A Beautiful Memory: Learning, Belonging and Other Musings
High School Reminiscences, part 12 of 16
“Lord, keep my memories green”.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet
One afternoon, not long after my Class Twelfth board exams had come to an end, I found myself warming to a strange little sensation taking shape in my mind. A rough sketch-work of some sort that didn’t imply anything at first, but I gradually came under its spell sensing the embrace of a new me, warts and all. Up ahead was a deep bend, turning which a new lease of life was waiting for me.
Once when I woke up to this beautiful morning light and smelled the coffee powering the brain and lo and behold! college life comes knocking at my door with prospects I didn’t imagine existed. Even that old familiar tug in the chest was beginning to grow fainter and fainter.
Fair enough. In a young student’s mind, such inquiries are a part of their internal rumination process that desire for clear, discretionary answers, which are, for most times, hard to come easily by. Yet, something unresolved from my senior high school years had me cuffed emotionally and I did what was reasonably feasible for me to do: I did a reality check and the result came in as negative! First, I realized to my surprise that my friendship with my co-students was more or less a gone case. Second, though it was hard to come to terms with the indifferent absentee school companions, I bided time, avoided overgeneralizing it, and didn’t quite jump to conclusions to shape a fair opinion about their understanding of the subject of friendship. Third, I responded to my poor beating heart with the coolness of patience and perseverance overseeing me during those two years of my school life.
“Lord, keep my memories green”.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet
One afternoon, not long after my Class Twelfth board exams had come to an end, I found myself warming to a strange little sensation taking shape in my mind. A rough sketch-work of some sort that didn’t imply anything at first, but I gradually came under its spell sensing the embrace of a new me, warts and all. Up ahead was a deep bend, turning which a new lease of life was waiting for me.
Becoming ‘unreachable’
Towards the end of my two paradisiacal years at the KV school, like any other student, I too was facing a few daunting questions compelling me to think hard and long analysing about the direction to take with my career: “Where I belong”, “What do I do now” and “How to make a difference in the things I wish to do” were just a few pain points which were at issue that I had to find relatable answers to in order to march confidently ahead in my life. Leaving school looks easy, but it isn’t remotely as easy as it is made out to be. Such events, believe it or not, have in their mysterious power to deeply engage your mind into the miasma of your own thoughts, and it’s a good thing to have happened the way it did.
Fair enough. In a young student’s mind, such inquiries are a part of their internal rumination process that desire for clear, discretionary answers, which are, for most times, hard to come easily by. Yet, something unresolved from my senior high school years had me cuffed emotionally and I did what was reasonably feasible for me to do: I did a reality check and the result came in as negative! First, I realized to my surprise that my friendship with my co-students was more or less a gone case. Second, though it was hard to come to terms with the indifferent absentee school companions, I bided time, avoided overgeneralizing it, and didn’t quite jump to conclusions to shape a fair opinion about their understanding of the subject of friendship. Third, I responded to my poor beating heart with the coolness of patience and perseverance overseeing me during those two years of my school life.
The point is one must always favour friendship, it makes life worth living. From the younger days of childhood to the ripe old age of adulthood let friendship be your ultimate reward in your life.
Nonetheless, I went ahead and found myself looking forward to some kind of friendly bonding with one classmate P.S.V.V.S.T.U.V.W.X.Y.Z. Ramraj, – I had always marvelled at his generously long name. His name was, as if, literally guarded by a long ‘ration-shop’ queue of footsteps of formidable sentries (probably of ‘Kondapalli Toys’ fame) as initials in the front, trumpeting and even bolstering his long-gone ancestry, family genealogy, and other heroic odds and ends of unsung heritage all the same! – and that was all there is to it, nothing else matters when his name comes around in spectacular display everywhere: on classwork, homework, attendance registers, textbooks, test papers, lab notes, and the whole nine yards!
Not even my classmate Hawkish Sribathtub’s squeamish act (of tucking his tail firmly between his legs and scampering away into the wasteland of Oblivion, Antagonism, Jealousy, Tempest, Sadism, Sarcasm, and Skullduggery; he's lost to the fanatical world of begrudging envy.) could make a dent in my expectation of unconditional friendship with the gentleman Ramraj. After leaving school, Ramraj continued to be friends with me; but his younger sibling and our classmate Laxmanraj had however remained a skittish and unaccustomed person throughout the days of my friendship with his elder brother. With the exception of Ramraj all other dreamers, escape artists and lost souls of our last class of 1989-’90 started unfriending one another; they broke apart like shattered glass, gone separate ways, stamped out the shared history, and took off to seek their destinies in the outside world – at least it was better than their dumb ‘acting friendly’ ways. Tata bye-bye.
