Lets take you to my school, and my first essence of freedom !!

Not many a times do you see such dreams in the early morning, but today when I did, I wanted to pen it down!

I am inside the classroom, that same classroom of my school. There were these small new group of students sitting in front of me and I am drawn back to the times, when I used to sit in that same very bench.  

When I placed myself in that bench, it was a different feeling in my heart.  A pulse of  excitement mixed with the fear of discipline. Yet the best moments of joy used to hide in the mere waiting for certain happenings. One of them was going to play Table Tennis in the break. Other was the thought of the arrival of the break period. I kept counting the periods and waiting for the hours of the hand to reach 10.30. 



As soon as the break arrived, the sound of the bell ring and a huge echo of chaos that reverberated through the 4 floors of the building was enough to lift up anybody's spirit. Rather the spirit of the people like us, who were forced to be held as prisoners in these four walls. Like birds flocked together in a cage and that single ring of the bell was the only call for the escape to the greens.

I still can feel the enjoyment in the first instance of the ring of the bell. How quick was I to close the books and take out the tiffin box. What I read, and what the teacher said hardly mattered anymore. Its time to run to the next class to call my friend. 
As we start moving down the stairs, I realize how the pin-drop silence of the school is broken by the sound of cheer. 

So many faces walking past you, some are laughing, somewhere guys are fighting, some are busy with their tiffins, and some are running like crazy for the field. 
And walking down the stairs you are thinking how well you can spend these hours because again the other chapter of your bonded life awaits in the next forty minutes or so. I can still feel the happiness that lay in the playground. The row of the trees so perfectly aligned, as if, discipline had been instilled into them as well ! The bright sunlight and the students scattered around, playing for the freedom, they so well deserve!

There was a rocky terrain, where the juniors used to play cricket in different small groups. Even a branch of a tree, and a ball made of paper and plastic could set the pulses so high,  over every run-out, or a boundary. Such was the joy, where the objects hardly mattered. It was the game and the togetherness, far more precious! 

Moving bit ahead, as I reach the big green playground, I can see some nerdly faces roaming with their tiffin boxes discussing laws of mechanics and equations of chemistry. They must have found some happiness in that logical terrain. Perhaps scientists/researchers are born that way!

As I keep walking over the fine grass, keeping the array of trees to my right, I reach the gymnasium. Its a big auditorium like place, with students from smaller to higher sections engaged in their own ways. Here the echo of happiness plays a beautiful effect.

There lies my TT board, and a struggle to get a position, amidst a queue. I have managed to play a game for which I have been waiting, since last night. With my new TT bat, I have always dreamt of hitting smashes, but somehow I could never connect them so well. I was bit thin and lean back those days, so maybe my under confidence had a toll on me. In my present days, life has given me back this game of TT in my office, and guess what, my smashes fire like bullets on the board!

After the game from the gymnasium, I took a walk through the array of trees lying in the other side of the gym. This place was where you would find lesser number of students. Here the trees had broken the agenda of discipline. It was like a smaller version of a forest, or a cooler shelter from the sun.

Through these trees, there was one small narrow road leading to a gate. A gate not used as a main entrance to the school, but occasionally used by some teachers and students, who lay in the vicinity of the campus. This green gate was something which instigated a lot of curiosity in me. I forever wanted to know what would happen if I could jump over the gate during school hours. There was hardly any vigilance there, only a staff quarter lying next to it. 

My school was in a place bit far from my home, and this place was not very well known to me. I forever wanted to explore this place, and what better but to escape during break period and return back without anyone seeing you. Are there any houses beyond that road? Why does this place look so lonely? Is there a way to reach the dark dense forest behind my school boundary if I jump this gate?  What if they would catch me jumping the gate? What if I could not return back? What if they call my parents? What if I dont return in the next period? What if I find some beautiful place out there ? What if I find some treasure in the forest out there?

When you are in a Christian School which is strict in discipline, and where nobody has ever dared to make such an attempt to flee during school hours, the best I could do is dream! The fear of knowing the unknown was always restricted, yet the desire to cross the gate chased me till Class 10 Annual Sports Day. 



It was a packed playground, all the students of the school sitting in respective houses following a disciplined pattern. A group of teachers sitting in chairs in regular intervals, safeguarding the discipline of the students. Every unwanted chatter, and unnecessary movements of the students was monitored and adequately rectified. Amidst all this, me and my friend, Chandrajit had made one such treacherous plan. We were to jump the 6 feet high boundary wall, run through that same dark dense forest till the bus stop at a distance of at least 6-7 minutes. From there we were to go to a cyber cafe to play our favourite game 'Max Payne'.  

