Attention please!!!

Image courtesy: Google

Yesterday was Children’s Day. The numerous posts on social media reminding everyone about the importance of the day made me close my eyes and dream a little. My students in their blue and green uniform. Laughing, chatting, playing....... Then a petite girl in a pinafore with checks of black, white and red, a crisp white blouse and a red tie. She walked along the school corridors, the fingertips of her outstretched hands caressing the walls, leaving an invisible mark of her presence. She stopped and turned towards me. It was myself! Minus two decades. It was a refreshing vision, in the cozy comfort of my closed eyelids. I couldn't help letting out a childish giggle recollecting fond memories of childhood…much before the turbulent teens that would accelerate my metamorphosis into an adult.

When I was in second grade, once for some strange reason I fail to recollect, my friend Vinaya and I decided that we wanted to die. So we kept chewing our pencils, swallowing the lead that painted our teeth a powdery black. Our teacher Mini Miss spotted us sharpening our pencils with great focus, chewing endlessly at their sharpened ends, while the rest of the class paid attention to the lesson. She immediately demanded that we leave the room and wash our mouths if we wished to sit in her class. As we walked to the restroom, we asked each other why we hadn't died. Strange!

The entire class watched us (in awe, I liked to think) as we quietly occupied our seats. We felt like war heroes. So what if we had been caught and scolded. We had “dared” to try and kill ourselves with pencil lead. Now when I think of it, I guess I hadn't really wanted to die. May be just fall a little sick to gain some attention from friends, parents or teachers. An extra helping of love and care, some favouritism I thought I deserved!! May be that’s why when I oooh! and aaaahh! over small cuts, burns and bruises even now, my husband calls me a drama queen. A little bit of drama to feel like the queen of his heart. Yes, the child in me is alive and kicking!

Image courtesy: Google