The School

DREAMY BOY - Part 1/9 – The School

Last week, FB dumped on to my face, links to a plethora of good old acquaintances from my forgotten past.  The feeling was akin to unearthing a stashed away chest containing one of my long lost memory chips, and mind you, my find was bigger than what they’d unearthed at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

My updated FB friends list now contains many of my old ‘male’ mates from the school days, some of whom were my very close chuddi buddies whilst others who were part of a long lost mallu boy gang.

However, of all the people whom I had sent out FB friend requests to in the last week, only a few had responded back. What happened to the others? Didn’t they remember me anymore? And the girls, what happened to them? I was wondering why none of them had yet responded to my call.

Anyways, I am excited, and needless to mention, all the gullies in my brain have since been jammed chock a block with these returning memories. The nights particularly have been fantastic.

As I hit the bed with my childhood thoughts playing on my mind, I am transported to my favourite childhood place, the Sardar Baugh Swimming Pool. I find myself standing there, on the edge of this diving board from where as a teen I have dived in many a times. I stand there tiptoed and spread-eagled with my eyes closed, waiting for sleep to arrive. I slowly close in my arms, and as my palms touch each other, sleep visits and I dive in, ‘plochh’.

I dive in, not into the pool, but into an ocean, and swimming along with me are schools of beautiful and motley coloured fishes that have faces like my childhood buddies.

The ocean is like my school, and apart from my buddies, who swim along with me; I see some old and weary ones moving lazily with prying eyes that I don’t like. No sooner that we spot one such fish around us, we start behaving well and sometimes even hide behind the rock niches and swaying corals; I guess they must be the teachers.

Then, there are these beautiful ones swimming with pinafore dresses on. They look distinctly different and give side glances to me. They pass a coy smile and turn hush as our eyes meet. As our schools cross, they instantly break into a giggle and start murmuring behind us; I guess these must be the girls.    

Have you ever seen fishes play cricket? Yes they do, with cricket bats made out of writing pads and balls made out of handkerchiefs.

One of my buddies, whose face I remember, but whose name I cannot recall, swings his pad and the handkerchief ball flies into a probable six. I run hastily underwater trying to keep pace with the trajectory of the ball and as it hits the ground, I dive spreading my arms, into the wreckage of an old boat. I eventually catch the ball, but scratch my forearms badly.

I stand up with a beaming smile and great expectation that my buddies would cheer “great catch, super, super” , but they are no where to be seen. I realize that I have been transported into an entirely new world altogether. Is this the next level of my dream?