Its a story about a girl who was born in 2012 in New Delhi. Everyone loved her, she was the diamond of the eyes of her parents, a piece of the hearts of her grand parents and her own favorite. She also has an uncle with whom she competes for his mother's (her grandmother's) attention. The uncle loses almost always.
Quickly she grew up from 0 to 4 years and no one noticed. She was bright, good at arts and dancing and loved food (of course). She used to spend a lot of her time with the grandparents after her parents would drop her off when they were going to work and only collect her back when one of them returned. She had limitless love being showered on her.
As she grew older, she entered a school which was a bit far away from her home. Her parents moved her to a different one closer to home a year later. Her uncle had been advocating to put her in that school from the beginning itself but her parents won't listen to him. The caveat was that this school only took students from age 5 onwards. But her mother wanted to put her to schooling from 4 years old itself. Now that the girl has shifted to this new school, her uncle was really happy. That is because 20 years ago, he had also taken his first steps towards education in the same school.
He could now go to the school again, touch and feel the same buildings he had studied in, look at familiar faces in the staff which had more wrinkles now than before and eat at the famous canteen. It had expanded its menu a lot now and not to the liking of the uncle because all his favorites were gone and replaced with the modern indian fast food like chilli potato and noodles. While the girl was studying at school, the uncle went to the school 4-5 times to get a nostalgic trip down the memory lane in the name fee deposition or parent teachers' meeting. He used to go through the familiar copy covers, the school diary and the school emblem that he had put on for 13 years proudly.
Then came covid and the girl had to stay back home, devoid of running around in the plush school playground and stare at the colorful fish swimming in the pool inside the school church. She couldn't sit with her legs handing at the edge of the school stage which has a 20 feet high cliff and neither could she play singing games with her friends on her way back from school in the bus. She was sad and at some level, her uncle was too. He had felt that he was re-living his childhood experience through her. She was surprisingly taught the same class by the same teacher who had taught him and when listening to her talk about that teacher, he felt something melt inside him a bit. On one of his trips to the school, he had met his favorite physics teacher near the gate and was recognized instantly. Those joys could no longer be cherished.
Now, in 2022, the schools have re-opened. Her delight has no bounds and while her uncle has sort of lost that light in the past couple of years, meeting her last week ignited it again. He saw her school diary and the copy covers and saw her dress and was instantly sent back to the time when he had just come back from school in his nickers, hanging the water bottle near the kitchen door, taking out his tiffin box and putting it in the kitchen sink (making sure the foil is put in the dustbin) and then sitting at the dining table waiting for his mother to server him lunch and then be scolded at not having washed his hands. Sometimes he would take off the nickers and just eat in his undershorts, sweating with the Delhi heat.
The taste of water after heat exhaustion and the taste of your mother's handmade sabzi after starving for almost an hour (because all the energy was spent in the game period) was priceless and something that no one can buy back and gift it back to him. Seeing his neice do the same with her mother was like an emotional journey that could cure all the corruption in his heart (if any) in an instant.
I guess the story became more about her uncle than her.
Uncle 1 : Girl 0
It felt like a rebirth of the feeling of nostalgia. It is like having re-watched some great TV show again after having forgotten it. It is like a small child bring given her favorite ice cream twice in the same week unexpectedly. It is like going back to school, again.
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