The New Reality
IIcan still recall every moment, every quality and quantity of that epoch of consciousness when I first saw Aabira. It, perhaps, still is the most conceivable event to ever happen in my life.
It was my first day at the new school, Student Wonderland English Medium School, Taheernag; A school so ambivalent to my immaturity that my eyes never stopped popping out. Even the name of the school invoked uncertain sensations in my brain, adding to my perils.
From the Principal’s office, I followed an unknown personality, who by appearance seemed to be a teacher, to my classroom. My nerves were getting unconditionally serious, they sort of started twingling over each other. It was my first day and I was radically late. I missed the morning assembly and by the unproductive presumptions my mind was grilling, as well as the larger part of the first class. But that was not all; I didn’t even have the compulsory recommended uniform. This school put some tough impressions on me and the one thing I knew was that it would never compromise on its norms. So, there I was, in front of the
1
4 The Sentiment In My Stone door, with a bouquet full of ‘laws’ I had broken on my first day along with my apologetic face.
I statured myself in front of the door as the person accompanying me knocked twice, fabricating an echo that rang in the corners of my ears, I had to blink and with it came the spurious consolation of a deep breath. The door creaked open and a face, one that of a female, protruded out of the void left by the door. The face impetuously widened its lips in order to put on a traditional smile. The face then looked up at the person by my side and then at me, capturing the idea that I was a new comer; she said, ‘Come in’
The person that accompanied me until now handed me over to this alien entity and turned away to head back the same way we came from.
I looked straight inside the classroom, past the teacher’s blockade. There were boys and girls in blue, flooded on every inch of space. The cemented paint less walls dimmed all the light creeping in from the windows, making the room sort of look like the gallery of an antique library, where every kind of sound was dismayed.
The initial thought that built its ladder in my mind was to take off my shoes, but to my only fortunate thing of the day, I quickly traced my sight through the crowd of legs to realize that other students had their shoes on them. So, I punched myself forward in a melodramatic fashion to drop down my anchor at the nearest bench. The tip toe ice breaking sound of my steps unleashed the river of shame inside me.
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There was no tousled mat on the floor, no dust in the air or on my glass, no obnoxious odor to drive me mad, like in my previous school. A few eyes were nailed at me as I lifted my head for the first time; the rest had gone to the next level of breaking the silence by talking to each other. I looked around as so my judgment of distinguishing and dividing the class into two crude groups becomes more lucid, the action of my eyes was cut off instantaneously by the peaceful manner of someone whose head was dipped in her hands, unrelated and quite in loggerheads with the flow of moments. That person, she, was rambling in her notebook. When my eyes struck her face for the first time, a tremendous amount of electric currents generated in me and I could not look at anything else. I kept staring at her, until after a moment, I heard a voice ordering me to sit down. I looked at the teacher and it was her, so I took off my bag and sat down.
It felt stiff to sit on a bench for the first time, it was cold. My butt had the habit of getting numb in school, and when these wooden structures made contact with it, it sure felt different, but relieving as well. I took out a notebook and a pencil and looked at the board, which was surprisingly white with the teacher writing on it with a pen. Until then, I hadn’t even thought of anything other than a black board and white chalk that could be used in a school. The surprises continued and they were pounding my heart.
The chapter that was being discussed was photosynthesis. I knew it was something from science because on the day of interview, I was asked the same question. However I had no idea what it meant. I had heard such a complicated term for the first time in my entire life and that being said included magic spells from
6 The Sentiment In My Stone
Harry Potter. From what was already written on the board, I tried to figure out something, I even crooked by eyes, acted to be in a deep thought but It ramified into me failing wretchedly.
The teacher turned to us and started delivering her lecture while writing necessary notes on the board. She had lost me from the first second; I didn’t even come close to grasping anything she shot from her mouth and hand gesturing.
Not getting enough of surprises, I looked down at my hands, my oily wet hands and then turned my head towards that girl again. I kept looking at her and I just couldn’t get enough, she was the biggest surprise of ‘amongst all’. Then, again, I heard the voice of the teacher, her eyes were ossified and distinctively launched at me, “Do you understand anything I’m teaching?”
