Thursday, February 11, 2010

I had a dream....


I had a dream a couple of days back. It was not something that had to do something with ambition as I have never been ambitious. It was years back that I had struck a compromise with life that I would never seek big cars and fat salaries and in return life would just offer me a peaceful existence on my own terms while being far away from the rat race.
Coming back to my dream, I must say that it disturbed me a lot. It was something that had come much unexpected. In this dream of mine I was exported back to my schooldays and the year was 1984. Yes, I remember the year precisely because at that time I was in Class 7 and it was in that year that our Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated and this assassination was followed by a pogrom against the Sikhs. Well, my dream had nothing to do with the assassination or with the pogrom. It has something to do with a thing as simple as a paper plane.
What I saw again was a mischievous act to which I had resorted to in the social sciences class. My teacher Uma Hiteshi, a great human being who loved me a lot despite me being a naughty brat, was sitting on the teacher’s desk. I came to know that she passed away last year and it was yet another great personal loss for me. And it was perhaps my
continuing to remember her in my sub consciousness that she decided to come alive in my dream once more.
Anyhow, while she had sat correcting our notebooks towards the end of the academic session with the exams approaching, a naughty thought had struck me. Confident that I would get promoted to the next class and there was no use of revising my course in that autumn class, I decided to have some harmless fun. I took out a notebook, tore a page and made a paper plane. Making a paper plane those days, at that age, was a huge delight…..a very fulfilling experience.
With deft hands, I tore a sheet out of the notebook, gave it the required multiple folds, smoothened its wings on my palm and like any great inventor I wrote my name on it. Then came its launch from the window of my class and I was confident that it would definitely soar high on account of the strong late autumn, early winter wind. To my
childish delight it came true to my expectation and it did soar high and traveled a long distance away from the window.

But to my shock, the wind played the truant and after traveling a long distance, it
made a u turn and my sincere hopes and wishes that it does not re-enter the class were dashed. Not only did it re-enter the class, it landed right under the nose of my bespectacled teacher who was busy correcting a notebook. My name on the plane gave away my identity.

What followed was on expected lines. I was labeled a goonk, my ears were wrenched and I was promptly thrown out of the class. This was something of a routine. It was at this point that my dream broke. I woke up feeling thirsty. Saw the time on my mobile which read 5.35 am.
Then I had a longing. The craving to make a paper plane returned after all those years. I felt restless on discovering that I no longer possessed a notebook whose sheets were worthy of making a paper plane.I decided that I would borrow a sheet from the kids in the
neighborhood the first thing in the morning and I would definitely make a paper plane and once again write my name on it.

But I realized with horror once again that the notebooks along with their new form of
stapling and binding that are in vogue today are not ideal for making a paper plane. With the slopes of the hills becoming a jungle of concrete, there is no scope for the planes to soar high into the clear blue sky. The multi storeyed buildings would halt the plane’s flight and these buildings no longer allow the blowing of breeze and winds that would facilitate an ideal launch. So my agenda now is to once again put my dream into reality. I would go to the wilderness one of these days with a notebook that has sheets ideal for making a paper plane and indulge in that childhood luxury for the whole day. Perhaps this would be a befitting way of paying my respects to my lost teacher.

1 comment:

  1. Very well written Rajeev...Remember Mrs,Hiteshi....great teacher

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