Ajit was a bright young man; he was a teacher and the head of his subject department at a known school in the area. He was recently married and the thoughts of a beautiful and warm future occupied his mind.
When Ajit would sit and prepare notes for the students in the evening, he would a lot of thinking about different aspects of life, often staring at a particular corner of the ceiling and clicking the retractable ball pen.
The clicking of the ball pen was something that Ajit often did. The sound, it wasn’t loud, but when you would sit near, you would notice and it doesn’t bother you at first until it does.
It was a habit that Ajit had picked up in his school days and it had stayed. He even had his favourite pens, that were long out of their meant use but were allowed to remain in the pen stand for their clicking functionality, the satisfaction of which was only known to Ajit.
Ajit even had a notepad, the small one that once everyone carried around in pocket, back when he was planning to write a book or two. He intended to make use of the time he spent in bus travelling to and from school. The book never reached any definite structure but the clicking had found a portable stage. People did not say anything but one day an old lady did, she even went ahead and advised to find a better profession, if whatever Ajit did was becoming unbearable.
“At least I don’t carry ear cleaning buds around and at the fir opportunity put one in the ear no matter where I am,” said Ajit that day at home
“There are people like that? I mean I have not seen one,” said Ajit’s wife Nisha
“Yes, there are. The nose pickers are the worst,” said Ajit
“I will not imagine that. But are you sure that you are not overthinking things? Things can become quite stressful at school,” said Nisha
“No, I am not, overthinking, and I know how to deal with stress but I will do it, I will meditate like you said,” said Ajit
Ajit began with meditating, irregular at first but then he did it regularly. It did not completely remove the clicking habit but it did help in several other forms of mental and physical developments. Unlike before, he looked calm even when he was going through his clicking routine.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Clicking Through
Early Morning Memories 