I was stupefied, I couldn’t answer anything. I look at my red hands again, I saw a sunset glooming there. And then she asked again, with an even more stiff voice,
“Do you know anything about photosynthesis?”
I looked up, erasing the blurry sunset off my eyes and setting my arrows into her eyes, I stood up straight, there was a silence beating my ears, but I didn’tlose myself, that was not the time to be driven by fear or shame.
A “No Madam” kind of sound came out of my mouth. I had gone all pale and could feel the heat coming out of my muscles.
The teacher nodded and told me to sit down. Her expressions were so casual as if she didn’t care or was aware about my ignorance.
The New Reality 7
This had been the most nervous moment of my school life, ever since I had to shake hands with my Urdu teacher, whose eyes bulged every time he looked at me, for acquiring top marks in a class test; but I was a child back then. This sure was different. The perception of fear changes, but its intense character rings the bells of any tall standing narcissism.
The class ended on a slow note. There was no bell that summoned the end of the class, but the teacher left on her own, as assured by her flossy watch thing wrapped around her wrist.
As the teacher left, I realized I was sitting next to some boy, my first bench-mate. He was a light toned guy busy writing something. As according to the social complication, I produced out my hand to him, wishing this wasn’t unlawful in the school. He dropped down his pencil to shake my hand. Thus began my first conversation in a school that was the complete opposite of what I had experienced and learnt.
“I am Azlan”, there never seemed to be a better opener, with an eerie smile on the side.
“My name is Shiraz”, he replied, with no significance to my enthusiasm and no reactionary smile.
He looked to grab his pencil, in those tiring fingers. And after a while, added,
“Where are you from?” a wave of forced obfuscation in his every word.
“Raluja….And you?” I replied instantly.
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“My home is on the other side of the river on whose banks this school stands built”. He did not seem to enjoy the interaction with me, so I killed every infant word before they could reach my head.
Later during the lunch break, I ate a couple of apples that my mother had forcibly put in my bag. I came to interact with some of my other classmates, many of whom were from Taheernag.
On the first day, I talked to a few boys and couldn’t even think of coming in front of the few girls in our class. The intensity of unquiet and over strung feelings inversed on living every moment and I just couldn’t come across anyone who seemed to have the same natural and behavioral problems as me. This made me feel left out, but being left out on the first day of school wasn’t a big deal. Time trifled and elapsed.
II
At home, my parents hardly asked me how I was getting along with my new school. Nobody in the family seemed interested in what I did or what I should do. Busy and occupied nature of the world had consumed my family so much that some few radical and conservative norms dictated the running of shifts between home and work. My mother would occasionally leave the house to go to her parents who lived a hundred meters away, mostly to fetch something or out of habit. My mother had a brother who lived with their parents; his wife was their cousin and good friends with my mother. He had two sons, both of whom studied in the local school that I had left. My mother would sometimes chronicle about my childhood that I had mostly spent at her parents’ home, i.e. my maternal home. My maternal grandparents had raised me
The New Reality 9 with caution; because I was kind of a rough kid and with love; well because I like to think that I was cute. So, Ami spent hours there until the time of my father to return from work closed in. When Abu honked his car as so the front gate to be opened, angst glided in the walls of my holed chest. He would almost always come at the break of dusk, with a fluctuation of one hour hardly. Ami would also almost always get home before that time, narrowly escaping most of the time which later I learnt wasn’t any narrow escape, but a well realized and planned and thought timing; I mean how many times a person would narrowly escape from something. And it seemed imperious for Ami to be the one to open the gate and greet Abu: Love with compulsion, I guessed. Whenever I or my younger brother opened the gate, my father would pronto ask about Ami. Ami and Abu had a story different from many and similar to many. Abu’s father was a very strict person; he died when I was little. But the one thing my grandfather had that Abu always credits him with was that he wanted his children to study no matter what, even if they had to take time off the rice fields and apple orchards.
