Mr Patel loved his late Autumn tea, early in the morning, sitting on the balcony with his newspaper. Ever since his nephew had sent him a particular brand of tea on his birthday, Mr Patel had stuck to the brand and had found this new joy.
Mr Patel looked at his son, Prakash making something in the sketchbook again, unaware of anything else happening around. Mr Patel often looked at his 15 years old boy.
Mr and Mrs Patel were confused if something was wrong with him. His interests differed from the other children his age. He would spend more time with his sketchbooks than with his friends, and the drawings were initially everywhere, on the recently painted walls of the house or even on the subject notebooks of schools, much to the annoyance of the teachers.
The art teacher of the school however loved this boy. Half of the drawings put up for display in the art room were made by Prakash. He was the one who had pushed Prakash towards the world of drawing. He had great hopes for this boy and under his guidance and motivation the boy became better, meanwhile at home Mr Patel looked at the new football and the cricket bat, all lying almost as new as they had been brought.
Things changed towards the end of the school. Prakash had to move to another school in 11th grade. His continuous falling performance led to the school advising repetition of a grade, but Mr Patel wasn’t willing to let a year of his boy’s life go to waste.
The new school was one of those schools which had refrained to upgrade itself with time and had continued on with its old ways, so a lot was lacking in terms of not only facility but a certain mentality an education system of a school needs. There was no dedicated Art Room and the guest art teacher there was too inclined on teaching the younger kids how to draw, maybe perhaps due to lack of certain skills.
Mr and Mrs Patel were happy though; their son had gradually left the sketchbook and was looking at other things in life, playing games, watching movies, going around with friends. The sketchbooks slowly disappeared into the corners of the house where we usually find things after a considerable time passes. Was something truly lost? It is something for the viewers or the readers of the story to decide.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Fading Possibility
Early Morning Memories 