I just needed to be alone so that I can enjoy the slightest agony of missing those dear ones of mine. I managed to get a casual leave in-order to pay a visit to my college. I didn’t insist any of my friends to come with me.
For the past 4 years, I was living a whole life in its miniature form. When I got out of that world, I felt like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. As per the usual wordings scribbled in the inner pages of an autograph book, I too wished to come out with “flying colors”, but still I don’t know whether new shades are being added or fate is bleaching out those predefined colors from me.
I’ve mentioned earlier that I was filled with hope and pleasure when I came out of that institution gate. As far as I’m concerned, I have an experience of some 21 years, one job in my hands and I thought this will add some flavour to my “life-profile”.
I was a supernatural being in the eyes of my critic friends. They blamed me a lot for not crying on that final day of depart. Everyone cried and I smiled, there lies the difference between me and others, I thought. Whenever this thought hit me, it added strength to my happiness. I reached my home after my exams and got involved in my usual pass time activities like reading and writing.
One afternoon, a call from my company awoke me from my nap. They asked me to join on 24th of May and I agreed happily. But that night, I happened to see those old snaps taken during our project days and it made me sit back for a while and think. And for certain I’m telling that those snaps made me realize how strongly a larva was attached to that cocoon of friendship.
Then I started understanding more about feeling of “missing” a so-called idiotic gang of friends. I too laughed at those stupidities, told even worst pieces of out-dated jokes which gave me a label of “quick-witted” personality. I painfully realized that in the innermost layers of my mind, I still love to be called as a stupid.
The feeling gained its maximum negative potential when I started a professional life. It was a different world, to be exact, a world of intelligence far apart from my little world of silly matters. There I could see people dealing with brain-storming issues and I yearned for someone who could understand my simplicity. But unfortunately, nobody was there. So, I needed to be a complex being which turned to be a great stress for my little brain. I failed to find out even a single person who keeps simplicity in thoughts. Even the most simple person possessed a lot of ambiguities and complexities. Again, I wished to be seated in that back bench, chattering without a break and laughing without a pause.
So, I decided to go back for a while and fixed the date for my journey. I just needed to be alone so that I can enjoy the slightest agony of missing those dear ones of mine. And at last, I reached there.
I remembered the very first day I stepped into my classroom. That classroom is now filled with unknown guys and gals, who had made their own world over there. The back bench winked at me, reminding those times my friends called me “nuisance”. That blackboard, which was once considered as a canvas for “modern art”, smiled at me as if it is suffering a pain of missing its owner. A pigeon, with her children in its fragile nest placed on the ventilator-side nodded at me and welcomed me to the remnants of a lost kingdom. I went away silently with a drop of tear in my heart and a pale smile spread over my face.
In that department faculty room, where I was a frequent vistor(accused of late submission of assignments) is now deprived of familiar faces. Then I went to the college canteen where I could see some familiar ones. I wished to tell that it is my last visit to this place, but I was not able to tell that when I felt their love and concern towards me. I moved from there. Then I stood for some time beneath a gulmohar tree which used to blossom during the time of departure. But I was not able to pay a visit to my hostel and to that old tamarind tree who was the only witness of my tears and ecstasies for a span of 4 years.
I could see that everything around me has changed, except me. I was about to leave that strange place after getting my course certificate, but a familiar voice made me turn back and I saw that old lady walk towards me. For a period of 4 years, I smiled at her everyday. She looked just like my granny, and I loved her a lot. She came near me and I could feel my hands within hers. I smiled at her and as words were failing, I gave her a soft hug. I saw a sparkle of tears in her eyes and without wiping it, I went away silently.
Today, I’m back to my loneliness in the midst of a tightly scheduled professional life. Still, when I sit back with my eyes tightly shut, I can see my smiling face and hear those most lovely and familiar voices of my friends. A few months before, I had more than 1/4th the strength of a class with me to to canteen and have a coke and now I’ve to go alone…!! Really I miss you all a lot.. Beyond the scope of words… Hence I’m stopping. Love you all…!!!