I didn’t know about my elder brother that much, he would almost never leave his room after returning. I didn’t even know what he studied; it sort of had become a culture not to be prudent about anyone’s doings amongst our family. My grandmother (from my mother’s side), Amma, once narrated to me an incident about my brother and my cousin (the son of my mother’s sister). Both of them were of the same age group and had studied together until higher secondary school when my brother chose to study in Kashmir while my cousin and probably my brother’s best and
10 The Sentiment In My Stone only friend chose to go abroad. My grandmother was a master at narrating stories of the past; she described every event as if she was the one who issued them. With her words, her pauses, her sighs, her fluctuating voice, the alteration of tone took a person to that exact incident. I remember the story vividly because it was one of the few things I knew about my brother. Among those few things, one was that he was my brother. She told me that ‘my brother, Shahid and my cousin, Rameez, were playing in the backyard of Rameez’s house with some other kids. A group of armed men clad with Pathani suits and army boots approached the kids. It was a time when Kashmiri men with AK47s were seen everywhere. It was a daily sight, so they didn’t feel the need to run or get scared at all. In fact, Rameez once cried all day to get him an AK 47. Those men started asking the kids about their names, full names, with the father’s name. When Shahid and Rameez revealed their names, the men took them away with them. Since it was the time of Eid, both of them got easily lured by the fireworks they were showed. The other kids were given some candy to not tell anyone about them. After a few hours, when all of the family realized the two were nowhere to be found. We began asking those kids and they roughly described us the men who took them. When some kid said that one of the men was wearing glasses, we all knew who the kidnapper was. He was known by the name Halaku and his birth name was Ishfaq. He had taken up arms when he saw it was easy to earn and dictate people with a gun. He, most probably, was a member of the Ikhwaan. He was born poor but now had accumulated so much wealth that his children still live on his spoils. He was pretty well known
The New Reality 11 in our area. The newly built house adjacent to us was once his and his partners’ torture ground. So, all the people of the village assembled outside the home of the village head and from there, we went straight towards his home. He lived in Palkhapora, we took the short cut by the river. A tree had fallen across and it was made the bridge. We reached his home and he was there, sitting on the varendah, sipping tea from the Samovar he had taken from my house, with his wife making a smudge face on seeing us. When he looked the village head and the ocean of people behind him, he went inside to get his gun. We knew he would do that, so we had to take hold of his wife and cover her mouth to stop her from screaming. When he came outside and was putting off the safety of his gun, he was left awe struck to see his wife in our control. The village head demanded the release of Shahid and Rameez in return for his wife. So, a group of village men went with him to get the two kids. They told us that they had been tied to cow ropes in a cowshed, naked and beaten like pimps. We got Shahid and Rameez back. The plan of Halaku was to demand a ransom for the release, a normal tactic those days. After a few days; the village head was killed. All of the people knew who did it, but nobody had the ‘balls’ to speak up.’
III
I wasn’t allowed to leave the home after school but I did sneak out at times, wander with some of the guys in my neighborhood and when I returned, I would get scolded by my parents and even beaten by Abu at times. My mother would block him from slapping and kicking me, resulting in Ami getting hurt as well. Sometimes I would be stripped naked and then forced to sit under the tube
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well, with my Abu pumping water with one hand and thrashing me with a stick in the other. These incidents would be very loud, so loud that my hues reached every ear of the neighborhood. People would often confirm about my injuries later on, but no one dared to get involved whilst the process was on. Sometimes I would feel embarrassed, the other times I just moved on. I would meet Abu again at dinner, during which he would lash condescending remarks at me and my mother for cooking dinner for me. Due to me, my elder brother would also fall prey to some harsh words as well. I had become habitual of these types of things and I kept living on my life, without any hope that this would extenuate someday. Life was complex, but simple. May be there wasn’t any life in me that time or its meaning, purpose and essence were inconsequential.