It was around 11.30 am and more 2 hours for the school to end. No way was I that brave nor a super stud kind of a person to perform such an act. But the desire to go beyond that wall did somehow overcome all the fear and tension. We somehow managed to go outside the house of our students. We were standing near the tree that was close to the wall which would help catapult us for the jump. We stood there in a dilemma while the whole playground was fill with students and sports events going on.

Somehow I climbed the tree and in the third attempt managed to  put my leg over the wall.  Leaving behind thousand eyes, unnecessary restrictions, self fear, I jumped to the other side, where my friend was standing. Together we ran, and what a run it was through the dense forest!! While running, I kept looking back, still not able to believe that I made it through. Through the dense forest we were running, something that I had always wanted to since last 5 years. 

This was my first essence of freedom, in my senses. What a beautiful feeling it was, which perhaps only people who have done it can relate to. Although later on, somebody did complain about us, and we were suspended for a day, but that feeling of freedom is something nobody can suspend me from !!!!

The day time had stopped

This was one mystic experience for me today. Driving down Rajarhat, i clearly remember looking at the watch. It was 2.40pm. I raced up the accelerator to 85 kmph, as I had to cover another 13 KM to reach office.

I had a plan in my mind to reach office by 2.40PM, but since I had already surprassed that target, nearest was the 3 PM mark. To my utter surprise when i was about to enter the lift in my office and I looked at my watch, it was clocking 2.40PM. I still dont know how was that possible. 

Whether I saw something wrong while riding or did time actually stop for me that day?

The call of my city

This time when I entered my house I had a strange feeling. A feeling of loneliness trying to engulf me as if. The rooms where I could always find either my father or my mother roaming about, had suddenly become lifeless. My mom and dad were out of town !

I realized how lucky I am to have my parents. A shelter to live and some faces to look for when I come to this house. People whom I have not cared for so consciously, suddenly started appearing very minutely in my thoughts. There was just silence and all the furniture's were giving a blank look at me. My mom was not sitting with her newspaper there. My father was not watching the TV. No food was waiting for me at the dining table. Although every part of the house was same, but all I could feel was gloom everywhere. Inside as well as outside me!!

This city suddenly started showing me many pictures etched so deeply in the lane of my memories. The short old tree at my previous playground was clearly telling me "Look I am also 26 years old like you, and I have been a witness of the journey you have been through".

Yes a journey by the roads, that started from walking to take the school bus, to cycling  for the tuition class, and now driving to make ends meet fast. And everytime I crossed him, he looked green, alive and as if silently waving me a smile !

What has changed I asked?

Nothing, neither the playground, nor the trees, nor the quarters behind Gurunanak street, nor the bushes where often the cricket ball used to hide. And every little memory that started from that ground pierces through my mind and I slowly find myself in a state of melancholy.

This melancholy, I still identify, in the afternoon of the summer, back in my school days. The voice of the cuckoo enchanting a mysterious spell, reminding me of the gloom before the exam days. I see a pile of books staring at me, and my mind struggling to stay with them. The big mango tree outside my window taking away most of my attention, and someone inside me just did not want to study. The piercing heat was telling me a story of grief and pain, and something that my bookish world could never relate. 

And I can still feel the same way while I murmur the lines "Dupurer khamoka kheyal, bhanga taash purono dewaal." A song by Chandrabindoo, a Bengali Band which used to play the songs, that I could so easily relate.  (I have given the link at the end of this blog, for all who wish to have a pinch of the afternoon nostalgia with me!)

Situations have changed now, but the gloom of the afternoon is a mystery that I am still lovingly carrying in my heart.

My city has its own blanket of silence that is so subtle, yet profoundly alive. Every sound of the bird can be identified, and the depth of the green beside the  roads, tells the story of my childhood beneath the blue sky.

What has changed I asked?

Yes my age has changed, my body has taken its own shape and my mind has gone through a vicious cycle of the deadly sins, which we all are a victim of. Behaviour, thought patterns and accent has changed.

But is it all that we are made up of?

I don't know the answer to the questions my mind was raising, but I could feel that I was tired of the mask of adulthood that I was wearing.

My trees in the park were calling me like a very old friend, and I wanted to run and hug every one of them, because they were the only living silent memoirs of the child within me.

They had seen me grow, they had seen me cry

They had seen my joy, when I sang on the fly.

They had welcomed me when the sun was in the sky

They had sheltered our love when she felt shy.

They have kept my secrets locked inside

My friend, they are, my friend of pride!!

My city was trying to tell me something, perhaps a very old story of how it came to life. Of the times when it was all a jungle and then one day, Mr  Bidhan Chandra Roy decided to give it a name as well as a form. My city, Durgapur, was born.