How 2.30s in my life has changed?
My faintest memory of afternoon 2.30 is of summer of 1989 is. Didi would come jumping around from school, hug me and shower her kisses
on me. Mummy would ask both of us to go for shower and didi and I will sing:
I hear thunder, I hear
thunder.
Hark don't you? Hark don't you?
Pitter, patter raindrops,
Pitter, patter raindrops,
I'm wet through; so are you.
I would laugh at my loudest. Seeing her
singing gave such adrenaline rush. One of the most absolute form of happiness,
I can recall from the initial years of my life. I would clap and dance. Mummy
would come and wrap both of us in towel. Lunch was
followed by afternoon siesta. Papa would try to sing to make us sleep and didi
and I would silently giggle at his attempts waiting him to sleep. We would quietly slip away for our singing, jumping, dancing.
It was 1995. I was happy that papa was
transferred to a nice place. Only because I changed my school and I could spend
more time at home doing nothing than sleeping on my sister’s lap in school bus.
The new school was just ten minutes walk. 2.30 was the time when I would be
finishing my lunch. I would be painting after that. I had this nice drawing
note book with camel poster colors. These were my prized possessions. I also had
brushes of all the number. All my life will be focused
on 2.30 afternoon drawing sessions. There was a big study table in our room
which didi used. I was very attached
to the school uniform especially the white shirt; the only oddness in otherwise colorful
2.30s. Mum would scream at me but I would never change. It was only during evening
that I would change. What a moment of solitude it used to be. Starting from
2.30, everybody at home would be taking the afternoon nap and I would secretly
paint. Secretly because mum expected me to take rest but I discovered in me the
indefatigable painter.
2004, we would be sitting in lab, waiting
for the titration results to come or Frog's muscle twitching. Those centrifugation tubes, pipette, titration
experiments. There were no chairs in the lab. I would always wear my torn jeans
so that when diluted hydrochloric acid falls on my jeans, I would not regret. We
looked like those car mechanics with greased white lab coats. I so much hated
these 2.30s. There was nothing exciting about them. All I would look for will be
running away, escaping to some unknown territory away from that four walled
laboratory. I would have those silent tears in my heart.
2009, I will be sitting in environment
law classes discussing polluter pays principles, M.C Mehta’s cases, wildlife
protection act, Public Interest Litigations. How much engrossed I would be. The
next class would talk about diminishing resources, optimization and marginal
utilities. I was glad to be away from four walls of lab but that longing for
siesta would often remain especially triggered by the lectures.
2013, I am supposed to be analyzing policies,
intricacies of what renaissance forestry sector in India needs and the
description of this 2.30 is shortest. Probably, I left my heart in 2.30 of
summer of 1989 and I never use brain when I visit ‘catharsis’
