The Barricades

"Yenna Yazhu... Innum 1 naal dhan. Apram 2 naal leave.... Jolly dhan!!!", a lady was shouting out as I was busy scrapping a coconut. 

"Aama, aunty!!!", came a cheerful reply.

It was quarter to four in the noon. The road was empty that their interaction was heard throughout the alleyway. Yazhu is a granddaughter of our front door neighbour who has just joined her KG, in a nursery school in our locality. When I peeped through our gateway, she was fiddling next to the main entrance of their house, still decked up in her school uniform. I could find her unicorn school bag and a water bottle that matched the bag. (Of course pink)

The happiness I spotted on her face was still fresh. Every morning, these days, I hear her mom and grandma ranting and raving with hypertension, right from waking her up to feeding her breakfast and sending her off to school. She seems to be a soldier heading to the battlefield, unarmed—mostly dejected with her stooping shoulders. 

But yay! In the evenings.., she will be returning like a cheering cub that can hardly be tamed.With full of energy and vibrancy.

I can see it all. Her happiness is indirectly propositional to the time she spends in school. This girl reminds me of the old me, my little sister and the very many cousins who have also been the victims of the 9 to 5 schedule of the schooling system that prevailed in our time.(and that continues even now)

I too used to crib, mourn and cook up stories to bunk classes. But nothing worked with my brilliant parents. They would drag me to the school gate. If possible, even to the classroom. The Friday evenings would be the most sought-after commodity of my (our) childhood. And my parents... They put up a barricade there. 

Yes!!! That was my "tuition akka". She would conduct classes everyday... Literally everyday including Sundays. 

I had no clue by then... as how she knew my weekend plans to watch those Sun TV movies and soaps on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings. 

Come on.. don't ask me about the Sunday evenings... They were all fully packed with me, searching for the Math classwork notebook and the missing divider from my Geometry box. Cha... How dreadful those days used to be...

Life had been so stringent with me until I was a school going kid with so many fake and fancy promises that it would turn more lenient, when I would reach my college life. Perhaps all those movies I watched had already conjured up whims and fancies about the carefree college life with colourful outfits, mojo lifestyle and butterflies in stomach, bla...bla...bla... 

Trust me.. nothing of that sort happened. Of course there was no body to put a barricade this time. I was with my newly found freedom. Without knowing how to enjoy that freedom, I myself put a barricade to me this time— I joined in a tuition centre as a part time grammar teacher then slithered to become a part time instructor and tech-assistant in a computer centre. That too demanded all my Sundays just like my tuition akka. 

However self imposed prisons are not torturous, right?

From then on... my weekdays would begin with Monday blues and end with weekend vibes.

Now, here I'm on a career break, being away from the rat race, I sit back and realise that I am the outcome of all those Sundays I sacrificed. I myself put a barricade for me so that there isn't any mishaps in the journey of my life. 

So I said to myself..." That's okay. Yazhu is another Maha whose barricade has already been put up...."

See... It continues... ♾️