Memoir 1

We all feel the urge to speak about ourselves at some point of time in our lives. But most of us do not write it all down because the quality of mind which helps expression gets eroded with time and experience. The quality of my mind is in no better state. If anything, its in a worse condition than I would like it to be. But I still feel the urge to write about my life.

I feel I have lived most of my life. The peak has been reached in terms of achievement and now there is a stasis before the actual downslide.

A stasis always compels a looking back. Pictures of the life past come up in memory.

I remember the time when I was 9 years old and waiting to join a new school…I had passed the entrance test and this was the day of the interview.

“One of the most prestigious schools in the city; consider yourself lucky if you can make it,” Papa said.

Didi combed my hair vigorously to make the curly locks shine - then tied it into a neat ponytail, even as she kept the rehearsal going.

“What will you say when you are asked which school you were in before this?”

“Preee..vosly…”, I faltered.

“Previously, I was in SPS - as simple as that. Can’t you remember?” Didi admonished.

“Previosly, prevous…previously…” I kept repeating the newly acquired word over and over again all the way to the interview, and as I sat in the lobby waiting my turn to go into the headmistress’ office.

Finally came my turn, and oh! the question about my previous school just never came up. The headmistress, Mrs Dasgupta was a slim, tall, fair, prettily smiling lady and seemed to know most things about me.

A few short innocuous questions later, she said, “Okay, dear. You are a very smart child!”

To Papa, she said, “Mr Mohanti, the school will inform you in a short time by post A very good day to you.”

Papa was all courtesy and grace as he took his leave, but there was always something in his bearing which spoke of definite things. He seemed to know that I was definitely going to be admitted to the school. I suddenly felt very brave.

As we were about to step out of the office, the good lady coming around her table to see us out, I turned toward her and said, “Previously, I was in SPS”. There! It was done!

“Yes dear,” Mrs Dasgupta said and gently pushed me out.

But I was definitely in. MHS saw me through my formative years and though I might not have done the school proud, I didn’t do too badly as a student.

That is one phase of my life about which I never feel I might have done things differently. I mean the 10 or 12 years of school life.

Those were the years that saw me grow into a confident being. I believed in myself. I knew what were the things I could do best and never hankered after accomplishments beyond my reach. Books were a favourite, Reading helped in many ways. It kept me out of trouble – the kind of trouble my three boisterous siblings were always getting into.

It also helped to develop my imagination and creativity.

Papa particularly encouraged the habit in me. He never balked at buying me any book I wanted. I happily raided the school library and then there were the friends with a good stock of books. Music too was a well liked thing. Not any particular type of music. Just it would have to have melody. Yes, Beatles, Simon and Garfunkle, some country music - these were preferred.

This love of books must have somehow been instrumental in my studying English Literature for my undergraduate degree course. Perhaps I thought that studies would be fairly easy job if I studied literature. It would be right down my alley and without too much effort I would manage. Though I seemed to bring in good academic results I was not particularly studious. Too much study did not suit me. So I convinced Papa that English Literature was the thing to do.

At 19, I was taking my first decision in life.

“I would have liked you to study Economics. It is a grand subject, but if you feel inclined toward literature – that’s all right”, he said.

Papa agreed to my wish to study literature but under condition that I would join an all-girls’ college.

That was no problem for me. I was never the demanding type. I had good results and could go to the college of my choice. But I chose not to choose. I let Papa do that for me. LC it was. And I owe it to the college and my teachers there that what began as a passionate fondness for reading turned into a genuine regard for literature. I quite simply appreciated literature from the core of my being. I did not do a lot of research. I did not queue up in front of reference libraries wanting books hard to get out of the clutches of other scholars. I simply followed my instinct and wrote all examinations from the bottom of my heart. I became an academic success from the conventional point of view, but academically minded I am not. At least I don’t think so. Today I am a teacher in a college, but my heart is not in the profession. My students fill me with a sense of repulsion. I keep fighting the desire to run out of class. I diligently take my classes. Make no mistakes about that. But my heart, quite simply, is not in it.