Rajshekar - Packing the trunk to leaving Boarding - Chapter 8 - The Chronicles of the Youngest Child
It was now the end of the Military Boarding school years in Bangalore for 15 year old Raj. He knew that Daddy would soon be coming by train from Bombay to pick him up. As usual, Daddy would arrive on a Friday and they would leave on Sunday, giving Daddy enough time to meet Neel Ammavan and his family. Neel Ammavan was Raj's local guardian and closest family in Bangalore, thousands of kilometres away from his parents and siblings. Daddy would usually spend the two nights at Ammavan's house. He also tried to squeeze in one or another visit to some other relative or he tried to meet everyone at Ammavan's home. He would smartly write a letter to his host to invite some of the local common contacts they had if he couldn't manage a longer number of holidays from work for this trip to Bangalore. These meetings were important because sometimes families in Bombay sent small things for their relatives in Bangalore. Everyone helped each other those days and it was normal to extend this kind of courtesy to each other.
The initial years had been hard for Raj as he'd always hoped to go back and join a regular school near his parents’ home. However, military school education had been free for him as Daddy was an ex-soldier. Over the years, Raj had made peace with his situation and the last few years had even been enjoyable. He'd grown up with many of the same classmates and they were more like his brothers than his own siblings as these boys interacted with him daily and knew him inside out.
When he went back home to be with his siblings and parents, it always took everyone a bit of time to adjust to the newcomer that he always seemed to be. Each summer, he got a space in a small cupboard for his clothes, and this was space taken away from someone else’s shelf. The apartment in Bombay was not very large or furnished and so everyone had to share one steel cupboard. It didn't really matter, because no one in the house had much anyway. His mother seemed to have the same set of ten sarees that hung at the top. She wore a housecoat or nightie at home; his father wore his shirts for several years but did get new clothes stitched occasionally as he had to go to office. Raj wore a uniform at school so usually he never brought that back home with him. This year he would bring back his sets of uniforms for the first time. As he folded them into his school trunk, he collected all his stuff and tried to fit it in. It was a difficult task. Daddy would surely ask him to throw some of his stuff, but now, all this stuff meant everything to him. Everything from his books to his school bag to his school shoes and his letter box was important to him. Then there were the small gifts his friends had given him.
Sanjay, Ravi, Udit all had made different objects for him. Sanjay the bully who he'd stood up to all those years ago had made him a talisman of sorts. A piece of wood that he'd carved like a shark's tooth and attached to a black thread. Ravi had bought Raj a card with his pocket money and written some joke inside that only they knew the meaning of. He had also scribbled the postal address of his house on it. Raj added the postal address to his list in his diary of all the school friends. It was funny how suddenly, all of them had to vacate what they thought of as their home and move on forever. And this, just when they'd started to have fun. Like when they could go to a local fair one weekend or when they'd started discovering what fun it was to look at and talk about girls.
Raj sighed and sat down on the bed in his room. He looked around again and again and tried to remember every single nook and corner because he knew he would never come back here again. Tomorrow was the Friday that Daddy would reach according to the letter he'd received and they would head to Neel Ammavan's house to say bye to the other people he'd grown attached to. He felt his heart fill up. He decided to go to the library and read. That was one thing that always helped.
These stories are dedicated to my brother who passed away in 2019.
You can also hear me read out the story here on direct link or in 'Lekha writes, then reads -Foundation' on Apple or Spotify podcasts. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3DtcCegh0XYQGhoJ9BDoFi?si=G81EN8aFSpqZ_PNFeKQtsA
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You can read all the stories that come before this story here
You can read the first chapter here
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