Autographs from the 10th standard... words of Roshni, Saju, Rakesh, Anjana....; Letters from 1991... Babu Oniyil - our arts teacher whose letter-head had then a picture of a little boy carrying a branch of tree of which all the leaves and fruits and flowers were birds if we carefully look at them; letters from Manoj Ramesh – my class mate; Greeting cards from our Geography teacher Dhoulath, Deepa who was a senior schoolmate and was specially fond of me and my pencil drawings and who later I came to know that she committed suicide, jumping off a moving train... a group photo of Sri Kumar, Saju, Sam and I...; A letter from Kavitha explaining her time in hostel.. A greeting card from Anjana with whom I have had several fights in school – Anjana who was an ugly-duckling when she joined the school and transformed to a beautiful girl when she left.. greeting cards from Sandeep, Ejaz, Sheeba Unni – Sheeba Unni with whom I have had fond memories from the school and her mom who helped me a lot in picking up my maths scores...; few certificates from 1987, 88, 89... for various school competitions...; Memories of Pradeep who motivated me a lot to focus in my learnig; Pramod with whom I had a bad patch of relationship for a while which later transformed to become a healthy studying-partnership, Priya and Praveen and Anup and Rajesh...all class mates...; Greeting cards from my boss’ wife on several occasions...from 1992 on...; a picture of Niyaz Doray attending one of my training sessions... Niyaz who was a colleague of mine and passed away when we least expected him to be one whose heart would fail to function....; a series of letters from Sr. Leena who was our English teacher in many classes.. and our Class teacher in 8th grade...; letters from Sr Sophia who was our arts teacher for a while and then we resumed our correspondence by accident while she was in Italy...; Letters from Saju... one of our ‘famous five’ group in the school...as we were known; greeting cards from Shami... a wallet that came as gift from her that still has in it a hundred rupees...; a tag of bouquet from Janis; birthday card from Mala...an old pen-friend in Hong Kong who is now settled in States... a series of letters from Suwilai..an old pen-friend from Turkey..
a series of letters that started flowing in 1992, from a senior class mate Shahina and her hostel-mate Sulu..; a hand-painted greeting card from Babu Oniyil... a beautifully written letter from Ms Dhoulath.......a diary of my notes from a few months in 1992...;the challenges and progress at work.. the inspiring moments.. and moments of despair...
...my class picture from 10th grade; my class picture from 7th grade...; my favourite text books from different classes... torn on its edges and discoloured with ageing...; a peacock feather that I must have kept one of those days to see my luck... and on the margins various attempts to develop the best signature... ‘s’ signed as swan and a ‘d’ signed with a smiley...;
...I had a nostalgic visit to the memory lane while I was clearing my attic today.... letters and greeting cards and autograph from the school days and beyond ....
I am remembering you my friends... wherever you are... whatever you have become.
And a line of prayer for you Deepa...; I wish you had a different choice than to leave this world, my dearest friend...; I want to call you the nick-name that I use to call you for which you hated me through which you became my good friend.... if only you can wake up from where you are and come back to live the life through its challenges.... no matter how broken your hopes are no matter how cracked your dreams are... yet looking at the darkest of the clouds and rekindle in you the ability you had to see the silver line...the ability that you held my hands to teach me..;
a line of prayer for you, Deepa...; I wish you had a different choice...
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What memories of these months and days will be carried to remember a decade from now? What from work? What from relationship? What from achievements? What from failures? What from learnings? What from experiences? What from hopes? What from dreams? What from what happened? What from what failed to happened?
