It seems like a million, zillion years passed since i went to school. Every morning while undertaking the painfully short-distance-wise-but-long-time taking journey in a three wheeled man made machine which has gained no less an importance than a god’s own vehicle... yes the black coloured, cacophonic autos... I see these little children wearing half pants with a dirty sweater, almost bursting square bags, water bottle in one hand and a lollypop or a Rs.2 Pepsi (is it Rs.2 now or Rs. 200, you can’t say!) in the other hand...
I remember when I went to school my some of my worries included the high probability of me getting punished because of reaching late or because of having overgrown nails or wearing lose socks (which happened at the most twice a month when the other pairs were drenched..esp during the rainy season). Forgetting books was not much a worry because i was particular in that department although the one day in an year when i would forget a history textbook, my teacher used to get this brainwave of punishing or worse taunting the girls who had forgotten theirs!
Other things that disturbed me and all of my fellow mates was that her lead pencil was the shortest or her crayon stick wasn’t ‘fat’ enough or worse what if it rained in the games period and you wouldn’t get to go out and play your favourite game of throw ball! Or worse for people like me who liked running like horses or like phoebe on the ground when the only games class used to get converted to some stupid boring ‘Marathi’ class.
And when it was your birthday, you would announce it proudly a week earlier to the entire class about the oncoming auspicious day. And on the auspicious day, you would get ‘sweets’ for everyone irrespective of the fact that they have brought gifts or not. And the whole class very enthusiastically sang a ‘Happy Birthday’ with loud, happy claps and you standing, blushing in the front and whispering a ‘Thank You My friends’ in the end... and then you would get a wet kiss by the teacher on your cheek (which i generally avoided and tactfully wiped off). All in a Happy, happy birthday... no mental math calculation of treat (if any) money or unknown faces asking for ‘treat’.
But alas, good things die early. Now that i am dreading the oncoming of my ‘auspicious day’ i wonder how and why things change. Now it’s more like ‘Happy Birthday (I don’t care), TREAT!(is all that i care about and i can contri any small amount of money for the formal cake and oh yeah i won’t even sing because i am drooling over the cake).
I don’t want a fancy cake with my name in icing. I don’t even want anyone to wish just for the sake of it... all i want are a few wishes that come from heart (and some gifts too! bwahaha) because i need the wishes baby! I am growing old and i am not a tad bit happy about it! I wish i just don’t get up on my birthday and directly wake up on the next day, just skip the 24th! As Joey says ‘Why God! Why?!’
Man, i refuse to grow up.