It had been days at my new school and I still didn’t have anyone whom I could call a friend. All of them looked strange to me, just like the first day I saw them and little had progressed in my perception. Surely, I did talk to them like a ‘normal’ person, but there was no classmate-y or friendly edge. It was hard to settle in such a cautionary atmosphere that I always took a fervent watch on my tongue; I deleted every imprint of the word that seemed abnormal to the dwelling nature. It was tough to accommodate with not just my classmates, but my teachers as well. At times, I would ask for an eraser or a sharpener when I could not find mine and that was it. I couldn’t remember anyone’s name. I would eat alone at lunch breaks while most of the rest would eat together and play together as well. It was not hard for me to accept that no one wanted to be with me, sit with me or share the casual talks. Of
The New Reality 13
the qualities and needs the school demanded of every person, I lagged behind in each one of them and judging by that thorough research, even I wouldn’t sit with me; and I knew it, so neither did I worry nor have the feeling of being someone misunderstood or too deep to be fathomed.
After giving my best to stay out of any surprises, there was one single thing that just wouldn’t let go off of me; that girl whose shadow had melted my mind. I did not just think of her but she did struck my imagination in each of my loneliness’. The only progress i had so far was that i had memorized her name. It had never happened to me that some person, and that too a girl, would venture in my mind for so long. There persisted an axiomatic feeling of shutting down my eyes as so her face would pop in front and it drove me nuts. I did not know what to name it, I had no idea what it was and I didn’t feel the need to pressurize on it. This histrionic ambit continued every day as I returned from school. I would arbitrarily sit down alone and rewind, recall every piece of her I had seen that day. I would match the collected pieces from all days to conclude a progressed version of her. I didn’t open my eyes, the smile on the lips would broaden and I would feel like floating in an air of peace.
And then creeped forward our first class test. Being already behind in the studies, I had the feeling that i wouldn’t be able to write anything to save myself from a chagrin .Yet, I decided to take the test just like others did, the only difference was that they had studies well and were prepared for the test, and I was yet to come up with an idea to compromise with my idleness.
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It was the principle’s subject, English. Due to a certain shortage of staff and our principle having mastered the English language, he himself chose to teach us this particular subject. Comparatively, his class was pretty enjoyable. He would narrate long inquisitive stories that would take up much more time than allotted to one class, but would only leave after finishing the story. He had a peculiar art of developing interest in each of his word, compelling everyone to concentrate on him. His teaching style was different from the rest and made studies look so easy. He would often crack jokes in between long lectures, get us snacks, candy, chocolate bars and other things.
As He arrived in the classroom, I began to tremble my guts out, but I held on. He reorganized the seating positions arbitrarily, pointing us up to sit at wherever he wanted. And I don’t know how, but i was put right next to Aabira’s bench. She sat on my left. This had to be more than just an embarrassment when I wouldn’t be able to write anything, not just a coincidence. I mumbled prayers, somehow, anyhow, anything that could help me.
The questions were written on the board and I didn’t look up until all of them were written. When I did look up, I was completely bamboozled to realize that I knew nothing at all about the questions. I looked down at the piece of paper where just my name was written and as it seemed most probable, there wasn’t anything I could add. I got so nervous that I even forgot the prayers. Time went on and I didn’t have the audacity to look up or in any other direction, I kept staring at the reflections and shadows on my blank sheet. A story unfolded before me, a world where there was
no compulsion of appearing in tests, where I was the king and my thoughts the laws of the land.
After a while, the teacher announced that the time was up. Everyone started to stand up and submit their answer papers.
I could not believe I was the only one who had not written anything. Unknowingly, I felt someone staring at my empty paper, I looked up and it was Aabira. She did not look at my face, yet I mulled on to her eyes. I had never been so close to her, I could smell the perfume off her or was it just her natural scent. I was lost in the midst of a diabolic apprehension. I knew I was going to fail, but I had to ornate my senses and look at her, nonetheless. What was happening to me? My heart raced, it pounded so hard that I could hear my heart beats. For a moment, I completely forget about the test and set a cool breeze striking my eyes but that wasn’t all. Aabira began to mutter something; I put my ears to it and realized she was giving me answers to all the questions. My focus shifted back on the test and I began to write as much as I could and as fast as I ever had. She moved on, I wanted to utter a word of thanks; but I couldn’t, the words froze in my throat. I got up and submitted my answer copy just with that vapid feeling. As I sat back on my seat, the teacher came to me and then turned towards Aabira and said to her,
‘Did you tell this guy’ pointing towards me, ‘the answers?’ She was shocked and looked down, she didn’t reply anything back. Then the teacher turned to me, “Did she show you the answers?”
