Rear View

Life is a journey we are on and every new day we start, marks the end of another night. Going on car rides we notice how there is a big windshield or front see through glass for us to see what lies ahead. There is also a small rear view to the sides to check what is behind of us. So is life, we do not want to focus too much on what has gone behind. 

Sehr is starting university from the next week. She has come a long way from being a shy young girl treated with pity eyes to becoming a confident young woman with the world ahead of her. It has been over a decade since she last heard from her estranged mother. She was only a child when her parents parted ways and she was left with her father and grandma. Life had changed in a moment from being a pampered child doted upon by both the parents to a dull gloom with only her grandma to hold onto.

Her father became a withdrawn man, whose days were spent either at work or behind a pile of papers stacked in his study. Sehr was only a child, and a rather delusional at that who thought this was a minor change of routine, expecting her mother to be back from Nani house soon. Sehr did not know what hit her until it was too late. It was her coming of age, when it finally hit her, what was going on and how life was going to be. This was going to be her new normal. Life would never go back to how it used to be and she had to accept it. 

As a child she had been closer to her grandma than any of her parents and so the change was easily acceptable to her. It was losing her grandma that toppled her world. Sehr was now fuelled with only one goal, and that was to be well educated and make something meaningful of her life as her grandma had wanted her to be. 

Setting foot in the new campus, she looked around her. The university campus was vast, stretching out in all directions. The buildings were in old colonial style, as this was one of the oldest educational institutions in India. The air was filled with the smell of freshly cut grass and fresh school supplies. The place was buzzing with the excitement of young minds stepping into the gates for the first time and those completing their study programs and moving to a different life. The energy was electrifying as being able to enter this institution in itself was a matter of great prestige for a lot of students. 

Settling in her new hostel room, Sehr put down her minimal belongings and decided to take a walk around the campus which was going to be her home away from home for the next three years. The hallways were broad with big arch ways overlooking the garden below. In the garden was an old man sitting on his haunches, carefree and full of life. Whistling away as he dug the shallow trenches to plant the dahlia saplings. 

Sehr walked arounds the hallway admiring the beautiful terrace as hoards of students walked around her, parents in tow and big boxes of filled with all the stuff they could possibly bring with them to make the barren hostel rooms as homely as possible. Sehr walked past the stairs and into the garden area, as she stepped into the ditch. 
"Ae, don't spoil the 

 

Walking back to the car, Sehr could feel the reluctance in Kalyani's hands as she refused to let her go and kept waving till the car left the main gates. It had been a rollercoaster ride of emotions and Sehr was glad Mridul had gone with her. As for Kalyani, she came back to her room, cherishing the moments from a while ago, thinking of a hundred things to do, and possibly make up for the lost time.