An Usual Morning

Image Copyright : Sushree Satapathy
Written by : Abhisek Pattnaik

It rained cats and dogs last night; the first shower of the season. I woke up to the cool morning breeze that was making its way through the window. The rain had washed off the dusts of the summer, making everything more colorful again.

Rain always manages to summon the artist in me; maybe it also manages to wash away the dust of my daily life. And what better artists enjoy than solitude. High on the freshness of air that had a scent of rain in it, I went out to the terrace, welcomed by the symphony of chirping birds and sat by the table on the rooftop, that my landlady had discarded; with a cup of tea and a lit cigarette to accompany me.

A flock of pigeons on the building across the road were taking their baths, in the water pool collected on the rooftop from last night’s shower; while a conspicuously large pigeon sat on the half done, unattended parapet wall, watching over them; giving an impression as if he was in charge of oversight for this flock of pigeons to take proper baths.It brought me a smile, bringing me back memories of my childhood days; memories of my boarding school, the morning PT classes and our beloved PT teacher.

I was in Navodaya and those of you who are not aware of it, it’s a chain of Government sponsored boarding schools in India. We had our days meticulously divided, from morning till night; Sundays used to be an exception of course. And our days would start with the PT classes that I absolutely loathed. As an avid sleeper, I understood from childhood the beauty of sleeping in the morning hours, which the PT classes weren’t allowing me to have anymore. But, having given the option of attending morning PT verses caning from my PT teacher, I had opted for sacrificing my morning sleep most of the time. The morning yoga classes, the occasional tracking to nearby hills, the preparatory days before cluster meets for sports events that allowed us to play instead of the regular drills and our occasional intermittently successful attempts to escape from the drills after the attendance: it all came flushing in.

“Wouldn’t I absolutely love to relive those days. Maybe a single day to wake up in those bunker beds to the siren of morning PT; reserving taps with our towels for baths; standing in cues for breakfast; a fake fainting act to skip the morning assembly if it’s too sunny; stealing a glance from my childhood crush…. Oh! The list is just endless.”

My tea was over by now. So were the ceremonial baths of that flock of pigeons. Taking a smile on my face I came back to my room of routines. “Time for some dose of reality now.”