While revisiting the corridors of the childhood, I find myself amidst cacophony of those school bells, numerous chuckles knocking my eardrums from every direction, the familiar tap of duster and those solitary library murmurs.
I find a image of that building still intact in my mind & soul. So intact that it has convinced me to believe that in all these years nothing has changed. So when I close my eyes and picturize it I feel that the moment I left the building was the freezing point , since then every corner of it froze and still der is the same entrance door, same cacophony of drill period and again the same cluster of memories passing by the corridors of my holy church.
But somewhere deep down, I know with every second of my stepping out of the childhood, something has been replaced, something has been deformed, and alot has been erased and recreated. So yes, holy abode of my childhood is no more the same but let thousand more years pass & let hundred of more dusters tap, there is one place and one person that won’t change, one place at the corner of that classroom, which remains reserved, devoid of how many batches bid the farewell and how many are yet to come, the corner is reserved for that bewildered look, the pair of glasses, those bundle of old ragged books, and that tall slender geek.
Yes, that nerdy boy, every one of us met once in our lifetime, that nerd we know we are never going to lose because no matter how many preceded, a larger number is reserved in the list of successors. This geeky boy has got a special place in my heart for he gave me a part of memory of my school days, which I know won’t change, he will be there with his irksome logics and peculiar ways at every corner of each classroom.
So the corner and the nerd are closely knitted within the chapter of my school life. I visualize the palm tree at the boundary of our playground, the school bell, I so much wanted to be in charge of, the principal room I hated the most, the backside lawns which still has my mischieves n secrets buried and passing through the corridor comes my classroom,..and then..that nerdy boy.. I never saw him leaving the corner & for once getting along with cluster of other students. I never saw the Ray of smile crossing his poker face, those glasses ever getting a moment off to reflect anything else than formulas of physics and that geek turning from a boy to an adult. I never…
Time flew and the diary of my school kept recording a new summer and a new corner of the classroom. The diary of my life too, kept filling the pages, rudderlessly, the way we all did in each answer sheet of the examination. The sheets too changed, and looked more like a resume now.
The resume, which I so carefully hold in my sweaty palms, clutching them hard, knowing that it’s not the answer sheet, but the culmination of hundreds of them. I sigh, calm down my senses, turn my petrified look into a confident one and head towards the office door, I knock, and look up to face a cabin, a room where corners are negligibly valued, and everything is drawn towards the centre, centre of all the authority and decisions. I visualize myself standing somewhere at the corner making every bit of move to come one inch closer to the centre. I also see a familiar figure having his gaze fixed at me, never like before, this gaze is mysterious, concealing years of acquaintance beneath it. Now I can’t find the corners I only see the centre and at the centre, that nerdy guy.
Yes, the same we all will be working for.
Library murmurs plays loud in my mind this time as if they are telling me that each one of us gets placed at the corner once in a lifetime.
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