THE WATCHMAN

Walking upon the path that you have once walked upon just not bring a whole rush of memories but cheerfulness and bitterness accompanying it as well.

We are naïve human beings walking everyday into the oblivion for once everyone has to become a grain in the sands of time.

Well, quoting school as one’s best time of life will surely be an understatement. What word can match to those carefree days when joy was making fun in every act you did giving a damn what future holds in store for you.

I got the pleasure of walking down my alma mater few days before for I wished to pass my high school from other educational institutional. Reasons resorted to some academic solutions.

The dusk was about to fall and I being passed from a Catholic school felt the urge to visit the church . The idea was well-received by an all-weather friend who shared the same ties.

As I climbed the stairs of the church was not just it!

It is difficult to portrait it into words as the silence of that holy place was so empowering. Not often comes when you cherish the silence that does not speak to your soul but listens to it as well.

Ironically, I changed my atheist belief that I used to hold against these religious beliefs. It is not the idols (in case of temples)that give you power but the emotion you attach to these places. And that emotion is hope and faith. The occurrences of your events feed on it.

Let us leave it here, for my talk will be deviated. I roamed about the school freshening up my rustic school memories with smile. However it turned a sour taste when a watchman questioned our wanderlust. Of-course, the sole reason of being a pass-out lacked robust logic . For how could we explain our nostalgia, I think everyone fails doing that.

But it made me walk down the memory lane when a watchman known respectfully as ‘Panditji’ used to be there, greeting us with all his fuelled enthusiasm.

He had come off age but the vigor he showed in the freezing winter morning was equivalent like a cup off hot coffee served in your bed.

His crooked smiling face, a long green jacket over the knees, black spectacles, blue trousers and grey hair still forms a crystal image in my head.

People never fail to remember their teachers, friends or even Principal of their alma mater. But only few would reminisce about the staff. We have always treated them as unwanted weed yet they are the key foundation of any institution.

The feeling of belongingness does not just come with teachers around or shall we say we limit it to them.

The man who greeted me with smile when I was too young to hold the right meaning of education , it somewhat made pleasant or pleasantier if that word exists in English.

Quoting Gandhiji that,’ No profession is worthless, each one has its tantamount value.” I finds its true meaning now.

He is probably gone but the light he had was magical. It has infused with brightness of lives over a vast number of toddlers who have had their first step in the pre-nursery crying. He was indeed a man of many parts.

Well, he taught me one thing, “ Everyone can perform one’s duty, rare are those who ‘live’ it.”

The world is beholden to him as well as those who have lived their profession. For they have made this world a more pretty and peaceful place to live in regardless of the job they did.