It’s unusually pathetic nobody I knew has ever returned to our old school; perhaps, not even Ramraj - not until 1996-'97 did he feel able to pay a visit. (His brother Laxmanraj kept mostly to himself, staying incommunicado throughout my friendship with his senior sibling. Even to just speak with him was highly unlikely an occurrence and it was best to postpone it indefinitely). We held on high the torch of friendship, as it were, high up in the firmament for absentee others to get the drift that, after all, old bonds of friendship do not have to wither away or until it is beyond salvage; just that the plain old-fashioned friendship goes a long way to making long-lasting bonds that the trail of time or distance can do nothing to discontinue it from going forward. Fortunately, our friendship was strengthened by the temperance of this innate understanding between us; it shined on proudly amongst all the failing others.
For seven to eight odd years that we kept in touch, Ramraj never once mentioned if he had visited our old school after passing out from there, and since I had felt that our friendship was not as easy-going as we suspected it might have been, freeness wasn’t really one of the strong-points just yet, I seldom raised the topic that used to trouble me no end during those salad days of my life. Post-school, our friendship was forged, understandably, for formality’s sake, never reaching the heights it merited. In spite of the fact that we met pretty often in each other’s homes and used our time to discuss academic studies, share news and anecdotes, exchange uncommon forbidden English words, let slip personal predilections, make puns, and crack jokes of all kinds, I think something was palpably missing from our connection as good friends that we couldn’t quite put a finger on what could that be. Yet, during those seven to eight years of constructive friendship, we have developed did mean a lot to both of us, our friendship had been lost to the caprices of a fast-changing, evolving world. Pity, it didn’t keep going.
Movies too were on our bucket list. If my memory serves me right, I think we only ever saw two movies: Maine Pyar Kiya and Dil at a nearby cinema hall. We liked…no…loved the 1990 blockbuster Maine Pyar Kiya so much we went again in the following week in the same hall. No wonder we were moved by the film’s simple story about falling in love, family, and coming of age of the lead-pair; the songs were eminently hummable, unbelievably melodic, and instantly catchy. Especially, “Mere rang mein rangne wali”, “Dil deewana” and the introductory song “Aate jaate haste gaate” were so dreamily romantic to listen to that I used to play them endlessly on the tape player during those early years. Likewise, the film Dil too was hugely entertaining; Oh boy! We loved watching the fun and prank of it. “Mujhe neendh na aye”, “Khambe jaisi khari hai”, “Humne ghar chora hai”, and “O priya priya” are a nice collection of evergreen romantic songs, truly unforgettable.
Once friends, now strangers
Although I know I am just taking a wild guess here, a few things, in my view, were far from being agreeable. Because after passing out from school if any of my classmates had indeed paid a visit to our school, then what was stopping them to reach out to former classmates? Nothing of anybody’s concern, I presume! Or is it that the old offhand tricks such as “personal reservations”, “internal politics”, and so forth and so on were still impacting your senses that may have stopped you from connecting with others? Yeah right, I know, I know, being ‘friends’ in school is a different ballgame than expecting anyone to continue ‘friendship’ after passing out from school. Is that what you are trying to say? Exactly what my point is this: If studying together for two long years couldn’t guarantee ourselves enduring friendship, then what could? It’s such a shame, to say the least. We senior secondary students could’ve done better than that.
Honestly, I think expecting anyone of my former classmate from Class Twelfth to drop by was foolish. All things considered, people’s capacity for playing “politics” remains intact; even after passing out of school, it doesn’t go. Although it was encouraging to know that Laxmanraj was still in contact with Dhanoj and the Piddi-Biddi duo, I just don’t think Hangorak Tarik, Baljee Risla, and Hawkish Sribathtub were fraternizing with them or among themselves. I believe Ramraj was not in contact with any of these former class fellows. It seems to me that majority of these folks rejected friendship as if it were a disease. Formal greetings are damned, even to make a phone call (to those of us who had telephones) to exchange ‘hey-how-are-yous’ was anathema! Expecting anyone of these folks to come to see a former classmate sounded preposterous an expectation for the kind of misguided youth we have gone ourselves to be.
Friendship was not a need for anybody of us. As a consequence of that, a few of us have permanently hoisted ourselves up onto some kind of egoistical moral high-horse to deliberately let one another down; that’s precisely one of the reasons why we haven’t been in contact all these decades, and never will be.
These days I just let the drift take its course. Moaning and groaning are of no use, therefore, allowing friendships to take their natural course is better than blaming anybody about which isn’t working. I’ve worked myself out of this, letting go cannot be that difficult. That’s enough preaching I’ve done! I’ve come to the end; I rest my pen.
Disclaimer: This blog is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Not even my classmate Hawkish Sribathtub’s squeamish act (of tucking his tail firmly between his legs and scampering away into the wasteland of Oblivion, Antagonism, Jealousy, Tempest, Sadism, Sarcasm, and Skullduggery; he's lost to the fanatical world of begrudging envy.) could make a dent in my expectation of unconditional friendship with the gentleman Ramraj. After leaving school, Ramraj continued to be friends with me; but his younger sibling and our classmate Laxmanraj had however remained a skittish and unaccustomed person throughout the days of my friendship with his elder brother. With the exception of Ramraj all other dreamers, escape artists and lost souls of our last class of 1989-’90 started unfriending one another; they broke apart like shattered glass, gone separate ways, stamped out the shared history, and took off to seek their destinies in the outside world – at least it was better than their dumb ‘acting friendly’ ways. Tata bye-bye.
