By Perkriti Malhotra
After an exhausting day at college, catching up with school friends, wrestling my way through the metro crowd, I finally came back home. I sat down in my pajamas with a glass of cold coffee and the regular- facebook of course. Going through the updates, I came across this- ‘MAIL THE ARTICLE FOR THE MAGAZINE BY TOMORROW’.
Ah, how I wish procrastination didn’t exist, but I finally convinced myself and sat down to write an article. Tick-tock, tick-tock! I could hear the sound of the second hand of my wall clock. I stared at the clock, stared at the wall, stared at the study table, stared at my laptop screen, took random rounds of the room, literally banged my head on my cupboard, called up friends, asked parents, but all efforts were in vain. And as my English teacher in school would say- All efforts went down the abyss, into the darkness. Two hours passed; I was still clueless about what to write. I said to myself- “You can do it, Think!”
I was looking for perfection; that perfect article is what I wanted. My school’s motto was moving in my head-“Nyamatma Balhinein Labhaye” which means ‘Perfection cannot be achieved by the weak-willed’. This was enough of an encouragement for me not to give up so soon and find my way through. I re- read what I had written and there was one thing I noticed and that was the repeated reference to my school. I stopped to consider what is it about school that attracted me, and then I realized, it was everything.
Nostalgia struck me as I started thinking about school. I remember everything so distinctly, starting right from day one when I entered the 25 acres red-bricked campus, scared. The eventful journey had begun. There was competition right from cajoling teachers to get your marks in the internals to making your way through to become the School Prefect. There was politics and maintaining confidentiality of YOUR club and society’s affairs was a must. There was commitment which could even mean stay backs in school till 11 in the night to make sure that everything fell in place the next morning. There was excitement of wearing the sari for the first time on teacher’s day and graduation gowns on graduation day. There were emotions and tears in our eyes on farewell, when it was difficult for us to bid adieu to those red bricks. There was fear of the boards and of the results.
After the results started yet another race, the race for the best college. I entered the college on the first day, just as scared as I was on the first day of school; I wanted to go back to school; there is something about it that keeps me bound to it. I was told you have to move on; college is the beginning of yet another eventful journey so I convinced myself to come to terms with it. Now that college has started and it has almost been a month, everything seems to fall in place. It all just seems the same- there is the club and society politics, cajoling teachers to get your attendance, enthusiasm of organizing events and of course, the excitement of the fresher’s party. I feel like history is repeating itself. I wouldn’t deny that I have actually started to enjoy my college life, be it making new friends or be it exploring the streets of Kamla Nagar. It is all part of the college experience.
Just as I am about to finish my article, I come across the class photo hanging on the wall of my room, I start to smile and tell myself optimistically that four years down the line, next to it will be a photo with my college mates with those red bricks obviously being the constant in my life.
