The sun was
blazing brilliantly above his head, the air around him was full of moisture and
every breath was suffocating. This was very typical in Lahore during
the Monsoon season after spending ten years in the cool breezes of the United
States, he seemed to have forgotten what it felt like to be in HIS city
during the mid-summers.
How eccentric can man be? For a moment he thinks that
the world owns him, but a few years of alienation can turn home into a
foreign land.
As he
approached the magnificent blue gate at the end of the road, two guards saluted
him. In Pakistan, earning a layman’s respect is not an arduous ordeal stepping
out of an exorbitant car and wearing a flamboyant suite never fails to do the
trick. He marched forward with a slight grim on his face, trying to maintain
his demeanour in the humidifying weather. After all, he had stepped out of a black Mercedes, he had to keep up to his personal, otherwise what would the
guards think of him?
As soon as
he set his foot inside the building, in an ephemeral moment, the colours around him
began to fade, he felt as if he had been transported in another universe .
The worldly tensions that had bent his shoulders suddenly vanished, instead, an air of
coolness and easiness engulfed him and all this reminded him of his time in
this very building.
As he stood next to the gigantic peepal tree, his vision could cover the trivial and
minutiae happenings of the school. The colossal door of the Grand Hall stood exactly there as it had fifteen years back. Whilst the coveted Wall of Fame stood magnificently on his right; it housed the portraits of every promising student and alumni. It was his dream to have his picture on the wall, but today, after fifteen years, he did not come back to see his picture. He was yearning for something else. In the midst of all this, he
suddenly remembered, during his time at the school, it was every student’s
dream to have their picture up on the Wall.
All the bygone memories and
the emotions that had taken hold of his mind and soul transported him back to
the time when he was one of the many pupils studying in the school.
“10 years
from now, you’d be leading the region’s largest conglomerate.”, a familiar voice
echoed in his mind. “We’ll see about that, I have different plans for my life.”
He replied. “HAHA!! You’ll end up inheriting you family business. Don’t you
worry about that, my child!” His friend jokingly remarked. All that managed to
rekindle his melancholic spirit.
The ringing
of the afternoon bell brought him back into this world. The playground echoed
with the hue and cry of students of different ages. The senior boys walked
casually strolling down the hallway with their ties loosely hanging around their necks; the younger lot cheerfully playing on the swings’ side. Girls walking and
chattering along the way.
In the midst
of all this, he strolled towards his ultimate aim: relive the memory he had
been cherishing and savouring all these years. It was that very bench, surrounded in the old, giant trees, where
fate gave him the moment that gave him hope during his darkest times.
The seemingly ordinary white bench gave him all the comfort in the world, often reminding him of the day
when he saw her.
He still remembered that fateful afternoon vividly. The sky was
blue, the summer clouds covered the horizon. At that time, his persona was
filled with youthful vigour. ‘I seemed to be overly pleased with my life… what
has happened to me now? What good did she have in herself that made me hate
myself?’ His mind shot these questions at him.
All of a sudden, he saw his youthful
self standing in the middle of the playground with his peers. All of them
laughing, shouting and howling. Their month-long painstaking examinations had
finally come to an end and they had gathered to celebrate their freedom.
“Ah! I’ll
finally be able to join mom and dad in Canada!” his friend had remarked and one
by one they all narrated their pre-planned anecdotes for the future. Suddenly,
something else caught hold of his attention. The voices of his friends started to diminish.
He could
still hear his friends talking, but somehow their voices were muted. Everything had paused.
He had a tunnel vision only of her. It was only her that he could see. She, sitting on
the white marble bench with her feet crossed – so majestic. Minutes went by and
he continued to look at her, not batting an eyelid. He had seen her before, but
not like this. There was something about her that attracted him towards her. She sat on the white bench, her legs criss-crossed, her her open and were slowly swaying in the air. He could feel his heart thumping; he had never experienced something like that ever before never felt before. A feeling of
uneasiness engulfed him.
Slowly, he was inching towards her.
Her gaze met
his and his heart began beating faster and faster. His whole body went numb,
it felt as if the entire universe had stopped to give him THAT one moment to
savour all his life.
The very
next moment, he raised his hand to say “Hi!”, but his kind gesture was
interrupted by the girl’s friend who whispered something in her ear and both of
them started chatting, without caring of their surroundings.
His phone
rang and his shoulders shrugged bringing him back to his ‘high-life’, “I’d be
right there” and he hung up the phone.
He was a
prisoner of his regrets and this was his punishment. For twenty years, she
pecked his brains, reminding him of the mistake he made. Today, after
twenty years of suffering, he welcomed the pain, it is the sensation which he
thought would liberate him from his life long friend: pain.
He turned
around walking towards the life that he had chosen for himself: a life filled
with pain and regret.
