It was the last morning at my dadighar – and I hadn’t slept the night before. I don’t know why. Maybe because I was too engrossed in a novel, or maybe I didn’t want to leave this place – this place, where internet is still a luxury! This place, where people don’t need air-conditioning because “pehle ‘light’ toh aaye (let the electricity come first).” This place, which is simple and yet shows such diversity through its hills and ponds that we can always have a breather.
Anyway, it was the last day here and I couldn’t sleep. So, I went to the terrace and thought that I’d take a picture of the perfect sunrise for my Instagram account – when I saw a very normal-looking, dual-toned pillar. We all know what pillars do – supporting buildings and all that good stuff. But this particular pillar here grabbed my attention.
The first thing that crossed my mind was that the whole wall had been repainted. How did I know that? Of course, it looks newer now, but that’s too boring and I wouldn’t have been writing this post if that was the case. I knew it was repainted because I couldn’t see the horizontal lines, a few inches away from one another. Those horizontal lines used to be our bails, the pillar and the stumps. And I say ‘lines’ because the length of the stumps would always be till my waist – one of the ‘laws’ which came from God knows where. Through all those years, as I grew, so did those stumps.
And now suddenly, out of nowhere, I had years of memories right in front of me all of which were beautiful (except maybe the ‘running downstairs and getting the ball every time I hit it out’ part). But there was something else too. Even after such a long time – and possibly, multiple repaints – I know the bails are still there. I know the wicket hasn’t fallen. In the same way, time might have painted years and years on those memories – but they are still there, and will always be!
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Featured image used for representative purposes only.