Packet from Past

Disclaimer: This post is mushy, personal and self indulgent. Posting it to keep the blog alive or as an obituary for a dead blog.

Last night, I cleaned my room after 6 months or so and found a packet which my mother gave me when I last visited home. It has some things which made last night so light and happy. First was my birth certificate, Baby Anand was born on 21st July, 9 lbs, very healthy. and it too has the dates of the vaccinations I got. It has my first snap (I think so) pasted too. It has my handwritings samples too. I used to sign every year on my birth certificate (Hey, I am still alive!). My first signature was the exact copy of my father's signature and later I copied some of my teachers and then classmates. There were few copies of Hindi Calligraphy from 5th and 6th std. It contained essays on "Swaadheenta Divas" and "Ek Mele ka Varnan", both of which had similar details. It has some news paper cuttings. Our local newspaper printed my name on few occasions, the regular annual result news. My mother used to say "iska naam to newspaper mein aata rehta hai". My father used to laugh "Kal to nahin tha, aaj aaya hai kya ?". My mother will carefully cut the newspapers and my father will laminate them to be kept in my blue file. It has some of my report cards. I failed in English in first unit test in Standard 2, I got 4 marks out of 25. I used to think that my class teacher can never fail me, it was arguably the first betrayal of my life. She got married next year to confirm my apprehensions. Later I realized the concept of young girls, budding wives and dormant housewives being perfect material for primary school teachers, in fact I told this to one of my professors while discussing the dismal state of primary education in India. My professor kept a detached look during the whole stupid statement of mine. Months later I found out that his beautiful wife is a school teacher and also realized how unfair it is for kids to deny that pleasure, the perfume on silks and the fancy dresses. There were some pics. The birthday pic where I wore a yellow shirt with black blazer, I looked like a smiling taxi, a Faustian bargain to look different on your birthday. The last thing was a black glass, which my friend gave me to view the eclipses. I and my friend, saw the sun in school, diamond ring and all. Later he gave me that, as he claimed that he had many such dark glasses at home. I saw all my childhood eclipses with that glass. As I grew I feared that a simple black glass may ruin my eyes, so packed it away, by that time eclipses were telecasted live on TV, no need for black glasses and no fear of hurting the eyes. Later I got specs from watching too much TV. I glanced the packet and its contents for the last time and closed it neatly. The kid in me strangely felt as if he has got his birthday present. He went to sleep, light and happy, only to grow up and grunt the next morning.