The Day I was Late for the School (story)
The sun was getting less hot day by day. It was the beginning of rainy season. The sun was shining bright, making circular bright rings through the hollow amongst the lush green leaves of the trees. It had rained heavily the previous night.
As I neared the corner of our school compound, I could hear the last lines of our morning prayer. I hurried on the bricks laid down in the mud, in front of my school gate. I was late. Again.
Our principal was a very generous person, and cared for all the students. But, that day he was in one of his unusual moods. He summoned me up, and scolded me more than what I was expecting. He had even asked me to come with my parents the very next morning.
It was third hour. I was sitting on the last bench, worried. What was I to tell my mother? How should I ask her to come and meet my principal? Will she be able to spare some time? However hard I may try, she may not come. If she comes she wont be able to get any home to wash utensils, wipe the floor, or get any such work which the big houses spared for her. In return for her work, she got some food home. Sometimes she would come home with few notes of rupees, tied at the corner of her saree, if some Lady in that pink, or blue, or white house was in a too offering a mood that day. My mother would keep it locked, safely, in the rusted box. I have seen her open it only in the beginning of every month, when I have to pay my school fees.
During the days of puja, she would come home in the evening, shouting loud for me. Whenever in the evening I heard her shouting like this, while I would be playing in the neighborhood, I knew she has got something. Something to satisfy me palatal desires. Without saying a word to my friends I would run. I would run and rush into the bathroom. Wash my soiled legs and hands, wipe it out clean with a clothe, and go into the kitchen without saying a word, and I would watch my mother while she would make fresh tea.
She will pour the tea in two old steel glasses, the smaller one meant for me . We would sit down on the kitchen floor, and have our tea. I listened to her as she said how nicely the Lady in that big house treated her today. How they all sat there together in front of small temple in the corner of that lady’s house, praying. After the puja, how she was served prasad in decorated brass plate. How the small kids in that house ran around her as she ate the prasad. While narrating she would smirk, have a long sip of tea before she continues again. At those time I would sit there too taking long quite sips, so as not do disturb or annoy her. Her stories didn’t interest me much and I kept wondering what she had in the bag beside her. Long after we would have finished with our tea, and she had finished with her days narration, she would still sit there, as if tendering that days thoughts. I mused as I looked at her tilted face, as if it all occurred with me. Soon, the silence would be broken by a babies cry from the neighborhood, or the sounds of the stray dogs. And she would open the bag, carefully, taking out the prasad , bananas, and coconuts, while I looked at them with beaming eyes.
That’s how we have survived since my father died three years ago, while working in the coal mine, located two miles away on the road going in the direction opposite to the market.
Once, a cold evening, while I was going to the market with my father, I had stopped on that road corner, and looked on the way to my left. And had asked my father, “Papa, what’s there in this direction?”
“Minu”, my father had said,” Far beyond the green fields, behind those big trees, there are big buildings out there. They have very deep pits, in which I go and work”. I couldn’t see anything, except those cattle’s in the far field near the horizon, grazing in the warm evening sunlight.
I wondered how big those buildings could be, and couldn’t contain myself. “Papa, are they bigger than our school building? Even bigger than that?”
“Yes.”
“And what about those pits? Are they as deep as the well that we have?”
“Even deeper than that”, he replied, as he moved his hand on my head, caring my hair with his warm hands.
Excited by the imagination of the depth of those pits I had asked,” What do you do inside that pit, Papa?”.
“There are a lot of people inside who work with me. I see to it that they do their work properly”.
“What if they don’t listen to you?”.
He said,“I beat them with my long stick.”, and I laughed. That time I wanted to be like my father, so big and strong. As we walked towards the market with my father holding my small hand, I felt so warm and comfortable.
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...this was taken from the initial pages of the story I am currenty working on.....The only thing i dont know at this stage is, how long will it take me to finish it...days, months, or years?
As I neared the corner of our school compound, I could hear the last lines of our morning prayer. I hurried on the bricks laid down in the mud, in front of my school gate. I was late. Again.
Our principal was a very generous person, and cared for all the students. But, that day he was in one of his unusual moods. He summoned me up, and scolded me more than what I was expecting. He had even asked me to come with my parents the very next morning.
It was third hour. I was sitting on the last bench, worried. What was I to tell my mother? How should I ask her to come and meet my principal? Will she be able to spare some time? However hard I may try, she may not come. If she comes she wont be able to get any home to wash utensils, wipe the floor, or get any such work which the big houses spared for her. In return for her work, she got some food home. Sometimes she would come home with few notes of rupees, tied at the corner of her saree, if some Lady in that pink, or blue, or white house was in a too offering a mood that day. My mother would keep it locked, safely, in the rusted box. I have seen her open it only in the beginning of every month, when I have to pay my school fees.
During the days of puja, she would come home in the evening, shouting loud for me. Whenever in the evening I heard her shouting like this, while I would be playing in the neighborhood, I knew she has got something. Something to satisfy me palatal desires. Without saying a word to my friends I would run. I would run and rush into the bathroom. Wash my soiled legs and hands, wipe it out clean with a clothe, and go into the kitchen without saying a word, and I would watch my mother while she would make fresh tea.
She will pour the tea in two old steel glasses, the smaller one meant for me . We would sit down on the kitchen floor, and have our tea. I listened to her as she said how nicely the Lady in that big house treated her today. How they all sat there together in front of small temple in the corner of that lady’s house, praying. After the puja, how she was served prasad in decorated brass plate. How the small kids in that house ran around her as she ate the prasad. While narrating she would smirk, have a long sip of tea before she continues again. At those time I would sit there too taking long quite sips, so as not do disturb or annoy her. Her stories didn’t interest me much and I kept wondering what she had in the bag beside her. Long after we would have finished with our tea, and she had finished with her days narration, she would still sit there, as if tendering that days thoughts. I mused as I looked at her tilted face, as if it all occurred with me. Soon, the silence would be broken by a babies cry from the neighborhood, or the sounds of the stray dogs. And she would open the bag, carefully, taking out the prasad , bananas, and coconuts, while I looked at them with beaming eyes.
That’s how we have survived since my father died three years ago, while working in the coal mine, located two miles away on the road going in the direction opposite to the market.
Once, a cold evening, while I was going to the market with my father, I had stopped on that road corner, and looked on the way to my left. And had asked my father, “Papa, what’s there in this direction?”
“Minu”, my father had said,” Far beyond the green fields, behind those big trees, there are big buildings out there. They have very deep pits, in which I go and work”. I couldn’t see anything, except those cattle’s in the far field near the horizon, grazing in the warm evening sunlight.
I wondered how big those buildings could be, and couldn’t contain myself. “Papa, are they bigger than our school building? Even bigger than that?”
“Yes.”
“And what about those pits? Are they as deep as the well that we have?”
“Even deeper than that”, he replied, as he moved his hand on my head, caring my hair with his warm hands.
Excited by the imagination of the depth of those pits I had asked,” What do you do inside that pit, Papa?”.
“There are a lot of people inside who work with me. I see to it that they do their work properly”.
“What if they don’t listen to you?”.
He said,“I beat them with my long stick.”, and I laughed. That time I wanted to be like my father, so big and strong. As we walked towards the market with my father holding my small hand, I felt so warm and comfortable.
--------
...this was taken from the initial pages of the story I am currenty working on.....The only thing i dont know at this stage is, how long will it take me to finish it...days, months, or years?
posted by prem at 6:01 AM
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