A Walk To Remember

Little unstable steps in black Bata Ballerina or Naughty Boy shoes, with hand-kerchiefs folded into wedges and pinned on the chest; little hearts make their first trip across the length of road that will become part and parcel of their lives. That is how the first day of school was like for most of us who grew up in the quaint little town of pines, Shillong.

Most of the major schools in Shillong are on the stretch of road between the bus-stops of Dhankheti and Beat House. St Peter's, Loreto, St. Anthony's, St. Edmunds, St. Mary's and St.Margaret’s are all almost adjacent to each other, separated only by the arterial roads to get to them. Three of these schools are boys' schools and the other three are girls' schools and all but one is not named after a patron saint of the same gender as students it admits. (Here is an exercise in data sufficiency for you …go figure!). So the common ground where these young generations of Shillong meet is on this road. This is also the stretch of road that connects to several major residential areas. Hence, for the students of these schools, this is the road they traverse daily for at least fourteen years of their lives, from kindergarten to high school. Barely 1.5km in stretch , this road remains no more just a road, but a throbbing repository of countless memories- friendly banter, drenching rain and a breeding ground for Shillong's innocent romances.

Don Bosco Square, Shillong

At my school, we would be counting minutes until 2.55 pm, soon after lunch was over. This is when our school got over for the day. As soon as the bell rang, we would rush out after reciting aloud a prayer that had become more a habit than any reflective monologue with God. I say so because we would say the part to thank the teacher and wish her a good afternoon even if there was no teacher in the class-roomJ.  In the early years, the star attraction was the baby cone ice-cream or the colored water-ice. But as we grew, palates changed and new interests developed. Most of my friends flocked to the Aloo-waala (vendor selling boiled potato slices mixed with spices and tamarind water) and then along the road we would almost always stop at a small card shop that sold gift items and among them some small fluorescent greeting cards. These cards directed at us gen-X-ers usually had cartoons with quotes like - 'You are the best thing that ever happened to me'. And since we had no one else to give them to, we would exchange among ourselves. There were so many yet none!

The most daring guy I met came right to my doorstep, to confess those three special words. I know he introduced himself but in the sheer disbelief that he had actually dared to follow me home, I didn't hear what he said. Being my usual (arrogant) self, I declined even a friendship he was trying to bargain. I never saw him again. He will remain as Mr. X, that was the name my friends and I had given him, ever since we saw him following me around. On the other extreme, was the one who silently waited for years on end, somewhere along the way. Often invisible to me, he parked his bike strategically to make sure I knew he was there. He never came and spoke a single word and I know he had reasons for it, but I will leave them unwritten. I heard he now rests in silence underneath the pines, invisible to all but one.  Between these extremes there were many others, like the one we called NEHU because we always saw him waiting at the NEHU (North-Eastern Hill Univ.) bus-stand or the one who was confused about whether he liked my friend or me..Haha!

These were my stories but all of my friends and acquaintances had similar ones. I wonder if anyone who walked that road as a teenager failed to find love in one form or another. But as destiny has it, most of these stories ended almost simultaneously with teenage. The quest for higher studies, takes most youngsters out of Shillong's meandering lanes into the highways of bigger cities to the point of no return. It is this fire in the belly that makes the youngsters follow their heads and silence their hearts; the hearts that start throbbing all over again in the same way, after years have passed, when the rains hit their windows and sweep them on a trip, down memory lane.