After 20 years

I decided to go to the wedding because I wanted to see if I would meet anyone that I knew. We were visiting India after a long time and had consciously opted to spend time only in Bhubaneswar. I hadn’t met any school or college friends until then and was hoping to meet some in a traditional Oriya wedding.

It was a disappointment as I never recognized a single face. The few that I did were not of any consequence. At least to me. I was looking for old friends.

As we began to walk out of the party with Abhijit complaining of a splitting head ache, I spotted a face that I thought had a smile directed at me. I looked at her with interest. She was a young and pretty girl in her 30s or so. As our eyes met she came up to me and asked “You are Julie, right?”. I said “Yes” with something of a question because I just could not place her. She said “I am Mamta Acharya”. I was your junior in St Joseph’s High. I was elated. She continued, “I was several years your junior. Now I teach in the same school”. She reminded me about meeting her at a wedding when I was just married and visiting my parents’ home from Delhi. “You have the same tension-ridden slim figure as you did in school”, she noted. I laughed at her keen sense of observation. “Do you know Hindi miss, Ms Kiran is still working in school, Ms Nalini passed away from a heart attack, Ms Krishna, Oriya miss…, they would love to see you”, she added. I quickly jotted down her email address and phone number and asked her when would be a good time to visit. She mentioned a free period on Monday between 10 and 10.15am. I came back home excited. I told Shuma and Anu that I would take them around to my school.

Abhijit dropped us in front of the main gate of St Joseph’s. I realized that the main gate that I knew of, was now locked to the main road. There was another entrance on the left. As soon as I stepped into the grounds and had the security guard ask me who I wanted to meet, my heart began to flutter. The girls asked me “Mama, why are you scared?”. I murmured, “I have so many good memories on this soil for 11 years of my life. I am not scared, just overwhelmed”. The front grounds looked a little different than before but the architecture remained the same. Mother Mary stood white and peaceful as ever with her arms folded in a welcome stance. The purple vines of Passiflora and Morning glory had been replaced by other flowers as pretty and engaging. The Golden Shower trees that looked so pretty then, laden with blazing yellow blossoms had been replaced by some others that I could not name.

The large cage which housed the school mynah still stood there. I had written an obituary for it when it died in my 8^th year in school. It was filled with small birds that chirped as loudly. We entered into the portals and I looked for the staff room to meet Mamta. To my right was the school office. I remembered coming there with a bleeding head, with Teddy, after my head crashed into the corner of my school box in 2^nd grade. I remembered Raghu the peon being instructed by Mother to take me home on his bicycle. I remembered going inside to submit my poems and paintings. I remembered everything with awe.

The recess bell hadn’t rung. I would get only a few minutes to meet the teachers. I took the girls out to the back of the building. I saw the assemblies that we had in the huge courtyard where Sister Andre with her perfect diction and charismatic personality addressed us for a few minutes every morning. She tested our vocabulary with a new word everyday. I remembered how she had told my father in the very same corridor, when I was collecting my ICSE mark sheet “I will remember your daughter even if I am in Timbuctoo”. I had laughed proudly then.

We walked the concrete path that lead to the kindergarten section. It was packed with kids. No one was crying though. It is November I thought. They have been here for 2 months now. They must be getting used to it. I remembered the
time I had volunteered to help Kindergarten
teachers just as Shuma did in her Elementary school. So many kids, so many parents---teary eyed all.

I took the girls to the school play ground.

It looked bigger, cleaner and different. I wanted to run to the big trees right at the end of the field to show Anu where I had my first caterpillar allergy. How Padmaja had noticed it on my sweater and I had thrown it away with a stick and how afterwards my arm was swollen like an egg plant! How we had spent many recess times laughing and playing the three legged race tying our uniform belts to our feet. How we had caressed “Sadhaba Bohu’s” backs and carried them in small boxes to class and how we had
shared secrets about boys.
Anu said “Mama, you did have fun”. I wasn’t listening to her.

I showed them the small clearing behind the lunch room where we practiced dances for the annual functions.

The class rooms where we changed costumes for “Around the World in 7 days”.

My Biology Lab where Ms Das taught us Biology. I remembered her fair hands filled with glass bangles, her beautiful handwriting and figures. I loved Biology when I was in school. I realized that they had moved the chapel to another section of the grounds separating the nun’s wing from the main school. I had prayed many times in that chapel staring at the flickering light inside the candles that were lit on both sides of Jesus. It was a very peaceful place. I could not remember praying like that without a cause any more. A Sister passed by. She wished us. I wished her back.

The recess bell had rung and kids were spewing out of the class to the play ground and we made our way to the staff room. I wanted to see my teachers. I met Mamta in a different frame of mind. She might have been my junior in school but she was a teacher now! Ms Krishna, looked
as pretty as she did 20 years back.

I remembered her calling me to her section (B) in 4^th grade from Ms Abhilasha’s class to sing for her in a free period. I remembered Ms Abhilasha handing me a deep red rose on my birthday saying “Julie, the day you sing Lata’s “Bola re Papiyara” I shall know that you will be a famous singer. Ah! I thought. I was far away! Oriya Miss (Ms Mili) walked in and I hugged her with some trepidation! We never got this close physically to our teachers. She taught us beautiful prose like “ShakuntaLa” and “GaLpa SankaLana”. Her Oriya was perfect. I always got the idioms and saying right and she was liberal with grades.

Then she walked in. Ms Kiran. Our Hindi teacher. I had loved her always. I had opted for Oriya as my second language but she had opted me as her heroine for our school Hindi dramas! My first trysts with Hindi speaking were thanks to her choice of me over other actresses in annual dramas. I loved her and I always thought she loved me a lot.

She had beautiful handwriting in Hindi. When she wrote on the black board it could have been printed. Everyday she wore clean, crisp, starched cotton saris to school and I admired everything about her. She overlooked my initial bad Hindi diction and always gave me good roles to play in
her dramas. As I looked at her today I was filled with pride and love. She gave a start when she saw me and walked quickly over to give me a hug. As Anu began to speak to her she said “Just like her mother!”. I recounted my acting days under her supervision and also repeated some of the dialogues from the dowry-based Hindi Drama that she had directed in 1980 called ‘Reed Ki Haddi’ (backbone). The girl in the drama had refuted the suitor’s father who was asking for dowry with the famous words “ghar ja ke dekhiye, apne bete ki reed ki haadi hai ya nahin”. Ms Kiran let out a shout of surprise, that I still remembered the words. She added “We never had such great functions after your batch left school”. I took many photographs of her and the other teachers. The bell had begun to ring again. Teachers in the staff room were collecting their books and getting ready to walk into the class rooms.

I took leave of them and started to walk out of the portals of my alma matter. A second home that had built my character.

Shuma looked at me and said “Mama, they all love you a lot”. I said “I am sure yours do too”.

Shuma Anu sitting in the same corridor benches as I did 23 years ago-- possibly in front of Ms Muller's class in 2nd grade!