As a young girl, I always envisioned the day of my high school graduation to be a somewhat grand, honorary ceremony. I had grown up imagining an electric atmosphere, a massive auditorium packed with thousands of people, giving the valedictorian speech, a flurry of colour and movement as caps are thrown into the air, graduates cheering and shouting as they revel in the freedom of the moment – something along the lines of what graduation was like in Hollywood movies.
The actual event was a much more humble affair.
As I walked down the familiar street, on the path I’d taken all those years to school, it was almost as though nothing had changed: the pookaramma’s veined and knotted hands moved swiftly as she expertly strung together strands of jasmine, there was the little pillayar kovil, deserted in the afternoon sun, except for one or two particularly determined devotees, Kumaran Stores was overflowing with a sea of schoolchildren in green and white buying themselves drinks.
A number of other school events have occurred in the time that has passed since then. We've all ventured out to different cities and countries in the pursuit of college degrees, but it's the shared experiences, the little things, that still bring us together.
We are all in possession of a series of class photographs in which nearly all the teachers are (terribly) photoshopped. Never once did we have a school picnic in which there was enough room for everyone on the bus (we would resort to sitting on each others' laps). Kumaran Stores, the local provisions shop students frequented for chips and soda after school, holds nostalgia for many (not for me, though – amma still sends me there all the time to buy a number of things, ranging from curd packets to incense sticks). The school uniform of green and white was much dreaded (the salwar sets are long gone now, having been turned into washcloths minutes after my last board exam). Finding safety pins every morning to secure the dupatta in place was a real battle. There are vague memories of the morning assemblies, held on the school grounds in the unforgiving Chennai heat. They would always result in someone or the other fainting, and yet, the principal's speeches would still go on and on, as though nothing significant had happened.
The funny thing is, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. These seemingly insignificant memories have woven themselves into the fabric of who we are. They are the threads that bind us, reminding us that our journey together, though filled with ups and downs, was uniquely ours, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
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