Jobless Days - 2 Feb

2 Feb. A Serious Day

Good old school days! When they are gone, they leave their trail. Trail of hope, trail of despair. Suddenly Laxminarayan Sir becomes nice, his beatings and scolding seem to be desirable. Jyoti mam now gets a reason for her then-unreasonable punishments. How easily the then-harsh days fail to stand against the now-harsh days! And the best part of it is schools don’t get destroyed by earth quakes or broken down by the aliens (like we cursed hem years back), instead they enrol more children and turn them into students. There is a school near my house- they call it, ‘Victoria High School’. Guessable enough, it’s a catholic school with a church. I was walking down the foot path that crosses the school’s gate. It was recess. A huge lock prevented the gate to split open by the students’ mob (they were dying to get out!). I wondered what makes them so eager to break the gate. Say, they succeed, what next? The traffic jams? The bad bosses? The break ups? The drug over doses? The fake friends? The virtual reality? Social networks? They had no clue, I had a hint!

I crossed the same school today as well. My roommate- Nitin Uppot or as he is far famed as- Uppy was accompanying me to hunt for a Tata Sky franchisee store. We were supposed to meet up with Nandan near the Sitladevi temple (an agnostic choosing a temple as a landmark to meet is Armageddon calling!).

Earlier in the afternoon, Uppy had plaints about me not including him in my blogs. For few moments, I was overwhelmed! My blogs were getting famous. People wanted to be a part of them. The early morning reminder texts from Facebook about the appreciations that readers ‘comment’ under my posts really make my day (getting a job would still be longed though). I have started to attract few daily readers. Feels good! The idea for writing journals really did work out! I could have been lost in my pride land if Uppy would not have screamed “Its evening, go and brush fast, we need to leave!” I hate reality checks!

So, we crossed the school. The school must have just got over, and the gate must have been unlocked; for there were children coming out of the school building. I saw a group of 3 kids crossing the road, they were about to take the foot path on which were walking. I became inquisitive to listen to their conversation (did they get any beatings today?). When I took few eager steps towards the kids to eves drop at what they were chatting with so much gesture, I experienced a weird thing.

The world around me froze. I looked towards Uppy, he stood there without moving a muscle. The only thing moving in the vicinity was a leaf which was dropping from the tree above me. I looked up, I could see it coming and landing on my forehead. It felt cold. I looked down. I was standing on a giant replica of the leaf which had fallen on me. It was falling on a giant ‘me’ who stood underneath. I thought- A never ending loop! Acute loss of confidence and pain of numbness. The humour had evaporated to form clouds of sorrow and distress. A warm drop ran down from my right eye and left its mark on my right cheek. The silence around me broke. I could hear a sob, some was saying something in his sobs. The voice sounded familiar, the voice sounded like me. It was sobbing, reciting poetry perhaps. A poem with no rhyme scheme. A poem of absurdity:

“The blankness bleeding profusely into the hollowness inside me.

 Hyde is resting, his slumber driven by Jekyl’s harmonica.”

“So, he is gonna meet us at Sitladevi, right?” Uppy’s voice set the world back to its motion. The time-freeze broke. Having no clue of what just happened, I thought of penning it down in my journal (Perhaps one of my readers might have a clue and leave a comment!). I recollected, I was meeting Nandan; and before that, I was inquisitive about knowing what the kids were talking about. I looked around for the kids; they had gained some pace and were walking ahead of us. I nodded to Uppy as a ‘yes’, and was getting desperate to find out what the kids were talking. From their attire, they looked like the slum kids I used to teach during my internship. Two of them were brothers. The third one was a friend to the younger, which forcibly had made him do friendship with the elder brother. Perhaps they stayed in the same neighbourhood. Enough of the artistry, I thought. I was literally struggling to hear what they were talking. There must be a story getting cooked up! Uppy was busy smiling at the jokes he himself cracked. The traffic was getting intolerably loud! I could hear nothing what they were speaking. They crossed the road and took a different path.

Another disappointment in my list today, I wondered what I will write in my journal. Me, being proven as a loser again and again won’t make people laugh. To write about humour around me was a request by one of my readers and a good friend. But, I thought, after reading this, she shall understand, Jokers do cry. I looked at Uppy, he was searching for Nandan. The agnostic urchin lied to us. He wasn’t waiting; he was still in the cab!

Yes latter, we bought the Tata sky set top box, had lunch at a breakfast restaurant (Prakash) and returned home. I was still wondering about the sob I heard, and the time-freeze. What was it?