Snippets #2: Recollections

There are days such as today, when the floodgates of the old memories open up, reminding me of the the times when life tested my family members. These surging memories do not let me forget the 17 months when my father was recovering from a fracture and could not join his work resulting in this 17 month long period of 'without pay'. This was the time when my mother single handedly managed the house, our expensive studies and her workplace. Now, I shudder to think of the possibilities which could have happened if my mother did not have her job. Maybe we could not boast of our rich educational background then as we do now...................

Throughout their life as parents, my father and my mother, have always thought about investing on us, their children, rather than investing for their future lives. Whatever money they could manage to save at the end of their job lives (they could not serve till their usual retirement ages because they worked in a sick industry which closed down before they could complete their tenure) were chosen to spend on our higher education and better future prospects. No, they never complained. They only tried to make us realise the value of their hard earned money.

There was a time when we used to think about returning the money they spent for us. We used to calculate how much we had made them spent......now I realise how foolish were we. Though, both of us, my brother and I, manage to earn much more than they spent on our education, we can never return the time, the knowledge, the unconditional love they invested on us. How can we return the scorching heat or rainy evenings they had spend on sourcing second hand books from college street? How can we return the exhausting train journeys from Durgapur to Kolkata and back? How can we return the pain they took to carry the heavy loads of second hand books back to us? How can we return the smiles which radiated on their faces with our smallest of achievements? How can we return the days when they walked more and ate less to save every hard earned penny?

The only savings they have, are us. They did not judge us while investing diligently on us so that we turn into perfect human beings in the true sense of the term 'human'. I don't know whether their investments are successful. The sole regret I will be taking back with me to my grave is that by the time we could gift them some happy moments as a token of gratitude for all that they have done for us, they chose to leave us all alone to travel to the land of no return.

Guiding Light

Today, when I look back to my growing up days, I re-visualize some not-so-happy incidents which wrecked a havoc on my soul then.

My father helped me with my school homework till the day he met with a serious accident. He had to be hospitalized and underwent a surgery for compound fracture in one of his legs. Though the surgery went on to be successful, the recovery period was long, precisely 3 years. I was in class 2 then. In the midst of all other uncertainties about our household and my father's career, I decided to help myself with my school homework.

The results of this decision was not rosy. I started failing to cope up with the school lessons. Though I managed to see through classes 2 and 3 without anyone's help in my studies, I started giving up in class 4. I couldn't understand most of the lessons and started to avoid the tougher chapters. A few of my benevolent classmates gave their notebooks to me so that I could copy the daily homework. This arrangement failed to work during the terminal examinations and I started failing miserably. I remember, once, I couldn't submit homework notebooks for a week. My class teacher took me straight to our then principal. She called my mother and sternly told her that if I fail to cope up with the backlog in the coming months I would be thrown out of the school. The principal also remarked that I wasn't a 'Carmel' material. I can only imagine now how my mother must have felt then with an ailing husband recovering slowly in the hospital, a son studying his +2 and an obstinate daughter on the other hand.

On the other hand, the teachers who taught in my class started to judge me. I was punished most of the time without any substantial reason. I had no friends to support me. I felt myself drowning in a patch of quicksand. When a person drowns, he/she starts fighting back for life. I started to do that. I could barely breathe inside the school but my injured soul was determined to win. I managed to get promoted to the next class, class 5.

Class 5 was a happy start for me. My father came back home with a huge plaster. He joined work and walked with a pair of wooden crutches. His daily struggles inspired me somewhere deep inside my heart to go on against all the adversities. Though, I had a happy home then, my school environment did not improve. All my subject teachers except the ones who taught Bengali and English, continued to be judgemental. To them, I was a blacklisted student who have already travelled to the Principal's room. To them, I was not worthy enough to be taught by them. I was so scared about them that I often visualized myself walking through a dark tunnel without any torch to guide me.

It is said that when you experience the darkest hours of your life, you are bound to see the rays of hope just after. This was same for me. I could sense that my class teacher, one who also taught English treated me differently. Her name was Veena Jaya. Each of her lectures was inspiring. With her way of teaching I started to love what I studied. She could successfully instill the love for studying in me. In one occasion, when she had to choose and send a few students from her classroom to visit the school library (the junior sections weren't allowed then), she chose me too. It was a moment of honour for me. This incident made me realize that she could see some hope in me too. The incident was an unimportant one but it helped me to catapult back.

I started studying harder. My sole goal was to become a worthy student to all my teachers. The scores didn't improve much, though. The poor marks on my answer scripts made me strong every time I saw them. My determination saw me through and I got promoted to class 6. As Veena miss handed out the report card to me on the Result Day, she quietly remarked, "well done, Parna!" I looked up to her. She was smiling.

I won't forget that smile on her face, ever. It was the fitting answer to all the teachers who found me unworthy of the school's name and fame. As I look back, I still visualize the smile and thank her to be my guiding light. The light which gave me hope and reassurance of my capabilities. When I feel down at times, I re-visualize these days back in school. I quietly say to myself,"You had proved yourself. You will prove, every time."