Like It Happened Yesterday (14 page)

Before you start reading my work and before I start narrating my story to you, let me take a minute first and thank you! for choosing to spend your precious hours and days with me. In this busy world, where everyone has a story, a status or a tweet to tell people what’s on their mind, your choosing to spend hours reading my story is praiseworthy. And if you are the one who chose not to borrow this novel, but buy, read and keep this personal copy on your bookshelf, then here is my
Thank you again!
to you. You could have spent that money watching a movie in a mall or eating a sandwich with French fries and cola, but you spent that money buying my work and supporting me in continuing to write—which means a lot to me. I have related this story with all my heart and I hope that in my experiences you will find a bit of yourself on every page.

It is interesting for me to recall, when I was a kid and used
to go to school, I wanted to be a young man and go to college. And when I did grow into a young man and started going to college, I wanted to get a job and earn my own money. And, now that it has been a decade that I started earning my own money, guess what I wish for?

I now wish I could turn the time around and go back to school again. My life at present is not bad at all. But then there is something …

Something that makes me want to run back in time. Something that makes me believe that the then sense of satisfaction in saving my pocket money beats my current happiness of earning my own money. Something that makes me suspect that the expectation to finish my homework was a lot more easier to fulfil than the present expectations of twenty different things at work and at home!

Perhaps this is because, along with all the good things, every passing year of my life has dumped more and more responsibilities on my shoulders. Perhaps it’s because, apart from all the happy thoughts in my mind, there are a hundred concerns running in parallel. And all this makes me miss that time of my life when I had a relaxed and carefree mind. When the biggest worry in my life was to score well in the next test.

Childhood days are extremely special. I am sure you too feel the same about your own. But no matter how hard I wish to go back in time, the truth is that I can’t do so. And that’s why I am writing this book. Because, by doing so, I
believe I am going to relive that time of my life—for one more time! Somewhere within the pages of this book, I want to capture those beautiful, innocent, crazy, curiosity-filled and memorable days of my life.

So the story in this book is about those days when mobile phones, the Internet and ATM cards hadn’t yet invaded lives. It is of the time when Doordarshan was the only available channel on Indian television sets, and the broadcast of
Ramayan
and
Mahabharat
on Sundays meant less traffic on the road for that one hour. When playing a movie at home meant renting a VCR along with the movie cassette. When having a bicycle of your own was the ultimate goal. It is of the time when it made sense for the shopkeeper and the buyer to return a change of twenty-five paise.

Indeed back then, many of the present world’s inventions that have made our lives easier, were yet to be made. But the beauty of those moments is that, even without those inventions, the life then was a lot simpler than what it is today.

Also because I believe, no matter where you go, what you do and what you become, the past remains an important part of your being. It shapes how you think, how you handle situations and how you finally turn out.

As I take you back to that era, my wish for you is that you too go back to your childhood and trace your steps to today with me. I want you to discover your joys, your fears and your tears … the way everything happened with you back
then. And when you do so, come back and share your childhood memories with me.

Happiness Always,

Ravin

I scored 76 per cent in my Class XII exams, and there wasn’t anyone in the entire Burla and Sambalpur who could level my score. For some reason, Nitin scored less than what everyone had expected of him. His rank had dropped by not one but three spots! Both he and I knew that he deserved a lot more than what he had got. He was the real topper, in a sense. He had been an outstanding student for the past two years. I was convinced that one board exam could not justify someone’s actual merit. The good thing was that Nitin was disappointed only for a few weeks. After that, he moved on.

I took admission at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College in Bidar, Karnataka. Once again, just like it had been when I had moved from my old school in Burla to GNPS in Sambalpur, I was the only one in my class at college to have come from Orissa to Karnataka. Back then, there was a Sikh quota in that college, and with my grades I had managed to get a seat in Computer Science without having to pay any
donation. They called it a free seat. Once again I was separated from my old friends, all of whom had stayed back in Orissa. I knew things were going to change, but what remained unbroken by this distance was the bond of friendship between Nitin and me.

As of today, Nitin is the Country Head (Sales and Marketing) of a construction equipment multinational in India. I think it is the perfect job for the boy who could influence teachers and become the head boy of a school in the very first year of his joining! Only last year, he got married to Anu. The two of them live in Pune. Nitin and I continue to meet at least once every six months, when we recall the old times and share a laugh.

My younger brother, Jitender aka Tinku, has been in the United States for the past few years. While he followed my footsteps in every step of life—from the first school in Burla to the next school in Sambalpur, the engineering college in Bidar and landing up a job in Infosys—there is one thing in which he managed to overtake me. He got married before me. My NRI brother visits us once every year. The last time he was in India was for the occasion of my wedding.

Then, surprisingly, one day I found Sushil on Facebook! We relived the good old days online, until, when I was in Kolkata for a day, he visited me at the hotel where I was staying. In those couple of hours that we spent together, we took a trip all the way back to our past—to the schooldays and beyond. We also updated each other on what the others
from our class were doing now. It felt good to know that everyone had settled down well in life.

While I have moved from Orissa to Chandigarh in search of my destiny, my father still believes that Orissa is his ‘karma bhoomi’. Despite Punjab being his birthplace—where his roots are—and despite my willingness to move to North India, my father finds it difficult to leave Orissa. For him, it’s a place where he has worked hard for more than thirty years, and where he has seen his children growing up. As I complete this book now, I also want to say sorry to Dad for hating him at times through the years—the time when he took me to school for the very first time, or each time he took me to get those injections. I cannot imagine what my life would have been today, had he not done all those difficult things!

My mother spends half of the year with me, and the other half with my father back in Orissa. This is her way of sharing her love with both of us. I love to see her smiling, because I am aware of the sacrifices she had made, for years, for my brother and me. If she wouldn’t have given up everything for us and our education, we certainly would not have been what we are today. I’d like to thank her with all my heart for it.

And what’s my status?

Well, I have picked up the profession of storytelling and I am enjoying it thoroughly. By the time you read this line, I would have started writing yet another story …