High school diary

• "My hands shook nervously as I tried the key in some adjoining doors with the same result"

The key surfaces
It was a privilege to stay in a cubicle after having spent a year in dormitory as a junior. There was never much privacy in a dormitory. The only moment of respite was late night hours when I was tucked in my bed. Those were the moments when I could truly be myself and forget everything. Nibbling biscuits secretly underneath my quilt or just lying on the bed, I used to drift into the craziest of dreams and ideas, savouring every second that ticked by. Crazy as my dreams were, I never expected them to come true. But the craziest of things do happen in real life; and they happen most mysteriously and at the oddest of instances.

That day things set off most ordinarily. It was at the start of the year. I had come to school a day earlier so that I could arrange my things in my brand new cubicle. But the circumstances were such, the door was locked. Luckily the house didi was around and I asked her for the key. She handed me one and I opened the door. I had thought of returning the key to her, but amidst all the excitement of shifting to a new cubicle and meeting friends after the summer holidays, I forgot to return it. Didi did not ask me for it either.

The discovery
The key remained forgotten till a month passed by. One of the cubicles in our house had been locked out. We tried almost everything to open it but in vain. Everyone was getting frustrated when a thought suddenly struck me. I rushed to my cubicle. I opened my locker and fished out the forgotten key from the rubble of things inside the bottom compartment. “Who knows”, I thought, as I stared at the key and then rushed back.

I rarely breathed as the metal fitted perfectly in the keyhole. A twist and the whole mechanism inside the lock turned flawlessly.  My friends cheered and I stared in disbelief. I stole away from the cacophony of hip hips and hurrahs. My hands shook nervously as I tried the key in some adjoining doors with the same result. The long forgotten thing was a master key! I stood wide-eyed, awed by the mere fact that the old rusty key should be in my grasp. All the doors in our school had the British locks that had been installed when the school was first built. This key could possibly open all the doors in the school.  I quickly threw furtive glances towards both ends of the corridor. Then I dropped the key into my pocket punching my fist in the air. The impossible had happened! 

Frozen blackberry juice

The street exhaled a cloud of dust and smoke as the procession of tires crushed the ground and carried away a strong smell of tobacco towards the north. Across the street, attuned with the rhythm of drumbeats, the woman’s khukuri continued slicing the chunk or red meat into equal pieces, and the spatula supported by her left hand was dancing on the frying pan.

This side was the tea stall. It was virtually connected with the radio tower looming over its roof. Nityanand was a regular reporter, and I a part time anchor at the radio station situated just behind the stall.

Nityanand was a pensive man. So, our conversation involved more silence than sound. Sometimes he forgot that he was sitting with his friend and having tea. Sometimes he suddenly woke up and spat, “You know…”

It was at these times that I knew that he’d begun hatching the eggs he’d laid in his mind.

“These FM radios are generating a new generation in Janakpur,” he spat.

“Yes I know,” I said. “It’s become easier to catch a hotty naughty and copulate thereafter.” 

Sometimes he sounded more a preacher than a friend, “Actually girls now catch mikes,” he uttered, trying to adopt a convincing tone.

“It’s cool that they do,” I responded. But my resignation couldn’t stop him from pouring out the seemingly unending stream of his profound truths. “Girls have overcome the fear of being crowded,” he said. “They can venture into crowds, and ask questions to political leaders; ask them sternly enough to puzzle the men.”