The
New Reality 15
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I did not know what to say. He was browbeating me with his condescending voice. I did not want Aabira to feel demeaned, but the truth squealed out of me and with a hoarse voice, I said, “YES”.
I immediately felt disgusting and guilty. I got the insinuation of something that I never meant to be a part of. The teacher stepped back and turned his head towards Aabira. I rather not speak of how he scolded her, she couldn’t even look up, I had never seen her go so pale, I could see the shinning tears in her eyes, about to trickle.
The teacher did not stop there; he had a wooden scale and struck her hand with it a couple of times. This was the moment that she couldn’t hold off more, she couldn’t stay stronger now, she must have tried her all to not break down and yes, to all my sumptuous misfortunes, at last, she did. Tears started rolling down her red cheeks. My eyes were fixed on her face. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I had never seen her crying. I didn’t know her, I never talked to her, yet she was crying due to me, those pearly stars of dew twinkled an effect in me, something that is still so forceful in my heart that it gets me on my tips. I saw the qualm in her eyes; I could feel the chastity rushing down on her face. I could discern guilt to integrity as she wiped off her tears. She didn’t look up. I felt awful. I wanted to keep looking at her without blinking, as every time I closed my eyes, I could know that I was the reason for her tears. I looked down and did nothing.
When the teacher left the class, I gathered all my guts, stood up and went towards Aabira, who was still on her seat, unpacking her
The New Reality 17 lunch. She looked up at me, I locked my eyes straight into hers. I don’t know whether I smiled or not, but I know the look in her eyes, it wasn’t normal, it was filled with disgust, of course due to and for me. Before I could say something, “What? Go away”. She said, in a tone that I realized how much hate I already had brewed in her mind (if not the heart) for me.
I stood like a statue for a moment, then turned back and scuttled off. I didn’t look back, left the classroom and smashed the door from behind .Was honesty so cruel that it instigated abomination for me? I couldn’t understand the concept of honesty or how it worked, I was yet to perceive that.
As I reached the school grounds, I suddenly felt hungry but I had left the lunch in the classroom. I ignored the idea of going back as I might have to face “THE ENEMY” once again.
I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong but somehow , in the deepest circles of my heart ; I felt as if I deserved a death penalty. Rest of classes passed by and I did not have the audacity or maybe I just didn’t want to turn my head towards my first hater in the school, of course excluding teachers.
As I reached home and finished my homework, I went out rather ran out to spend some time with the neighborhood. It was getting dark as I returned and sat in my room, that’s when the school incident hit my head again. With a lot of thinking, I concluded that I had to apologize to her, no matter what. And the concept of writing the apology on a paper chit did slither inside me. So I
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wrote down on a small piece of paper, “I’m sorry”, then folded it and put it in my bag.
Next day during the lunch break, I stayed behind in the classroom. I knew most of students ate there and that included Aabira as well. So, when everyone was busy eating, I stood up and began stepping towards her. She was comfortably eating with a spoon. I was shaking, cleaning my glasses, holding my cowardice. I stopped right in front of her and put the chit before her. She hadn’t noticed me until then. She looked up and I turned away, off I went, through the door and into the washroom. I returned as I sensed the resume of class work. I took my seat didn’t look towards the girl’s area. The teachers came and left, blabbering whatever they wanted to.
When we were done with classes and we were to leave, I starting packing my bag. I looked up and saw Aabira standing right in front of me; she had a chit in her hand. She put it in front of me and said with an uneasy voice,
“What’s this?”
I swear I had a shock at that time; I closed my eyes and said in a squeaky voice,
“I am sorry”.
