A time to leave- bidding farewell

Last days as a school-er

I walk ignoring an eye contact with a boy I punched last month. My good class mate leaves his bench removing his head from the sunlight as I walk in.

“290 million students drop from universities & colleges due to corona virus”

“Miss World Singh arrives Nepal with request of Minister of Tourism…”

“Syrian government kills 15 people – 1 child; other injured in a Russian airstrike”

The national no. 1 selling newspaper features these headlines along with an aspiring Nepali model because it’s Friday, TGIF – the newspaper says, where all other features are miserable except for the celebrities posing at the pub.

This is when I’ll be stepping my first steps out of my comfort zone, my first second-home.

As I grab the newspaper and take my seat, I hear an English -Nepali- teacher faking accent to learn it. Kids are asking me to hurry as they’re eager to check their horoscope for the day, the librarian is trying hard to calm the students in the room willing to avoid noise where she, herself, is screaming on the top of her lungs.

10- A, they say, they’ve kept alot more expectations especially from us. Everyone is heating up for the final exam. Friends; they’re more inanimate than childish. I feel left out. They deem me unrealistic, immature, careless or over-dreamy for this. But, going from 1 day to another, having the urge to be the best, none seems happy.

Teachers yelling the students for writing on the wall with a tipex where the students are keeping secret of whose it is while others are filling each other’s diary – a reminiscence to recall. And, it was just a while ago that I was pissed of by my teacher who sarcastically satire-ed me not to speak much. I’ve always been a chatterbox! And when I don’t talk, I need to write. They’re like breathing in and out for me, observe and let go.

It’s Science’s class and I’m writing. He’s given up on me. He always asks me to study arts, once after I’m done with school. I wish I were that brave.

Just yesterday, I had a good time of my school with my friends. I have few friends that are close to me; girls where rest friends are boys. So, when I was in the boys’ row, in the corner, an old professor scolded me for being there, because of this stupid stereotypical thoughts. Now, I feel like bunking his class but, for this too, I have no guts.

In the first period, we had our computer class where the teacher checked our exam papers, he’s tired of us- this batch. These students, too, are tired of school. Somewhere, they’re dying to live as kids, where the environment, their age and society is pushing them to get older, wiser and mature asap.

I used to be called a ‘don’ back in 7^th grade, I used to fight and hit school mates mercilessly. But something changed me, from 8^th grade, I renewed. I was a topper from below-to-avg-student. They’d a different perspective about me now. But again, these days, I’m ending up in bad terms with everyone; dissatisfied with the current position. It’s hard to relate to each other even if we’re on the same shore, it’s as if we’re speaking two different languages. We enrage easily, we fight, we quarrel, we become insensible but, in the end, we hold ourselves back and walk with our arms around each other’s shoulders. It frustrates me, sometimes. But, it scares me, as well. I doubt if I ever will find people who’ll know me so well, knowing so little, who I’ll have a fortune to spend a decade-longer-friendship. Oh, so recklessly.

Sometimes, it feels like things are way worse than we can handle, way worse than they can ever get. There’s arrogance in immaturity, there’s stupidity, idiocy. I’ve always wanted time to move fast. I’ve always awaited to grow up and live life in my own terms. I’ve equally wanted to leave school and see the world out there. There’s always something greater that comes with time, age. But I don’t know what it is that I’m disappointed with now. What is bothering me, I don’t know.

Is it how I’m leaving? Or, is it how I’ll always linger?

Or, perhaps, it’s the friends I have earned till the date that make me feel anxious about leaving. I’m accompanied by people, memories and dreams like never before. It’s not that I have them so much like I never did, but they have a greater gravity now, this too, I don’t know why.

I used to feel as if I was one of those fruits from the tree that was eagerly hurrying to ripe as soon as possible, waiting to separate, but when the time’s here, I feel like I’m one of those thousand leaves that holds no specific identity alone, just a sheep in the herd, that who’ll lose its way once it’s out.

There’s so many curiosities, contradictions, insecurities and inner conflicts. This must be the side-effects of the time of my last-school-year, or this is my age.  Perhaps, I’m overthinking. Whatever it is, I can do nothing but smile at whatever life throws at me and make the best of the time I have, with the people I have.

By the next time I write, I will have been a different person, for my school will come to an end.