Memories of a long time ago

Desh Bir Sharma 

I WAS just four in 1956, when I was sent to school. Three names I continue to remember every now and then, quite involuntarily. Sharda was a senior who was deputed by my teacher to escort me back home after school on day one. Annapurna and Urvashi are etched indelibly as names of the teachers who initiated me into the world of alphabet and scribing on a wooden slate. I remember nothing more about them, but the names I cannot forget. 

 During my first year at school, a child during recess showed me a small nest of finches with three eggs in the niche in the water-room. Like RK Narayan’s child character, Swami, I made up my mind to steal the eggs! At the first opportunity, I shoved them into the pocket of my shorts. Soon, the Inspector, Schools, came visiting our school. We were assembled and made to sit in rows on the courtyard floor to listen to him. In one jerk, the eggs became jelly, seeping out of my pocket, both inwards and outwards! Everybody knew me for an egg thief. I began to cry, partly because I was guilty and partly because it was my first act of sin — the murder of three possible nestlings. This incident will accompany me all my life.

In standard IV, the mathematics teacher promised to teach us how to fill in a money-order form. He said forms were available at the post office free of cost. The teacher went to the staffroom and we made a beeline for the post office, hardly 100 yards away. The postmaster was simply swarmed by a horde of urchins while the teacher was flabbergasted by our audacity. Back in class, we received four-five cane-lashes each and the teacher concluded that he would never teach us how to use the form. That was the end of a practical lesson. I was not able to fill in a money order form till the age of 25.

On May 19, 1961, the then Punjab Chief Minister, Partap Singh Kairon, came to our school at Kangoo in erstwhile Kangra district. I recited an Urdu poem of welcome, penned by my father that morning itself. So pleased was the dignitary that he took all the garlands lying on the table and put them around my neck. How can I forget that day? 

In June 1964, we went to Dharamsala for audition for a school broadcast programme of the All India Radio. Eight boys and girls from 20-odd contenders from the district were selected. I was happy to be one of them. OP Arif was the coordinator of the programme. A recording was done and it was to be broadcast after a week. On the appointed day of the broadcast, the whole school clapped for me while I simply cried, because as a child I thought that was the last time I would listen to myself on radio. Those tears, too, are unforgettable. 

Strange is the working of the human mind. Our memory is inexplicably selective and chooses to embrace and retain only a few of the billions of seconds we spend in our lifetime. These incidents, and some others, keep surfacing and resurfacing… and nothing can stop them.