Chief Guest
*Written on 20th November, 2023.
I was invited to be the Chief Guest for Book Week at my school, Sir Sivaswami Kalalaya. I passed out in 2010 and walked back 13 years later, feeling a swell of joy along with a faint stirring of trepidation.
The joy presented a linear if overwhelming face. Being invited back to your alma mater in a position of respect can be nothing but a win and a boost to your ego; and this was felt in all my teachers hugging me, expressing pride about my work. They talked a mile a minute about how they knew me when I was a kid and how they know me now as a pretty successful person and also I was told repeatedly, a pretty, successful person. I took the compliment, blushing furiously.
Teachers who had taught me took time out of their classes to come and see me before I left. The principal today, who used to be my accountancy and business studies teacher, and the vice-principal today who used to be my english teacher were both very appreciative of the speech I gave the students — and were overall so warm to me that it felt like a mother’s hug.
The speech, which, true to my nature I made up on the go — was flighty and earnest even if I say so myself. I talked to an auditorium full of students about how creativity takes courage and how the foundation for pursuing a rich life begins with your nose buried in a book. I talked to them about how my teachers were instrumental in fanning my dreams and that they should try being truthful with them about their coveted desires.
You never know, you might find a Tara ma’am who’ll boy you a samosa and give you a stern finger-wagging talking to when you let a guy wreak havoc with your hear. Or a Jashoda ma’am who proudly reads your essay out to the class and makes the little girl in you think, “I can write!”
I asked them what books they were reading and felt very pleased with myself when I not only knew all the titles but also bonded with young Potterheads about Lily and Snape— momentarily forgetting that I was an adult and screeched, leaning over the podium to say “Oh my God did y’all cry when you read the always thing, I died!”
But most importantly, and I hope this stays with them — I told them that I was living proof of the biggest cliche of all; that you can be anything you want to be as long as you want it enough and work at it hard enough. I spent most of my time telling them to keep their hearts open to experiences and people, and to elevate themselves from the times of war and misinformation we live in. I told them with all the sincerity I could muster, that they must never, ever, stop being children. Like I was being at 30 and would always be.
After my suitably rousing speech, we sat in the Principal’s office, and between mouthfuls of samosa and biscuits reminisced about the golden era of education and what hope we had for the future.
Teachers are possibly the only people who, without any context for years, will always know the core of who you are and why you have become who you have become.
My ability to shoulder multiple hopes and dreams is reminiscent of little Vinithra in school writing stories, while also dancing at culturals, while also trying out for sports, while also taking up leadership as the Head Girl, while also wanting to try out different creative arts, while also managing to study reasonably well… Except math and that’s not my fault, b**tard subject out to get me…
My teachers never turned down anything I wanted to try. They even allowed me to take exams at a later date because I was away representing Tamilnadu in cricket or attending selection camps. When I began to struggle miserably with math, they took extra time out to help me with it and never once told me to stop pursuing cricket or the arts as a solution.
Amma once lamented to my english teacher that she had to shout at me and remind me about basic survival functions like eating and sleeping because I was always only reading books. My teacher told her to never stop encouraging my imagination and my desire to read. I still believe this is one of the main things that has saved me today.
As I said my goodbyes and walked out of school clutching my first, very own gift-wrapped memento as chief guest, I allowed the stirrings of disquiet to come to the surface.
*******
This was also the place where I first learned about love, loss, and secrets. The corridors of my school that held so many memories of my soaring joy was also the breaking ground of heartbreak, and tears that somehow made my whole body hurt?
Over the years it has become easier to look back and only remember the good times. The first time I had a crush on a boy who was in the 9th grade when I was in 7th, and felt a flush of heat in the pit of my stomach when I looked at him. The first time I doodled a boys name onto my notebooks and started to daydream — a practice that has followed me into my adult life with appropriate advances in technicolor, screenplay, and hope.
The first time I fell in love, the first time I had a “boyfriend” — a very American sounding word for an over-zealous little girl from south India.
A quick kiss on the cheek stolen in an empty chemistry lab. The first day in school after we were officially “boyfriend and girlfriend”. The first time we kissed, right after lunch so he caught the aftertaste of sambar and I buried my face in his chest in embarrassment.
The first time we fought, the first time he left, the first memories of heavy bewilderment. The absolute truck-ram of not knowing what happened and never having seen it coming.
The knowledge that my heart feels too intensely— debilitating pain or soaring love — has gotten easier to understand and carry with time.
But today it has come full circle and opened up a fresh wound. I find myself in a terribly pitiable romantic situation — having fallen fool for an unavailable man, and unwilling to extract myself from the situation because of how intertwined our lives are and how deeply I care for him. **
He claims to have fallen for me, too, but in his own words he is so far from it that it is almost embarrassing. What good is a love that must hide and is convenient only to one?
A secretive love when you are 17 is laced with innocent joy. But when you are 30, it is shameful and heavy — especially when the boy in question renders all your good sense useless and you find yourself desperate for his affection, his validation, his love. When you are ashamed of loving someone as an adult, when you are ashamed of what you have allowed him, it makes respecting yourself a near impossibility.
I walked out of school today, multiple emotions crashing into each other demanding space and attention till they all settled into a stinging soup served by New Boy. One that I had to swallow even though it caused sharp and painful zings in various corners of my brain while simultaneously making my stomach curdle.
Bringing into question everything about Vinithra, old and new — heart getting wearier with every question. The one who loved with courage and loved like it was her life’s purpose is the only one left single while her world carries on with marriages, families and mortgages. Even New Boy.
Meanwhile, I walk empty roads surrounded by ghosts of my present and past. With another secret, another love known and lost — another goodbye to carry in my heart. A tragedy that I didn’t deserve but invited and played along with.
So I will take my gift-wrapped memento along with all these gift-wrapped feelings and unwrap them one by one. See what comes out of every box that Vinithra has given me, left me with.
Like the spotlight the 12th grade Head Girl walked onto while collecting her trophy for ‘Best All Rounder’ and the applause she walked onto today, one thing remains bright and familiar — there is still hope in this girl’s heart.
Amidst all the disquiet, the pain and the continued bewilderment of losing in romantic love, this girl still holds out hope.
And that’s got to count for a whole lot of memento's.
—
** Update — I extracted myself from the situation. :)
