Farewell Jottings -- Part Five (The End)

Today Hem Sheela Model School bade farewell to the Class XII batch of 2015. With Head Boy Nihal Singh, I, as the Head Girl, had to deliver a speech at the event. The speech was about leaving HSMS and being grateful and the like; but if I had to deliver a speech where I could say anything, the following would probably be it.

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The End

The lost designs of my youth,
The fairy stories electric blue,
The proud crusades to find the truth,
The dreams of lives built anew --

Insane dreams of evermore!

Dreams of luxuries and love,

Dreams, that for every chore,

Divine Grace awaits above.

Something awaits, we still believe;

What it is, we know not still,

But someday it will come for me..

Or perhaps it never will.

There she goes, that girl who wrote
Joyous songs for feasting nuns,
Who woke at six to rush to school,
And cared after the little ones.
Went she away to new green fields --
New children, new dreams and hopes:
On her way to the world beyond,
Stopped she awhile to learn the ropes,
But not for long -- two years, they fly,
Up and out, hair streams behind,
Run, run, girl, for time is nigh:
Visions of expectant mankind --
Imagine them! With bated breath,
Waiting and watching for something new --
Something great, something fresh,
Something rare, in a million, few...!

Legend says that demons live
In human form, with us they walk;
With sweet voices, Grandma said,
Demons, in our ears, they talk.
Songs they sing, said the book
That steal innocent souls away --
Uncle Tiger said, if it's true,
Your mission is to find and slay
The demons that in humans live --
If you don't, who else will?
And so I learnt of my place --
The empty space for me to fill.

So hearken all my Farewell Song,

For today I sing sincere.

Today I bring a message true

To all my people gathered here:

You were born to fill a need,

Because no one else would do;

You were born because the world

Was waiting, eagerly, for you.

Don't let the world tell you now

That it's done and there's no more --

Tell the world, and tell yourself

Of all the promises made before,

Of proud crusades to find the truth,

And dreams of lives built anew,

Of grace, and love, and glories great--

A dream designed just for you.
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We returned the badges at the end of the event, by the way. Officially done with the Council, now to trust next year's Council to keep up the (hopefully!) good work.

Farewell Jottings -- Part Four (Journey To The Promised Land)

Of the games we play: be it exam games, ball games, or life itself.
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Journey To The Promised Land

Never knew the word no, never learnt to say it.
One body, one mind, tugged and pushed every which way,
Battling shame and pride
To make it through the night
To the promised land, far away, far beyond the moon:
The promised land, we're promised, we're getting there soon!
So lock your feet in, Sheamus;
And steel your nerves, Daveed;
Don your mail, Henrietta mine;
Mirriam, rouse your steeds.

Gather your wits, my comrades, say prayers if you will,
Call upon your guardian angels -- this would be the hour,
'Cause we're trading all our coal
For worthless lumps of gold
To pay our way to the promised land, beyond the lands unclaimed;
The promised land, to us promised (yes, it's aptly named).
So Rover, Rocky, Rivierra,
Kraus, Nick, Leyland Brown:
Draw your scythes -- our paths ahead
Lie thickly overgrown.

Promises have the fastest legs of all the kin of Hope;
They have eyes behind their heads to know when we're getting close;
They can smell the grime and wet
Of our blood, tears and sweat;
They can hear our stumbling hearts dripping life with every beat;
And they feel our cornered minds, still in denial of defeat.
So Constance, Edward, Henry B.,
Ring out our battle cry;
Let them hear, loud and clear:
We chase them, or we die.
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Farewell Jottings -- Part Three

Assortment of tiny flowers in the grass. Maroon multitudes sandwiched between green and blue never notice, but I do. Funny thing is, these probably existed back when the place was a forest.

Tall, bare concrete wall arches beautifully across the field. At partings we are promised completion -- it will be painted when I return. Supposed to feel good at the time but probably won't: will not laud progress, will selfishly feel outdated.

Little girl will tumble on without me. Will win things I never knew existed, fight wars I never heard of. A host of fifty seven will rise where there was a gaggle of fifteen; seventy three on seventy three will rise like never before -- new beginnings. Perhaps catalysed by recent past, oh praise oh applause! No comfort. Success no use in absentia despite gratitudes abundant.

Feel like a mushroom cloud, waning wake of potent impact: witness to noise, clamour, opinion, long after said event. Wane, however, non-negotiable. Can be extended by aftershocks as encouraged, to fade again alongside noisier clamour. Photographs and sundry evidence archived far from the sun. Radio silence that follows nearly undisturbed by few starry eyes.

Walls will be painted and repainted. Field flowers will live and die every season, as wild flowers must. Touch-me-nots will bow to different feet -- soles of shoes only they recognize: wonderful equalizer. Today's gritty new sport will be worn smooth, will be less desirable ancestors to sprightly young bouncers. As promised, flawed lines on concrete will be accurate soon. In future play if ever, will err on correct lines: blame old adjustments to the wrong. Games metaphorical and actual will have different players, all too short-lived to change the way they're played.
Hopeless hope to inspire the next wave of dreamers, to impact memory sufficiently to remain at the least a voice of conscience from days long gone (can you hear me?) Meanwhile, own memories to grow overgrown as is wont -- voices first to go; then faces and entire identities sequestered from the perpetual struggle to be relevant.

