"Goodbye!"" Cya!""au revoir"---everyday phrases chucked about like candy wrappers.So hollow,so impotent. Do we really care if we meet them again or not? How many people do you really really care to see the next day.How many are important to you that you can't pass a "goodbye" without feeling?
My mother and I were walking to the parking lot when we saw him.My mother asked him how his exam went and he said it was good. And he said "See you tomorrow Ma'am".His head hung low but a smile lit his face with happiness-- happiness the rest of us fail to notice.Blind aren't we?. Selfish, ungracious and ignorant!
As we got into the car my mother said quietly "He can't see me tomorrow..he can't see me ever"
The University has been one of my favourite haunts since last year. I love the 19th century palatial college with huge magnificent halls of wood and giant windows and walkways adorned with very old banyan and tamarind with a thousand golden blossoms that sail down helically in the afternoon breeze.So I found myself wandering into the English department last Thursday and sat down at my mother's desk with absolute authority.Often I watched her students come up to her and talking in a very friendly manner but with due respect. She would often tell me how some of the most unassuming of her class would ask her to correct a piece of translation they attempted or a perhaps a prose. There are some special persons in her class too.
One of them has no parents,only a brother who works as a mechanic.and together they keep each other living.He takes tuition for school children on most weekdays ,classes that begin as early as 5 o'clock. Another girl comes from another hapless background.Her father is a fisherman and nearly always at sea,their family of four live in a shack of a home close to the sea.Her young face,dark and weatherbeaten wore a look of determination. She wants to become a writer.What a different dream for a girl like her!Her English teacher is very proud of her. Then there is Anish.
Anish is blind. No, nothing can be done to help him. They have been through all that. But it does not annoy Anish one bit. He is as good or in some cases better than some of the others in his class. Of course he needs some help finding his way through the labyrinthine corridors of the University, but his friends are always there to do that.
My mother and I were walking to the parking lot when we saw him.My mother asked him how his exam went and he said it was good. And he said "See you tomorrow Ma'am".His head hung low but a smile lit his face with happiness-- happiness the rest of us fail to notice.Blind aren't we?. Selfish, ungracious and ignorant!
As we got into the car my mother said quietly "He can't see me tomorrow..he can't see me ever"
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