Equilibrium UnEstablished

The nimble fingers move along the black and white keys in an all too familiar pattern, the drum beats, and, on cue, the sweet-voiced girls; in their Red, Blue, Green and Yellow uniforms sing the same old tune, with utmost sincerity. .

O Alma Mater I dedicate to you

My youth my truth my loyalty and love

Your name your fame shall ever be my care

To keep unsullied, glorious and fair

One day we’ll part but ne’er shall I forget

I must achieve the aims that you have set

To put in practise all that you have taught me

The high ideals the good that I must do . . . . .

 . .But this time, the familiar lyrics are interspersed with an unfamiliar drawl . .

 Living is easy with eyes closed

Misunderstanding all you see

 . . It was her cell phone. She’d been day dreaming again.

Of the school days of yonder. A faraway yesterday.

But three years couldn’t be a long time; or maybe the way time seemed to fly since she stepped out of the portals of her Alma Mater, with the yellow batch and lanyard fading already.

Jolted back into the present, the clock ticked away to ten, already half an hour past the morning’s first class. The anti-tan was little use in the harsh summer heat she felt, at least her curls were spared the sun by the red scarf.

Approaching the very last signal post before the college, she accelerated to make it past the green arrow, but fell just about five seconds short. As if the agitating heat weren’t enough, she felt a tug at her bag; an outstretched dark hand, tanned far more than her own, jingled with a couple of small change.  But it was the girl’s attire that struck her; dirty, faded, tearing and torn, it was the same uniform. With the yellow emblem and the three eye-holes where the faded batch should have been hanging, lanyard and all. .

Oh Mater, Alma Mater

I’ll keep faith in God and you

Oh, Mater, Alma Mater

To you I’ll be true

Self forgetful, serving all

Pure and good and truthful too

I pledge then, myself, worthy of my school

Here; God, they say, is Google. Or Wikipedia (Which she too believes, IS God, making His presence felt in cyberspace). As for faith, self sacrifice, purity and truth; there are better lecturers here than in the times of the Rishi-Muni’s. There is no black, no white.

There’s a stage. And a variety of dancers dance in their varied costumes, with torches, to different tunes. The torches, varied coloured torches. Some have many, some have one. Some hold it below their chins to look scary, some above their heads (if they have one, that is) to look broody. Some hold them too close to their faces, only to get blinded by the light, others are busy shining their torches in others faces. Some hold it too far for anyone to see their faces. Others are trying to figure out how to switch the damn thing on.

Alma Mater didn’t tell her about this ‘stage’.

Wasn’t it supposed to be a big, bright, beautiful, sunny world?

Wasn’t God, whoever or wherever He was, supposed to be the only light?

And people were just . . . people.

Black and White.

Or at least Red, Blue, Green and Yellow.

In future times when life is full of sadness,

I’ll dream of school and friends and days of gladness

I’ll see our motto set in flaming colours

“With God for God”, bought forth our best endeavour

With courage then must I face life anew

Remembering always God will see me through

These happy thoughts will banish every pain

And once again Ill sing the old refrain . . .

No, it’s not sad. It’s likable. It’s not the same old black and white. It’s a grey in different hues. It’s ugly, it’s pretty and something in between.

What is this it?

College, of course.

As a friend said, college is indeed another school, And you never stop learning.

Happiness is a relative term really, so are friends, but what the hell?

The dreams she dreamt back there, are a reality down here.

God, she’s found within herself, and in God, she trusts.

Then there are actions without thought, and thoughts without action.

 It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out

It doesn’t matter much to me

 Back home that day, her uniform in the attic is sitting all prim and proper on the dusty top shelf. It really wouldn’t have hurt to allow them to spray colour all over it that holi, she figures.

Alma Mater, and the 12 years spent in her overprotective, albeit loving care shall never be forgotten, etched as a part of her forever.

After all, it was there that she climbed her first step, to the nursery class on the ground floor; it was there that she was picked up by a kindly nun, when she fell down and bruised her knee; and it was there that she learned the primary colors; red , blue and yellow.

And that Blue + Yellow = Green