Successive visits will see diminishing recognition. Indomitable, the flux will carry away the familiar. Onus of excellence will pass to those irreplaceable to new and alien to old. Reminiscences will go from three a year to one, to none; greetings, reduced to transparent stares, will become colder and colder and emptier and emptier: at length will be a ghost of Hem Sheela past.

The stray cat will have kittens, maybe. Will she tell them about me?

Farewell Jottings -- Part Two

Tumultuous times lie ahead. The young are on their way to become the youth! Fires will be lit and cleansing floods will bring sweeping changes across hearts that will survive the first rite of passage to adulthood that is finishing school and getting into college. At the very cusp of this change, there are two things on my mind -- regrets and fears.

Unlike many of my peers, regrets I have none -- and that worries me because I fear that perhaps no regrets means not enough staked in the first place: that, maybe, I played safe.

Maybe in my fear of losing myself I lost you; maybe in my fear of never knowing myself, I never knew you; maybe in my haste to find myself I never bothered to find you.

You, my lost friend. You, the friend I could have made but didn't. You, the friend I made and then drove away. You, the smile; you, the light; you, the opportunity -- bypassed, perhaps, I fear, for the sake of me: me the brave who was not brave enough to save you, me the compassionate who was never kind to you, me the tolerant who took pride in looking down on you.

So, while regrets I have none because I never met you, fears I have in abundance that, somewhere, you exist, and in that somewhere beyond my reach you live, knowing me to be the person who could have been there for you, but didn't. Despite my confidence in my own assertions, I fear that somewhere there is someone who is a victim of hypocrisy on my part, even if that hypocrisy exists only in that someone's perception. (Or my own. Reality matters very less, dear unknown friend -- me thinking ill of me and you thinking ill of me are equally ill fates!)

The projector will drone on. Reel after grainy reel will flit away on the screen. Regrets and fears will change shape but will always remain. Laughably, shadowed one, these regrets and fears provide some of the best creative inspiration, some of the best screenplay for the dramedy of our lives. So if you think me a hypocrite (or if you think yourself a hypocrite -- one can always come to one's senses), fear not and regret not your past actions. Let it fuel you to greater heights, where your movie will be a blockbuster, where people will applaud you and chant your name. Believe, that despite all hypocrisy, despite the missed chances and swallowed smiles, your movie will get made. It will break the box office and get awards of the red carpet sort -- it'll even get ninety percent ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Believe, I say, because self-belief has served me well, and because, if I had known you, I would have believed in you as well.

When you do become a celebrity, friend, give me a call. I'd like to know if and when our dance of hypocrisy pays off. Adios!

Farewell Jottings -- Part One

Emotional mush is always difficult to handle, but it feels warranted in this case, so please hear me out.

Your journey henceforth won't be easy. The world's general muck and your difficult personality are not a good match, and you are hellishly hard to like. So before we part, I'm going to pretend that the 246 days between our births were actually 246 months, and give you some advice.

You see, friend, growing up means that the ground beneath your feet will shift. It's only normal. You will learn that the world is unfair, and that foes always outnumber friends. You will learn that envy is a stronger emotion than gratitude. You will learn to suspect -- because people will have betrayed you. As I said -- it's only normal. But hopefully, you will also learn courage, grace and strength; hopefully you will find your voice, and you will love and be loved. Underneath the greys of essential suspicion, hopefully, you will see the sparkle of those rare few who will, in turn, see you for the sparkler that you are. Hopefully, my friend, you will not lose hope.

To put it simply, it's normal, and desirable, for you to learn two things -- one, that all the world's light cannot kill darkness; and two, that all the world's darkness cannot put out the light inside you if you decide to let it shine.
Now, you ask, all this while, what will I do for you? Where will I be when you go about this difficult journey? Maybe in a fit of indignation you will even question the kind of friend I am, to give so much advice and then disappear when our time here is done. You will say that you want to know more, to talk more; you will say that it only makes sense, and that we are not done -- if we want to talk, there's always WhatsApp! But you see, I will have a life and so will you. Talking so much works for carefree youngsters studying and working in the same place -- not for adult individuals responsible for feeding themselves and, in time, others. So, buddy mine, what can I do for you? Will I be physically absent when the going gets tough? Perhaps. But whether I know you in the future or not, remember that friendship means that I am with you in spirit, and in spirit, you have my otherwise unconditional support on one condition. The condition being, you ask?

Well, my friend -- it is simple. In spirit and, if possible, in flesh and blood, I will hold your hand when it's dark outside and it's difficult to see. I will grab your shoulders and pull you to safety when it is dark beneath you and above you and all around you. But I will run -- in selfish and mad disappointment I will run, miles away from you I will run even if it kills me -- if I ever find you inviting the darkness in and letting it invade your sparkling soul -- because I will not sit tight and watch while yet another light goes out. I simply won't. So promise me -- promise me you will shine.

Now, buddy, that's enough of all that. Steel your nerves, and best of luck. Gimme a fist-bump before we go.