The First Flight

It was a rainy day in June around 23 years ago. Monsoon was pretty healthy in Mumbai like it always used to be. Wet sparrows twittred on a branch of the tree just besides my window. The sky was so grey that I could hardly make out what time it was. The clouds seemed to have cast a comfortable blanket over the town as if they were gently telling us to go back to sleep. My parents like all the elders around of course had no clue what the clouds talked about. There was this rush in the living room, it was filled with sounds of people too busy to notice the fragnance of the wet soil or the beauty of the clouds lazily rolling down the mountain. It was a typical middle class morning rush. But that day was different. I had a feeling that it had something to do with me. I did not have to wonder for long, for my mom today was extremely happy to see me awake. Something did smell fishy. I was brushed, cleaned and dressed in a silly dress, I did not have the memory of forcing my parents to buy. There was a shirt with a lighter shade of chrome yellow with a grey pinafore. This wasn't the grey the sky was and I cannot remember if i liked it or not.

I do not remember the series of event that took place in the span of next two to three hours. The next thing I remember is the stronger fragnance of the wet soil. I was standing in a queue thinking and not really thinking, looking around the place. The breeze carried the fragnance of the soil towards me, it came from my school playground. There were other children of my size in the queue. (Oh! how I hated when people called me a child or a kid. I always thought I was a girl, child is a rather silly term.) Perhaps a lot of time passed while I was quitely absorbing the feeling of being in a new place. I didn't even realise that I was clutching my mum's hand till she tugged at it gently. She still had that happy look on her face. To be frank it was beginning to spook me out a little. She bend down and mumbled something. The only thing I could get from the conversation was that i would have to stay there for sometime. It was the first time I realised I was never away from my mom. I knew about schools and knew this would happen to me eventually like it happened to all the big boys and girls who played with us, but I did not quite realise that this would be the time. I always wanted to become a brave girl so I did not show off my anxiety. I attempted a smile and asked my mom to go. most of the parents were gone by this time.

I looked at the floor and I saw the footprint made by the rainy shoes she had worn. It was going away from me. I stared at it for a long time a very long time. The image of the footprint quickly fading away on the floor of my school is still etched in my memory like a fresh picture. I was too young then to think..I just didn't know enough words to articulate my thoughts even in my head. I don't even know if I can still articulate those long gone and not forgotten thoughts today. I remember trying to fight a tear which was slowly crossing the edges of my eye. That day I realised my mum might not always walk towards me as I had known her to. That day I realised that some journeys I will have to undergo alone. I felt like a warrior going on a very interesting battle, I felt like a grown up, I felt proud of not letting that hot tear touch my cheeks.

Most of all that day for the first time in my life I felt free... Like there was enough space in the world to spread my wings and fly.

23 years have passed, life had been a roller coaster ride. So many fresh memories, so many people, so many heartaches so much gained and much more lost, so much of pleasure and so much of self inflicted pain. I can no more relate my self to the brave child who at that age once could think of things that were not candies or toys. I cannot see my own face in the small girl who thought so much, who was felt so brave to have left her mother to accept the journey of her life, as a pure white bird in the cloudy sky. What I remember is that, once there was a little girl, who lived, who could think, who felt, who was ready to give life a chance to shape her into something beautiful....

Yes, there was a beautiful white bird which took its first flight 23 years ago and was lost forever in the grey clouds..