Ascend

What is your mission?

The sunlight had sufficiently lit this corridor of the school. On one
side of the corridor were rooms in adjacent arrangement. Each room had
only one door to enter and leave. The doors were painted castleton
green to match the overall theme of the school.

The other side of the corridor was open, apart from the pillars which
stood at equal distance from each other.

The wall, the pillars were of the same shade of white while the
ceiling was of a lighter shade. The ceiling had rectangular mirror
optic twin tube light fittings; the lights had been reused from
another section of the school which had been demolished to construct
the new auditorium. The flooring was of grey granite.

If you looked straight out the corridor, you would see another school
building, however it would be very difficult to not notice the
well-maintained garden in between with trees and flowered bushes on
the edges and grass in-between.

The corridor was relatively devoid of the constant far and near sounds
of innocent chatter and playful footsteps that was clearly prevalent
in the rest of the school.

Some of the rooms were used for official purposes while others had not
been allotted any specific purpose yet. In one of the later rooms,
Chitrali was sitting along with her mother. She had given the written
test for admission in grade 3, and now she was waiting for the
interview.

The teacher who was about to take the interview displayed a variety of
expressions on her face while going through the answers that Chitrali
had written. Chitrali’s mother, Mrs Bhattacharya was trying and
failing to read the expressions.

The teacher took a breath longer than the previous 15-20 breaths and
moved her focus from the answers to Chitrali. Meanwhile, Chitrali was
occupied by the view of the garden which was visible outside the door.
Certainly, that was the more captivating view.

The teacher placed the exam sheet down, and placed a paperweight which
produced a distracting sound. The sound was meant to catch Chitrali’s
attention and the sound had quite successfully achieved its objective.
The teacher smiled as she was supposed to during any parent and
potential student interaction, but it was a genuine smile none the
less.



“So..” the teacher gave a quick glance at the name Chitrali had
written on the exam sheet, “… Chitrali. What do you do at home? I
mean, what are your hobbies.”

Chitrali had a tinge of nervousness, but that is not why she took time
to respond. She just couldn’t decide which activity among the many she
did, could be considered a hobby.

“You dance every day, right? That is your hobby,” spoke Mrs
Bhattacharya to Chitrali, “what else do you do?”

Chitrali felt the sudden urgency to give an answer, “I dance, I draw,
I play with friends, I watch TV…”

“… and how many friends do you have?” asked the teacher.

“Four..”, Chitrali gave a quick reply. She had answered the question
on multiple occasions, to relatives, neighbours, friends and now here.

“That’s wonderful,” responded the teacher, “what do you want to do
when you grow up?”

Chitrali found it a question which was rather difficult to answer. She
had quite frankly not thought beyond going out to play with her
friends in the evening. She had never thought beyond that till now and
thus had not focussed upon the related details surrounding the topic
in her everyday life.

Chitrali turned to look outside the door at the garden once more. Mrs
Bhattacharya urged Chitrali to respond but to Chitrali’s ears, the
words were coming from afar, almost inaudible. It was indeed a
beautiful day outside and her answer had caught her attention.

The teacher had an in-depth understanding of children and she
understood exactly what Chitrali meant, although Mrs Bhattacharya
remained a bit confused and amused at the same time.

“A bird..,” she had said, “I want to be a bird.”

What confused the teacher was how Chitrali was able to spot a bird
while she herself who had worked in the school for years had never
spotted one.

–

Written by Anuran Chatterji

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