If only we humans were given a key by nature itself—a key to always preserve the happy memories of our lives. What a healing blessing it would be, that whenever a broken, exhausted, betrayed soul sat in the velvet darkness of night, scratching open its wounds until they festered into unending pain, instead of drowning in sorrow, it could choose to unlock its past joys for a while, remember those tender moments, and drift into sleep with tears that carried warmth rather than torment. But alas, nature never granted us such a gift. Some decisions, it seems, it has kept in its own power. Ah… I still remember those childhood school days, and the simple happiness of a picnic so far away now, yet alive only as fragments in memory. Whenever I announced at home that our school picnic was coming up, from that very day a gentle excitement would begin to bloom inside the house. Ammi would prepare my favourite dal chawal, as if love itself had taken shape in the kitchen. My Father used to carry me on the small front handlebar of his cycle and we would ride to the bazaar. That is where he would purchase me new shoes, fresh socks, new shirt and even a shiny new water bottle like each little thing was festival all by itself. How would I ever forget those moments? It was one of those mornings’ beautiful mornings, when the call to Fajr was heard in the air, that Ammi used to wake me up so tenderly out of sleep.
She would bathe me, dress me, and remind me to offer my Fajr prayer her voice carrying both tenderness. What golden days those were…and how naïve I was. If only I could have told her then, that the Fajr of every single day is just as essential, just as sacred, as the one she awakened me for. But in those very days, I came to realize that all of my friends’ mothers did the same with their little sons. Perhaps all the mothers in this world are alike woven from the same fabric of love, care, and sacrifice.
My sister would carefully iron my school uniform, making sure with gentle certainty that every necessary thing was packed inside my bag, that nothing important would ever be left behind. And my brother he was the one who Would drop me to school. It does not matter, I said to myself, how much I quarrelled and bickered with my brother and sister, how many angry moments we passed together, they always loved me, loved me dearly, as I can never have known in my youthful innocence. Their love towards me was of a measure which I could not comprehend, being still too naive.
In those mornings of mist-kiss, of a fresh scent of morning, when we reached, already there were a few children against whom we bumped, holding with the same innocent eagerness the hands of their parents. Then there was that restless eagerness wondering when all our friends would arrive, when the school teachers would seat us in the buses, when this journey would finally begin. But sadly, not all journeys in life are so golden. Some trips are touched by shadows, and not every path shines with the same sunlight.
Then, as evening grew late, our parents would start calling our teachers again and again, worried and restless, asking, “Where are they? Is everyone alright? How much longer will it take?” Their worry was a melancholy that lingered in the air as a reminder of the love and nurturance we were going to have back home. Then, as soon as the school was finished and we came home, our parents had to hug their fidgety children close to them, as though they have been home after a battlefield. Then the anxious silence of the evening followed, the loneliness, which was as long and deep as the waves, and the slow, paining home-coming every minute, laden with an aching, silent, yearning homesickness. And then, throughout the entire year, I would fill the classroom with memories of that one day laughing, sparkling with joy, with no place in my heart for grudges or ill will, only a pure love for every friend. But where do I come from to gather these memories, to safely tuck them away in the corners of my heart?
The author is Final Year Master”S Student At Jain University Bangalore, he can be reached at Kamranbhatt029@gmail.com
