Swara couldn’t sleep. She was excited. She and her friends had decided to meet up the next day. With the lockdown being relaxed a bit, a few restaurants were open. She was looking forward to her gossip session with her friends, feasting on their favourite snacks and sipping coffee. They had loads to catch up and she couldn’t wait. Wide eyed, she decided to get up and do what she liked doing these days, i.e. writing.
“Hello again
I was in class 1 when this happened. I hated going to school, probably because I was always in the first row and could not even talk to my classmates, let alone do any mischief. Those days, we had a ranking system and children would be seated in the classroom according to their ranks. It was considered prestigious to sit in the front row, because it would mean he or she was one of the top ranked children in the class.
It was then that mom took up a job as a teacher in my school so that I wouldn’t miss her. She used to teach Mathematics, Sanskrit & Science. I would run to the staff room whenever I felt the need to be with her. My school was a 15 minute walk from home. We would walk in the mornings and in the evenings we would either walk back or take a bus. My sister and I went to the same school, she was a class older and unlike me, was mature and independent.
One fine evening, as usual, we were standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus. It had just stopped raining. Mom was talking to her colleague as all of us waited for the bus. I was admiring the new ‘press open’ umbrella that dad had bought for me a couple of days back. The bus approached and I was still meddling with my umbrella. Mom was busy, her hands full with our school bags, tiffin bag, her own bag containing books, papers for correction & what not. As she was also getting ready to board the bus, she didn’t realize that I was actually standing too close to the road. The bus was fast approaching and everyone’s attention was on the bus. In the blink of an eye, the bus hit me and I fell down right in front of the wheel. My mom’s maternal instincts stimulated her lightning reflexes to pull me off the ground, thereby hitting her knee in the bumper of the bus. It seemed as though she stopped the bus with her knee! The bus driver applied a sudden brake.
Everyone was looking at us. Some people thought I must have been run over! We had a small crowd around us. People were scanning me to see if I got hurt. I was perfectly okay, no bruises, just that I was in a state of fright thinking what would have happened if mom hadn’t pulled me on time! In the midst of this confusion, I got up and everyone got into the bus. The bus driver started hurling abuses at my mom for not taking care of ‘her daughter’. Poor mom, she hadn’t still recovered from the shock. After two stops we reached our home stop. We got off but the bus driver wasn’t still done with his trash-talk.
I realized I couldn’t walk. My legs were shaking. I couldn’t believe it that I had had a brush with death. Mom carried me home & it took a while for all of us to settle. This incident is etched in my memory as I felt it was a brush with death that day. For the next few days, I was a very quiet, reserved and an obedient girl. But kids forget pretty soon right? If I continued being like that, I wouldn’t have had any more incidents to narrate!
So, until next time!”
Swara was smiling mischievously as she closed her laptop.
