Down Memory Lane
It
was a perfect journey down the memory lane. My two days’ tour to Bhubaneswar in
mid-Feb. 2007 presented a unique opportunity to re-visit my lost world – a
world where, I fancied, I was the only ruler. For it was a rule by my
intellect-induced ego, my crested career and my flair for music. Before I left
Delhi, I had telephonically fixed up the trip with Sribas, my old classmate at
Naya Bazar High School, Cuttack. “Mind you”, I told him, “I am missing my sir
more than you”. There was a chuckle at the other end. But I was sure of my
words.
On
the scheduled evening, after I was done with office work, I hired a cab to
Cuttack at Shaheed Nagar. As the cab started off, my mind drifted to my old
world. It was a queer feeling with lots of excitement interspersed with
nostalgia. When the cab came upon the Kathjodi bridge my eyes grazed the
twinkling, golden lights dotting the distant bank who, like sentinels guarding
the city of Cuttack, one-time capital of the glory that was Utkal, seemed to
welcome me to the same city that cradled my adolescence and also rocked my
youth.
As
I waited at the pre-appointed place on the Link Road for Sribas to pick me up,
I pondered how recently sheer providence revived our old connections when a
Oriya colleague of my office who came on transfer from Bhubaneswar happened to
be a pass-out from my old school. How lucky of him, I thought about Sribas , to
have settled in his native soil near the school and not be a nomadic like me.
And as I thought of his father-- my revered Siba Sir—the picture of his Maths
class sprang forth to life. How his eyes never failed me and his heart never missed its confidence in
me – something that makes me wonder even today if he had the same feeling for
his son sitting by. And this, despite my competitive rivalry with Sribas for
the first place in the class. As I reflected on the genius of this
awe-inspiring soul, I could not but admire his amazing mathematical prowess,
his extra-ordinary sense of reasoning, his enigmatic magic chalk that spun flawless
diagrams on black-board and his die-hard passion for discipline and character.
But what survives to this day as the most robust memory was his lust for my
music. For a moment I tried to recapture that fleeting tableau—my standing out
in attention at the podium, singing those popular numbers from the film ‘
Taqdeer’, the rapture it cast across the class, the revelry of accolades and
applauses and, above all, that mystic expression on my teacher’s face. I
remember how, on occasions, he would send for me from another class, call off
the proceedings and ask me to play those favourite numbers. As I look back, I
feel perhaps my innocent tunes touched somewhere the most sensitive chords of
his youthful heart.
All
of a sudden the cobweb of my thoughts snapped when a towering motorcyclist,
flashing head light, screeched to a halt. As he took out his helmet, yelling “
hi “ I could barely believe it was my old pal, Sribas. For those long forty
years could not have left either untouched. We drove to his house along the
Taldanda canal babbling endlessly, only to stop at his gate. From the threshold
of the living room, when Sribas called out “Baba, look who has come to see
you”, I saw him…
At
the far corner, I saw the dark skeleton of a man glued to bed under the dim light
of the living room. The face that had fired my fancy for forty long years had
shrivelled and shrunken beyond recognition. As I approached the bed-post, I
could see him desperately trying to get up. When Sribas called aloud again “Ram
Kalyan, my friend from Naya Bazar
School”, I saw his drooping eyes peer at me. They had all the elements of that
mystic look the old lady of ‘ Titanic’ had while trying to re-live her lost
love life through the blue glint of her sapphire locket. Those blurred, bleary
eyes sparkled as he sputtered my name, two bony hands reaching out towards me.
I could not hold back any longer. Touching his feet with my head, I hugged him
hard. For a moment, I did not know how long I stood motionless and still,
absolutely oblivious of time and space. I even missed Sribas telling how, two
years back, a fall in the bath rendered him paralytic. As I laid him slowly on
bed, I spotted two streams of tears shining on his rugged, wrinkled cheeks. I
sat beside him, holding his hands on my lap, reminiscing the years that were.
And all I could get was some mumblings punctuated by coughs and sighs. Finally
when I reminded him of the songs that rang in his heart once upon a time, I
could mark the distant misty look on his eyes. I, too, on my own yearned to
sing him those immortal lines. But time and place did not permit this
thoughtless indulgence as I reflected with a sigh that life should, after all,
be handled with reason than emotion.
When
I stood up to bid good bye to my dear Siba Sir, I could hear my inner voice
ringing deep down my heart, “when do we see again?”
As
I drove back, my old alma mater, now renovated and refurbished, yet reminiscent
of my hoary past, swept in a blur. My heart cried out to stop for a moment,
walk down to the hallowed campus and smear my head with its star dust. But,
with fleeting Time, it remained a far cry, as my old little world receded down
the memory lane.
Ram Kalyan Nayak
_____________
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