This time, as I came back from McLeod, it was with a realization that it may be the last time for a long while before I’d return to Roorkee again. The milling crowd of rick-pullers at the station thronged the few passengers who had alighted in this undistinguished little town. And a myriad thoughts came rushing in with the question: “Kaun sa bhawan?”. Of how ‘Azad’ had jumped to my tongue so naturally and how this may be the last time ever anyone would unquestionably assume us to be students. Of how the next monsoons when the “Dehradun Jan Shatabdi” would return to Roorkee, running over with IITR folks, I wouldn’t be one of them.
It was 5 in the morning and the sky was overcast, with hues of sunrise. On the rick, while on my way to campus, the place never seemed more endearing or the weather more pleasant. It reminded me of the July here that I would sorely miss; the town that rushed to meet the hurtling train every new session. Inside an incessant chatter among scores of familiar faces. Outside the soft patter of the gently falling rain.
I remember from my childhood, the first time I returned to my hometown. It was 1994; two years after my family had shifted to this place near Delhi, where my father was working. Within this span of two years I had gained several inches and a degree of consciousness. This is when my earliest memories begin. I had the time of my life there in that place and the trip alone was enough to lose my heart to the countryside and its way of life. Games and harmless pranks with cousins, being chased around for a dose of playful licking, the restlessness of the lone soul unable to fall asleep on summer afternoons, the lanterns twinkling in the doorway as evening set in and the bedtime stories – they seem a part of a different life now. I remember vividly how upset I was on my way back home – the silent tears that were shed curled up on the upper berth of the train; its rhythmic shaking a slight comfort.
Between the two train journeys a world of difference grew. The years have been a series of journeys and escapades – some wilder than others, and with a fair share of joy and sorrow. Each experience was a lesson learnt and soon they were too many to remember. Growing up is tough. And probably because everyone gets their share of it, often underrated. Swamped under the task of all that growing up to do, moments became memories that faded or were carefully stowed away in those deep recesses of mind that are often unlocked only at moments when life stands still. Moments such as these. My countryside-dream melted away, as did others that dwelt in a mind untouched by the ‘wisdom’ that age is sure to bring. Back in those days, most of us longed to be so many things. Some of us still secretly do.
School days were like a long walk – from a bawling kid of which I have only a faint recollection to the awkward teenager – leaving a void in its wake. My college, on the other hand, was over in a heartbeat. And now lying down on the bed, whiling away my time, I wait for my job to start. There’s yet another vacancy to fill and expectations galore. I wonder what changes time will bring to my associations with the past – that old town and the people that came into my life in those four years I spent there; the shortest four years of my life…
In Azad, right next to our wing was a Jacaranda tree. And when the winter chill wore off, there it would stand bearing beautiful violet blossoms – the first traces of color after a spell of winter grey, even as the last remnants of mist hung about its branches. As spring gave way to summer, there they would remain – only a few now, clinging on hopefully, almost desperately; much like I was when the time to leave Roorkee drew nigh. They bloomed in spring and died with the summer heat like they always do; only the next time they blossom I won’t be around to cherish them anymore.
