Pencil Box

I was standing on the boy’s playground watching every bit on the ground that I would not usually get an entrance too. It was the most coveted boys’ school of the township, I grew up. I was still not in teen, yet could sense the soft pulse of what it would mean standing in a man’s world. The man who actually gave me this entrance to the restricted territory was in an interview. It was the second one in two weeks for him.

The school had a few Eucalyptus trees on the boundary. I started comparing as my school missed one. The campus was crowded with many – a few known and mostly unknown faces. He was made to sit on the long bench with a few more like him. They were mostly look alike in size yet different in behavior. He was waiting for a few instructions to follow and a few performances to make just like the one we did at home all in sports. But what made it different was the players were different. He had to play a new game with a few unknown players.

His last performance was fair. But guess everyone around had expected him to outperform this time. Just that he didn’t know what an interview means. It was a considerably new game to him. His eyes were observant but his comfort feeling was low. From the other end of the corridor through the painted grills I observed him, just to wait for a moment that he looks through the rigid grills and accept the bundle of good wishes that stood by as an assurance to succeed the game he had to play for himself.

I desperately wanted him to succeed. It was a still twenty minutes that we all waited for him to come out with an elderly woman. She was Mrs. Chapel. A name I competed with for a year. She was his kindergarten class work teacher and I tried to be her counterpart as his homework teacher. He was surrounded by a flock of unknown faces and more like an un-objective press he was asked to share his experience. He started crying. I felt sorry!

Later in cozy bed under the same quilt he shared what happened in the room. I inferred he answered all except one. His numeric education started from ‘1’ and ended with ‘9’. He was asked to result out “1 + 0 = ?”. Funny teaser – right! Zero was a new concept to him. I promised to teach him and wished his interviewers pardon his ignorance. He was only four and had lot many years to know what others have invented to make world more complex.

It was early spring. We were playing hide and seek. I was at a disadvantage being a foot higher than normal bushes in the company quarter – our residence. Just when we had the final call to wrap up the free-flow leisure hours, the postman came knocking. It was the first mail that came in his name. I was hesitant to receive not knowing what it was. Our next door neighbor was watching us play. She stepped forward to accept it.

Breaking rules of privacy I opened up his letter. The old style blue envelope, we called it Inland letter, had all letters neatly typed in black. The most wanted news of the time had fallen on my hands. Yes, he made it to the elite parlance. It was exuberant to feel that I was successful as a good wisher.

Life had its share of success and failure. In this journey of togetherness good wishes stood like the colorful pencil box helping with tools to write, erase, sharpen, color and pack them safely with the magnetic lock – open it to show the pride possession of relation which stands strong to wither many a difficult nights and soak in joy of many more bright morning.

The most priced gift that I could manage from the album “un-clicked” on Rahki to my brother!

Gyan #34 - Take a break!!