Nostalgia is not a Bitch!! — Shaving my stubble

Putting Gillette shaving foam and sliding razor over cheeks were pretty exciting in early days of 18. I had shifted to college now. There was not much difference than school, though instead of tanga, I had started going on my beloved bicycle which at the end of year became victim of an accident. Since it was a town, most of the people preferred travelling on their bicycles and motor bikes. Most of students who came nearby villages had their bicycles. I remember one of my class mates got a car horn in his bicycle with a huge battery in front and when he honked horn everyone thought some car is behind them and gave space of a car to him and another mate who could not balance and brake, fell in to small water canal.

Apart from college, I had started playing soccer. There used to be a play ground near my home within couple of steps. After game, one of our friends (who had a general item shop) brought a huge bottle of water for us to drink. There was one thing weird about the water, you could smell the Jameshreen (red sharbat) but could not taste it. One day we asked him about the mystery and came to know that he mixed only two spoon of red sharbat in 3-4 liters of water.

Our college was really strict about morning timings. If you arrive 2 minutes late, you had to stand in the line of late comers where you used to get punished. One day I and few of my colleagues could not arrive on time, hence we had to stand in the line of later comers. Teacher said to one of guy, “Aray tum, tum q late ae ho, tumhara ghar tou itna kareeb hai ke mein yahan se thook phekun tou wahan giray gi” (You are late, your home is so close that if I spit from here, it will fall in your house) As teacher stopped; my friend said “Sir, khayal se phekiye ga, mein is key ghar ke sath rehta hun” (Sir, spit carefully I live beside his home). After that, my teacher left everyone unpunished except my friend.

Bunking classes was an elusive job. College was on the first floor and there were some experts who descended with the help of tree near the class room window. One day a guy was going down with the help of tree to bunk the college, mean while a teacher was cleaning his nose out of window in the next class room. As teacher saw the guy hugging down the tree and getting down, he roared “oyee larkay” and poor guy lost his senses, balance and fell down. Teacher immediately went in his class room and asked for the guy but he could not remember his name so he asked, “the one who looks like donkey, where is he?”

In early days of college, there was not a separate section of female students. Hence there was a partition of a cloth in the class. Teacher however managed to stand in the middle to interact with both parts of class. Whenever he looked at the females his face bloomed with smiles, as it turned to guys, he looked as we had stolen his meal. A guy from class, during half time break, cut the cloth partition in such a way that it got weak, so as the half time break finished, teacher came, fan started the partition fell down. It was yell of teacher that we could listen afterwards.. “hey idiots look opposite….girls get out of the class”. Later on, separate class rooms were arranged for females.

I and fat friend of mine went on Math tuition together. We walked across the narrow streets where you could listen the sound of star plus dramas coming from homes, as you reach at the end of street there was street of shops where a guy fried delicious samosas and pakoras. Our teacher gave us off when there was a wrestling match in the evening. The town had a huge market. You almost got everything.

It has been long time that I have left the town for higher studies. Surprisingly most of the guys I interacted over there have left. Like my friends also left for higher studies, one of them who had his own business ran away with a girl, Hameed mithai wala, who was famous for sweets and usually we were gifted sweets from his shop, he also ran away after taking loan and so was with my barber. I lived there for 17 years and still sometimes I find myself roaming around the town in my dreams.