Speculations : Generations

     During my tenure as an academician, I found one of my students of class VIII extremely adorable. I left the institution in 2016 and expressed my feelings for her with an oblique diffidence. What followed was disgraceful. And, I am no Coetzee. Moreover, by that time I knew why being an academician is only respected by those who hardly have an experience about the dynamics of this profession. So, this was not something out of the blue.

But the actual story is not about this girl or me being disgraced by a few unmindful fellows, but triggered by an accidental rendezvous(?) with her this evening. I came to Park Street to spend some hours at Oxford Bookstore as per my frequent custom during weekends for the last thirteen years. I watched Bada Din by

Anjan Dutt

this Christmas and while doing so, I was trying to figure out what still had remained of Park Street in the 1990s. I stood in front of the garment shop, called 'Perfection' for a while, and then it all started.

Something in me started crooning. It brought out some memories of 2012 when I used to come frequently to Park Street with one of the girls of my life to have ice-cream at the little shop adjacent to India's Hobby Centre. This shop remains there even since before my birth and many of you might already have fond memories of this place. So have I. I thought of having fizzy cola there, once again after nine years but this time, a date with me. And there she(my student of TFFS) was with her gang.

I couldn't recognise the other guys or girls of the group. Nor could she recognise me, thanks to the Covid19 face mask. But the crooning inside me grew protuberant. I knew what it was. "Generations", I muttered.

Her eyes were still beaming, her smile was intense yet gentle, and as she engaged in the energetic chit-chat with her buddies, she looked debonair and meltingly shining. She is your girl next door. She is your forgetful, still fretting past. The sound of their mirthful cheers did not perturb me this time. And if you seek solitude in your journey, it wouldn't vex you either. The tradition of parlance and idea over a cup of coffee or scoop of ice cream still brews at Park Street, specifically here in this shop where your uncle also dated the first girl of his teenage.

Because generations and age are just excuses for puritans and minimalists.

A little dirt is good.