Ira was the first rains on mother Earth - vibrant, vivacious, restless and almost never letting a dull moment pass her by. She was the apple of her papa's eye and the dolly in her mother's arms. Ira was stocky, coffee coloured velvet skinned beauty a bit podgy with a slow gait that led her ample girth dictate the way she walks. She was bright eyed, dimpled chin and a curious little dimple on her left cheek- needless to say who had taken after her tall and chiseled father. Her mother's genes lent the honey to her voice, her mother was part rebel and part positive light that led her on.
Ira had a happy home - a rented groundfloor apartment somewhere in the outskirts of 80s Kolkata that found a little space in the map but a large space in Ira's heart. She lived her environs like she breathed the morning air from the adjoining park where many a happy moments were spent playing with Ira's friends Shonamoni, Rinki, Putli, Rakhi and the lot. There was, however, one person that Ira always looked up to and somehow tried to be in the good books of - Tumpa. Tumpa was a melting pot of ideas, both insane and exciting. Ira was privy to the execution of many of these ideas. The ghost story marathon on Tumpa's balcony and the sound effect from Tumpa's coconut tree that lightly kissed the balcony rails lent an eerie air to the atmosphere created.
Ira loved the thrills of adventure. She somehow wanted to run away but never wanted to leave the warmth of home. Her home made warm by her mother's lovingly cooked pithe and puli and her father's bull like resilience to see Ira make it big someday. She was shy and protected, she found the world in her parents' loving embrace. She felt so protected that the slightest thought of her parents going out of sight changed the color of Ira's eyes. They turned watery.
The first day at school was a a usual June morning. There was a nip in the air and the air was a bath in the skin. It was not yet time for the approaching monsoons. Her neatly folded school uniform was kept on the bed and Ira realised for the first time that she was going to school that morning when the usual tussle over the much hated milk and banana for breakfast (from Ira's point of view) was replaced by the sound of her mother's sweet voice. This was the other mother she knew, not the tough, strict and my way or the highway mother, but a doting loving mother smudged with a dollop of ice-cream. She just knew the day was different. Through the househelp bou, who told her that she was about to begin school.
For Ira in her mind, school was a happy place but just that the location wasn't home, all else was the same. It had bubba and maa too, per her thoughts, they would accompany her and stay with her through the day, in another location called school. But that was not to be, as it turned out, a large blue and white bus with babbling kids and a loud conductor would be the vessel to transport her to this new world called school sans bubba and maa. Ira felt choked and scared - why couldn't her bubba and maa come along? Her eyes welled and her thoughts were confusing. Thoughts in her little head with a head full of jet black hair. Her uniform was the color of her mind - blue. She had a small pentagonal pocket with the word A G inscribed on it. For the school it could have meant something else but for Ira it stood for Am (Not) Going. As she fought back her tears, resistance to go gave way to unwillingness and an unusually slow gait.
The bus arrived as scheduled and Ira after taking a photo on her verandah made her way to the bus stand at the end of a concrete road. Her father held her hand and Ira looked into him as if to ask - Is this necessary bubba? Can I not study at home? Bubba may have read Ira's mind that day but his gestures suggested otherwise. He prodded Ira along that concrete lane as a dwindling figure of his maa from behind the grills of the verandah was like a fading image in a watercolor canvas. Ira wasn't game for this, not today, not tomorrow, perhaps not day after either.
The conductor patted the bus as if it was his pet whom he kept under sharp vigilance and the bus promptly stopped. Rinki and company were too happy to wave their parents goodbye, but for Ira it was like walking into a den with no doors. She stepped in helped by her playmates to climb the rather high stairs of the bus and the door shut loud behind her. All she could see was the bobbing head of her doting bubba waving a reassuring goodbye and a glimpse of her friend Noni's pet dog, Puppe, who seem to have joined in the carnival of goodbyes.
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