Hands That Mold

Do you have a pet tearjerker that true to its name can always get you all dreamy-eyed, trying to contain in the rain, promising yourself that you would let just one drop escape and what follows next is a repetition of a million times like these. You are later found either by the basin, washing off the remnants of your monsoon or in some corner of your room bawling your eyes out still. Does that ever happen that a random picture breaks loose floodgates to your pent-up memories, the ones you re-live as your head hits the pillow and an involuntary hand hits the PLAY on a paused memory you left off somewhere in the interstitial voids of time only to pick back someday, scold or love yourself for what you left off or embraced.

Do you have a pet refuge you know you can always run to when nowhere in the world you would fit or when those cliched walls come closing in on you? What do you find there? Is it a part of you that you once left behind in here, safe by these shores, when the world propelled you to grow up a little too soon? Is it someone or something that makes you want to come back once again in hope of taking things right from here, yet again? So, is it really your last hope of magic happening in real life in form of self-resurrection or well, just a place you have loved too much to ever let go of?

Do you have someone in your life who you will always regard as the one person who made you who you are, ever will be? The one person whose words have been your initial spark for the many miracles you have undertaken in the course of your life till date, whose face you somehow imagine right in front of you, be it in a moment of pride with happiness gleaming in their eyes or with all the love in the world for you when you are so low that you can't even pick yourself up to match up with what the world expects of you.

If you answered a YES for all the above, you have everything in life to thank universe for it. You already have what someone somewhere can only dream of, keeping you a little sane in the insanest of times, holding your feet in the sand while your head weaves a story in the stars and hiding you, recharging you and being the reservoir of enormous strength and unconditional love when everything seems to go against you, when each tidal wave seems to carry your name as its final destination.

Why am I penning this?

I was randomly browsing through a popular social networking site when I came across the page of my school principal in there. What followed was some two minutes of smiling-to-self, remembering that time and almost as a ritual, wishing to pay best of regards to her. With that, remembering each person who has been a part of my making.

Dear,

Papaji
Mumma
Mrs. Kiran Gulati (Class teacher in Nursery)
Manitasha (making 'forever' more than just a word)
Mrs. Nalini Rajeev (Science in grade 5 & 6)
Mrs. Bedi (Social Science in grade 4 through 7)
Mrs. Sikka (English in grade 6 & 7)
Mrs. Shukla (Hindi in grade 4 through 7)
Mrs. Suniti Bhalla (English in grade 8)
Mrs. Preeti Manchanda (Maths in grade 9)
Mrs. Geetanka Bahl (Maths in grade 8 & 10)
Mrs. Seema Kapoor (Science in grade 10)
Mrs. Rama Joshi (English in grade 11 & 12)
Mrs. Meeta Khanna ("Love for the written word")
Mrs. Sadhna Bhalla ("Life 101")
Mr. Rajeev Sharma ("Being a warrior, his Ms.WW")
Mrs. Pratima Sharma ("Invisible Rock")
Mrs. Sarika Sharma ("Hugs that heal")
Tamanna Sharma ("Standing up for what needs to be done")
Friends who have stood the test of time
Rajat Arora ("We talk literature, cats & more buddy")
(More than just a cousin) Anubhav
Sr. Sergio Bermejo ("Loving a language")
Enrique Iglesias ("Love and more love")

and...

that darling of a person who holds my hand each day and tells me he loves me.

© 2013 Neha Choudhry