The grass shone submerged in sunlight. The park had been maintained well. It was a working day; offices and all educational institutions were open, thus there was an obvious silence because of the lack of people around.
A pair of legs wearing black shoes ran over the grass and slowed down till coming to a complete stop. Naksh caught his breath, sweat began to take over, drops of it fell on the light steel blue shirt of his school uniform. How did things turn out like this? Everything was fine until the morning. Naksh could not understand what happened as images of the school bus coming went through mind.
Naksh was in the sixth grade of the school. He went to school on the bus every day and he was the only student to get on the bus from that stop. Naksh’s mother, Mrs Vala used to be a Hindi teacher in the same school so they used to go together but since she had started working at another school, Naksh had to go alone from his stop.
Naksh was a good student in school, an obedient child at home. No one had any complaints about him at all. Naksh had one friend Vibhor whom he met in school and he did not live nearby so Naksh did not have any friend in his neighbourhood. He did not connect with any other boy or girl of his age in the neighbourhood and would stay indoors reading or drawing, sometimes writing as well.
Sometimes Naksh’s father worried that Naksh was not having a childhood that children normally had with friends and acts of innocent mischief.
Mr Vala insisted that Naksh join a coaching centre so that he could find some friends around as well. So, Naksh joined a coaching centre for a subject he scored least in but wasn’t bad at it, Math.
Naksh would quietly attend the class and return home without speaking to anyone. He had exchanged a few words with other children there, but they were all related to the subject and not any form of informal conversation.
One day, a fall of rain had drenched everything it touched and, on that day, when Naksh went to the coaching centre. Naksh found Samar standing outside, one of the other children who attended class there.
Naksh did not speak anything and moved on to the gate of the coaching centre which was closed.
“Did you get any information?” asked Samar
“What?” asked Naksh
“That there would be no class today.. Nobody else has come,” said Samar
“No, I did not get any information,” said Naksh trying to think if his mother had almost tried to tell him something and had forgotten
“Do you have a phone?” asked Samar
“No, why would a school student have a phone?” replied Naksh
It’s true, unlike nowadays, school students back in the day did not have a smartphone and life was very beautiful for them, interacting more with the life around than to the phone in their hand.
“We should go home then,” said Samar as he started walking and noticed Naksh was not following him so he continued on his own and Naksh returned home and thought nothing more of the interaction.
Next day, Naksh stood with an umbrella in hand to protect himself from the light drizzle of rain.
“This is where you catch your school bus from?” Naksh heard a familiar voice that he had heard the day before, it was Samar and another boy from the coaching centre. Both were wearing two different school uniforms.
“This is Zashil,” said Samar pointing to the boy next to him and Zashil extended his hand for a handshake and Naksh shook his hand.
“The weather is very fine today,” Samar spoke further
“Yes. But what are you two doing?” asked Naksh trying to recall which school in walking distance had these uniforms
“We are not going to school today,” said Samar
“What?” said a surprised Naksh, “why?”
“Don’t want to”
“Won’t you get in trouble?”
“For a day of holiday? No”
“Have you done this before?”
“Many times”
“.. and you have never been caught?”
“Yes, I have never been caught,” said Samar
“What will you do then?” asked Naksh
“Anything I want to, go by the river, share lunchboxes, have ice cream,” said Samar
Naksh kept quite thinking about it. He had never thought of anything of such kind happening.
“So, you want to come with us?” asked Samar
Naksh was taken aback, it sounded interesting but should he do it? was the question. He had never done anything that would disappoint either his parents or his teacher.
“No one would know, you will go back to school tomorrow like you always do, yes you might have to give an excuse if asked and that’s it,” said Samar
Naksh saw his school bus coming from far away and Samar understood and pulled Naksh’s right hand and said, “come fast”. Naksh followed Samar, for a moment he wanted to explore this part of the life as well, which scared him but made him feel excited for some reason.
The three boys hid behind a parked car and Naksh’s heart beat increased as the school bus came and stopped for a few seconds before going away. It had happened; Naksh had not gone to school. This was the first of any such thing happening. As Naksh’s throat went dry, a thousand thoughts rushed through his mind of what would happen, knowing little of what waited ahead.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 