THE SOUL CURRY

This is something I had written a few years ago and it still resonates...

It is the beginning of a new session in class 11th and a feeling of superiority of being in the college section prevails upon the boys. New teachers, books, expectations and hopes arising out of the board examinations still cling to our hearts.

There had been an empty feeling since the day school had closed for preparatory leave for the boards. It was some what a subtle unexplainable, absurd feeling, although I had felt spasms of it a few times before but never had it haunted me to such an extent. I tried to overcome it by studying hard for the exams but it rarely helped. The feeling was subdued when once the board exams commenced but it still resided on in some unknown corner of my brain.

I could not pin-point any specific cause for the feeling, it never explained itself probably because I chose not to give it a serious thought but to move ahead ignoring it.

After the boards I planned to give my time to social networking but my plans were marred by my PC as the monitor was nonfunctional. I was irritated but I got it repaired after four days. The first thing I did was to open my class facebook page.

A fellow student had put up a post which had gathered immense comments from my friends.’10-E breaks’- probably it was what had disturbed me for days. The subtle fear of losing friends both near and dear and enemies who gave me reasons to reason. Some of my friends had left to pursue studies in other schools or in coaching centers as Kota and New Delhi leaving Allahabad behind. It never occurred to me that such an oblivious event will impact me in such a big way. It is true that the journey of Life never ends or begins with a friend but they do travel beside you as in a train compartment and you do feel their absence when once they leave for their station.

‘In life there are many separations, many deaths. What point is there in going back? Who belonged to whom in this world?’