It’s unusually pathetic nobody I knew has ever returned to our old school; perhaps, not even Ramraj - not until 1996-'97 did he feel able to pay a visit. (His brother Laxmanraj kept mostly to himself, staying incommunicado throughout my friendship with his senior sibling. Even to just speak with him was highly unlikely an occurrence and it was best to postpone it indefinitely). We held on high the torch of friendship, as it were, high up in the firmament for absentee others to get the drift that, after all, old bonds of friendship do not have to wither away or until it is beyond salvage; just that the plain old-fashioned friendship goes a long way to making long-lasting bonds that the trail of time or distance can do nothing to discontinue it from going forward. Fortunately, our friendship was strengthened by the temperance of this innate understanding between us; it shined on proudly amongst all the failing others.
For seven to eight odd years that we kept in touch, Ramraj never once mentioned if he had visited our old school after passing out from there, and since I had felt that our friendship was not as easy-going as we suspected it might have been, freeness wasn’t really one of the strong-points just yet, I seldom raised the topic that used to trouble me no end during those salad days of my life. Post-school, our friendship was forged, understandably, for formality’s sake, never reaching the heights it merited. In spite of the fact that we met pretty often in each other’s homes and used our time to discuss academic studies, share news and anecdotes, exchange uncommon forbidden English words, let slip personal predilections, make puns, and crack jokes of all kinds, I think something was palpably missing from our connection as good friends that we couldn’t quite put a finger on what could that be. Yet, during those seven to eight years of constructive friendship, we have developed did mean a lot to both of us, our friendship had been lost to the caprices of a fast-changing, evolving world. Pity, it didn’t keep going.
Movies too were on our bucket list. If my memory serves me right, I think we only ever saw two movies: Maine Pyar Kiya and Dil at a nearby cinema hall. We liked…no…loved the 1990 blockbuster Maine Pyar Kiya so much we went again in the following week in the same hall. No wonder we were moved by the film’s simple story about falling in love, family, and coming of age of the lead-pair; the songs were eminently hummable, unbelievably melodic, and instantly catchy. Especially, “Mere rang mein rangne wali”, “Dil deewana” and the introductory song “Aate jaate haste gaate” were so dreamily romantic to listen to that I used to play them endlessly on the tape player during those early years. Likewise, the film Dil too was hugely entertaining; Oh boy! We loved watching the fun and prank of it. “Mujhe neendh na aye”, “Khambe jaisi khari hai”, “Humne ghar chora hai”, and “O priya priya” are a nice collection of evergreen romantic songs, truly unforgettable.
Once friends, now strangers
Although I know I am just taking a wild guess here, a few things, in my view, were far from being agreeable. Because after passing out from school if any of my classmates had indeed paid a visit to our school, then what was stopping them to reach out to former classmates? Nothing of anybody’s concern, I presume! Or is it that the old offhand tricks such as “personal reservations”, “internal politics”, and so forth and so on were still impacting your senses that may have stopped you from connecting with others? Yeah right, I know, I know, being ‘friends’ in school is a different ballgame than expecting anyone to continue ‘friendship’ after passing out from school. Is that what you are trying to say? Exactly what my point is this: If studying together for two long years couldn’t guarantee ourselves enduring friendship, then what could? It’s such a shame, to say the least. We senior secondary students could’ve done better than that.
Honestly, I think expecting anyone of my former classmate from Class Twelfth to drop by was foolish. All things considered, people’s capacity for playing “politics” remains intact; even after passing out of school, it doesn’t go. Although it was encouraging to know that Laxmanraj was still in contact with Dhanoj and the Piddi-Biddi duo, I just don’t think Hangorak Tarik, Baljee Risla, and Hawkish Sribathtub were fraternizing with them or among themselves. I believe Ramraj was not in contact with any of these former class fellows. It seems to me that majority of these folks rejected friendship as if it were a disease. Formal greetings are damned, even to make a phone call (to those of us who had telephones) to exchange ‘hey-how-are-yous’ was anathema! Expecting anyone of these folks to come to see a former classmate sounded preposterous an expectation for the kind of misguided youth we have gone ourselves to be.
Friendship was not a need for anybody of us. As a consequence of that, a few of us have permanently hoisted ourselves up onto some kind of egoistical moral high-horse to deliberately let one another down; that’s precisely one of the reasons why we haven’t been in contact all these decades, and never will be.
These days I just let the drift take its course. Moaning and groaning are of no use, therefore, allowing friendships to take their natural course is better than blaming anybody about which isn’t working. I’ve worked myself out of this, letting go cannot be that difficult. That’s enough preaching I’ve done! I’ve come to the end; I rest my pen.
(To be continued)
By Arindam Moulick
By Arindam Moulick
Disclaimer: This blog is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.