a girl out of the entire bunch caught hold of my attention. I could not resist asking the driver to pull over for a while. That girl was so pretty and beautiful. She was wearing white shirt and a grey skirt with mustard yellow and black checks. She had a sweet little pony tugged with a white ribbon. She was laughing and playing with her friends around the trees and fountain with so much innocence and pleasure on her face that anyone who would look at her, will be so jealous of her way of enjoying and living her life.
Seeing her, I felt so relaxed, which I never felt in past several years. I could feel a smile on my face and my cheeks turned hot. And then, my eyes misted with all the memories I had always kept locked deep within my soul, with pain, which I could never share with anyone. That girl with those sparkling eyes flashed my childhood in front of me, which I had kept in the dungeons of my swaggering, vainglorious and glamorous life. A life, where other than designer clothes, neon, spot lights, ramp, red carpet and high rise parties, I have no space for anything; even not me.
I belonged to a middle class family. Square mentality of my ‘Maa’ and ‘Baba’ always refrained me to do anything I wished to do. Everyone except for my ‘Thakuma’ (grandmother), had love for my brother, ‘Guru’. He was allowed to go out, play with ‘Baapi’, ‘Bubun’ and ‘Kanto’. They used to play marbles, hide & seek, swim in ‘pukur’(pond). I was not even allowed to catch fish. I remember my Maa saying ‘pukure maach dhodte giye, jodi jole pode jaash, tahole shara raat pukure daad kore raakhbo’ (if you fall into pond while catching fish, then I’ll make you stand in the pond, the entire night). I heard people saying that was a spooky pond. When Maa used to take me to the local weekly market in the evening to buy vegetables and fishes, I always hid myself under my mother’s arm and never used to look at that spooky pond while passing by it.
Thakuma loved me the most, rather she was the only one who cared for my existence in the house. She used to give me change to buy sweets, which she had tied at an end of her off-white ‘saree’s pallu’. “I want to study, Thamma” I asked my Thakuma one day. Looking into my eyes, she smiled and asked, “What do you want to study?” I looked at her wrinkled face, ”I would study everything what Guru studies. I know, he knows nothing but I would know all”, I replied with the best smile I could give. She held my cheeks in her hands and said, “yes, you’ll. And then what you want to become?”, she asked. I said that I would become a teacher and then will teach lessons to Guru.
Two days later, when I opened my eyes in the morning, it was raining. I loved rain.. Dancing and singing I reached the porch. There were so many people already. I never saw so many people together in my house before. Guru came to me and told me in shattered voice that Thakuma left us forever. I think, I was too young to react to that. I sobbed and then could not hold my tears anymore. When I rushed and reached her room, she was lying on bed with closed eyes. Baba and other people were spashing water on Maa’s face. She fainted while crying. I was so scared. I reached Thakuma and touched wrinkles of her face… She was cold…
After few months, Guru told us that we would be going to the city. I went to Maa. “Maa, are we going to the city?”, I asked. She nodded her head. I was so happy that we would be going to the city. I heard, in city people travel by motor vehicles. There would not be any bumpy bullock rides anymore and streets are so wide that playing marbles on them is so much fun. Few days later, we moved to the city. It was more beautiful than what my wildest imagination ever allowed me to dream.
The other day, I overheard mom asking dad to put me in a school because that was Thakuma’s last wish. I still remembered those beautiful eyes looking at me from those slits of her wrinkled face, telling me that I would go to the school. Baba got me admissioned in a convent school.
My dear diary, ‘hum apni iss bhagti zindagi main sab kuch peeche chorr aate hain.. yahan tak k bhool jaate hain woh sab pal bhi, jinko sirf yaad karne se hi hamare chehre ateet ki abhilashao main fir kho jaate hain aur laut aati hain bachpan ki woh masumiyat bhari hassi.. woh sapne.. Iss baat ko mujhe aaj bohot saalo baad mehsoos karaya uss pyari, masoom si bachi ne. Kyoki main bhi kahin iss tez tarrar zindagi main kahin kho gayi hu, kyoki main ab shayad main nahi hu...’
