T-5

Going back after a short break is always difficult. After the weekend, it is the Monday Blues. There is definite withdrawal after a long nice trip. We have all felt it. As the end nears, we start the countdown in our heads, bidding time to slow down.

Going back to boarding school after the Holi break or the Diwali break was similar. After a week at home, it was naturally difficult to go back to regimented life. As a child, I had my own methods to cope with it, however naive. On the day before the departure, I would look at the clock a million times and count down the hours. My heart would dip as the evening closed on always keeping a mental count of the hours left in the day. I would go and sit with my grandparents in their room while they watched TV. I would stare at the screen, but in my mind I would only be hoping for time to slow down. I was trying to be in their company as much as possible.

That night, sleep would be different. I would wake up multiple times in the night and gauge the time from the ambient light through the window. And as 6:00 A.M neared, I would sleep with a sinking feeling. At around 6–6:30, when everyone woke up, I would linger on in the bed. Trying to elongate time. My parents knew this trick. They would call out for me to wake up. And I would sit up, but then go back to sleep as soon as they went about their chores. Until, a final call was made, and I knew how to recognize that final call. It was the end of the rope.

I had to wake up, dress up in school formals, and have breakfast. With all the butterflies in my stomach, gulping anything was not easy. I often vomited right after breakfast. But none of this was new. It was the way of things. I would say goodbye to my grandparent and then get in the car. After the first half-hour the feeling of anxiety would settle and I would accept that I had come away from home.

But I would still not loose hope. I still had not reached school. In my childhood innocence, I would pray for all possible calamities to happen. A landslide in the hills that would close the roads. Something on the highway that would make sure we turned back. If it rained heavily on the way, it made me feel better. It meant that we would drive slower or that chances of landslide become more real. As we crossed town after town, I would calculate and then recalculate the estimated time of arrival, hoping sometimes that we would miss the 5:00 PM deadline. But somehow, the landslide or a turnaround never happened. Neither did we ever miss the deadline.

When we entered Nainital, the inevitability of it all dawned on me. As all students returned on the same day one generally had to spend some time stuck in traffic. The burning smell of the clutch plates on the slopes made me nauseous. As we slowly inched closer to 5:00 P.M., you would slowly start reconciling with the fact that now there was no turning back. In the school quadrangle, you would bid away the remaining time till 5:00 with your parents if you were in junior school. In senior school, you would generally not ask them to stay till the bell and go about the reunion with your friends.

At 5:00, the bell finally rang. It signaled for parents to exit and for students to line up outside the study hall.