After 2 years, I visited my hometown Trichy a few days back. Among the various things that were lying around the house, I chanced on a small metal box lying in a corner. A worn down box, I instantly recognized that as the school box (In those days when carrying a box to school was in vogue!) I used to carry to school to when I was hardly 2 or 3 years old*. Stepping through all the dust that had accumulated over the months the house was under lock, I waded to the box, and opened it. There were all the trinkets of a 3-year-old inside the box. My mother had preserved the contents of the box just as she has preserved all my English and Tamil composition notebooks, Biology Record notebooks and Exam answer papers from school! I put that box away in the boot of my car to take it with me to Madras.

The couple of days at Trichy went away like a couple of minutes � and soon I was back to the hustle and bustle of Madras. And the box was forgotten under the deluge of work that was waiting for me at office. Forgotten until yesterday � when I was clearing the lounge at home, I rediscovered the box from under the divan where I had hastily dumped it on coming back from Trichy. And then started a wonderful trip into the past.

I was rummaging through the contents of this treasure trove when my hand fell on a faded card-board sheet which had a marked Convent-kindergarten teacher�s handwriting proclaiming �Vijaykumar P � KG I B�. I turned it around, and a smile appeared on my face. It was a group photograph from School, of my class at RSK Primary School. A black and white picture, with about thirty-five faces of a million hues. Seated in the middle was my Class Teacher � Mrs Marilyn Gomez. Dressed in a black sari (well, in a black and white picture anything that was not white appeared black!), she looked stunning and young and beautiful. And around her flocked a gang with eager eyes that were everywhere except on the camera�s lens. Except of course, a couple of children�s who knew how to be camera conscious (read �look straight in the lens and give your most charming smile�) even at that young age of 4! I did not remember most of the names, yet instantly, they all came back to life inside my mind. I remembered that fellow in the last row with an impish grin, as though we were sitting next to each other all these 20 years since this picture was taken. And then there was Manoj � or was his name Mahesh? � looking away as though someone was waving at him from the first floor verandah! There was this girl with the curly hair who looked as though she would burst into tears any moment. And then there was me! With the �vibhoothi�** generously painted all over my forehead (definitely, I bet, it was a handiwork of my mother�s aunt) and standing to attention!

Time seemed to suddenly stand still, as I started drifting 20 years into the past. I was wandering amidst a bunch of frozen faces that had voted not to grow up. Mrs Gomez, twenty years younger, and beautiful. Who would have thought then that today I would be what I am (and that is not saying much!)! Did she ever know when she was posing for this picture that 20 years hence I would be looking back at that very picture and thinking all this? Did she ever have an idea that that boy she was holding the hands of to write the alphabet would one day be working for India�s most respected software company? I wonder�

I waded through the still picture, through the maze that each of the rows made, to talk to each of the kids. To share with them all that has happened in the last 20 years that have placed a veil between us. But then it was all frozen in time. No one smiled at me. Each was busy at his own antics. Someone was pulling the hair of the person in front, and one girl was busy trying to be seen close to the teacher. I laughed at all this, and walked away from the assembly to the wall. A window through which was visible the sandpit of RSK A Sector Primary School, or rather, what was where the sandpit once was. It has been some 200 years since that was converted into a concrete runway as flights land and take off from the school! It is a joke, the part about the flights. However, the sandpit was no longer there. But then, it was there once � where we used to sing Christmas Carols during Christmastime, where we used to have programmes when the Principal visited us from the Main School. We used to have our lunch here, and no one would get hurt while playing running and catching. The �aayaah� *** was hurrying up and down cleaning the area, attending to a child that had just thrown up, taking care of a sick boy as he fell down from a tree at play. The Head Mistress was standing guard in front of her room, and there were rows of children getting into the school after lunch at home. Class Leaders were running up and down with notebooks, and some were carrying metal boxes with chocolates, in colour dresses. It was their �Happy Birthday�, and they had special chocolates for the teachers. The Class Teacher would usually receive a Dairy Milk chocolate bar, while the other teachers would get the princely Eclairs, and the other students would be given one Parry�s chocolate each costing about 10 paise! How many times had I done that!!

For a moment, in the tranquil surrounding of these children rushing up and down through the pages of history, I had forgotten myself. Here was a bunch of KG students, staring not at the camera � but into the future. Looking towards it in no hurry. Because, they somehow seemed to know it would come one day and were in no mood to get to that hurriedly. And here was I, in the future that these children were staring into, trying to get back on top of those benches which might, to this day, be adorning the floors of I Std A Section at RSK Primary School! A simple, faded black and white photograph had done so much to revitalize me. Even though its edges were frayed and a few moths had crept their way to it, the subject of the frame was intact. Age had caught up with the picture, but not with the thought that it conveyed. It conveyed the pleasant message that no matter where life takes us, all it takes for a bottled up heart to mellow down was an unwinding to those days when the heart knew and thought nothing beyond the bell that indicated that period in class was over! The picture I was holding in my hands spoke a thousand words, and I still have not come out of the sweet cacophony of childish babble that was lunchtime at RSK Primary School.

I returned the picture to the box, and put it close to my bed. When my heart is pained, or pinned down by the tasks of the day, I know where to reach for the antidote!


* Refer my first article � When Moments Become Memories
** Vibhoothi � sacred ash worn by Hindus in the forehead.
*** Aayaah � maid. Usually in schools for taking care of little children.