My eyes were still closed when I heard her reply, “It’s fine”.
I couldn’t open my eyes, but I heard her steps fading away, she was leaving. After a minute, I opened my eyes and realized I was the
The New Reality 19 only one remaining in the class. So, with a sigh of relief, I picked up my bag and left for home. As I left the school premises, I saw her chatting with the other two girls of our class. I saw her walk with an order that could trample the ravens of any meadow. The sound of her steps echoed in my ears, in all the noise, my senses were totally focused on her. To this day, I have no idea what made me lose my consciousness that i almost hit a car.
I reached home only to realize that a weird feeling had encompassed me. It didn’t feel normal to be happy, I probably had not felt it before, but surely if I had, the intensity would have been much much lower. I didn’t feel like going out that day. I just sat in my room, with a pencil in my hands to write off my homework, but it seemed my mind was adrift in something else. The face of that girl and the words “It’s fine” with a voice that could melt any heart kept making circles in my head. I couldn’t concentrate on my homework, so I sat back and kept feeling those words. Even after an hour, I didn’t get tired of it. I kept smiling and blushing like an infant.
IV
Next day, I was desperate to reach school. I knew the reason, I felt it. I didn’t care that my homework was undone. I just wanted to reach the school as soon as I could, a school that had given me nothing but trouble. Even this sounded so, yet I couldn’t care less. I was unaware of the things happening around me, but now I was also ignorant about the things happening inside me.
It was during the morning assembly when I started screening through the crowd of students for “apart from the rest” gloom of
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that face. It proved to be all in vain as I could not notice her after searching many times, looking at every face one by one, going through row by row and column by column, and turning my head in every direction. Distorted, I rested (my body and not my heart) hopelessly to recite the morning prayers.
The morning assembly ended and she wasn’t even in the class. This had a very drastic effect on my mood. From the unfathomable excitement to the hanging dull face, I felt betrayed. Half way through the class, there was a knock on the door. It ringed through the corners of my ears. These mid class knocks almost always bought in something intriguing. So, I, like everyone else, lifted my head to stare at the door and wait for it to be opened by the teacher. To my bliss, it was her. Just as my eyes located her face, I felt a different kind of peace in me, as if I had achieved something so big that I needed to take a halt. Seeing her all the way from the door till she sat on the bench, my heart and soul were content with an accord of comfort.
During the lunch break, I decided to stay back and have my lunch inside the classroom. I saw Aabira unpacking her lunch inside as well. I just didn’t get to take off my eyes from her even after she finished the unpacking. At one point, while I was lost in some reverie, she, all of a sudden, looked at me. Of all the fright encompassing me, I didn’t take off my eyes. In fact, I added my ugly gaze with an even uglier smile. She too smiled back in a way that butterflies hissed inside me. I replied with a few nods, she nodded back a few time to end the mute conversation to concentrate on her lunch, so did I.
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But what was it that was pulling me towards her. This was the first time I had seen her smile and adding to that, the smile was intended at me? What did it mean? I was unaware of how sentiments worked but this smile made a mark on my emotions, it gave them a ride.
The smile couldn’t escape my eyes and kept flashing in front of me over and over again. The feeling had got hold of me, I sort of felt to be in a hangover.
I finished my lunch and with it the water in my bottle as well, I needed more water to drink. It wasn’t just my soul that was thirsty, my tongue, my lips and my body was too. There were a few other choices to fetch the water from but how could I miss this chance?
So, I went to Aabira and said, “Hi”.
She looked up, straight into my eyes, and my immediate reflexes conjured that there was something different in those eyes this time, something that wasn’t the last time I saw her eyes staring at mine so closely. The wide pupils, the sense of relief, the feeling of normalcy was enough for me to understand that I wasn’t a stranger anymore to her.
“Yeah”,
No, I couldn’t look straight into her eyes so closely, the light from her eyes was clogging my all other senses, there was a shine too strong for me to handle, so I had to close my eyes as she said this word.
“Can I have some water?” I mumbled back.
