Bye Bye, Playschool..Graduating into a New World

There are some lovely nuances of modern day schooling, a full-fledged graduation ceremony at the end of the session from Play school is one of them. This apart from the class tours which takes the kid to exotic places like the Rail Museum, and Nehru Park. It is wonderful and must be lovely for the child. I, for one from my school days remember faintly of one trip which we went to in Hasimara, where we went off to some forest reserve near by in class VII and the high point of the trip was a rhino sighting in the forest, while riding over an elephant, another one which I remember was in Kanpur in class V, the one with some taste of rebelliousness, when we went to a temple next to the school, one with a cemented water tank, where we went, bought some Masala and potato, bought some Eggplan to make vegetable on a single vessel that we could lay hand on, over the fire built over wood from broken school furniture, the Egg Plan, off course came from the Principal residence. I still remember it as a time of unusual and rare fun, till the time, one of the parent located us and the news was out in no time, with each one of us being pulled back to our respective homes.

This must be so much fun world for the child to grow in, though, with more happiness comes more sorrow. You start to understand life early, and with it you understand the ephemeral and passing nature of life raises its head in all ugliness. Nonu took her time to walk through the baby steps in the school. She would come back home and talk endlessly to the imaginary existence of her new found friends at home, but in school she would be one very restricted and shy to speak to any one. It is only very late that I did find her slightly getting comfortable in her school, though still a great deal staying away from the push and punch of the kids. While she danced and dazzled through her two performances on the stage, what warmed my heart most was the way she approached her Shweta teacher (she does mimic the way she calls her and she responds with a very vocal "Yes Ma'am" but rarely do I find her with enough courage to physically walk up to her), and sought her help with her clips. We waited with anticipation through "The Hungry Caterpillar" and "The Cinderella Story" with a lovely girl playing the Cinderella, moving in and out of character, waving out to her doting father in between. Then the princess did turn up with her two songs

We watched with apprehension, with some guilt of not having given any reasonable time to her, quality or otherwise, to prepare for "Kookaburra Song" and "Kisne Banaaya Titliyon ko". She did come, trying to gaze through the dark of the auditorium as we waved frantically, till she could finally locate her. An angelic smile came to her face and she waved back with a warmth of a hundred Suns, which prompted me to just make an idiot of myself and step forward and hug her (of course, as a responsible adult, I did not do any of that). The performance began, and the way she danced, was so ethereal ( I am sure every father around would have felt the same for his daughter). She danced and waved, trying to mimic the steps of those kids around her and taking cues from some serious gesturing by three of her teachers planted on the three corners of the stage. I did have the choice of her loosing her practice and my loosing my sleep in the morning, and sleep one, unknownest to my child. But she a determined child, with all the dreams of Pink Giraffe in her eyes, still living and breathing, made up for lost practice with great enthusiasm. She, just woke up from afternoon siesta, looking lovely in her Tee with a design resembling the one they give to the prisoner, though pink in color,  to find her mother gone on tour, and me writing this blog. Need to put the writing to rest, time is running out, she steps in the world in which her father's role shrinks by the moment and I need the to make the most out of it. I am glad that I did put her into the Play school, and I do regret I did do it pretty late in the day. She could only have these few bountiful days in her school Saksham, and No, the idea that we took so long merely looking for the appropriate one has no buyer. As soon as she got some comfortable with her friends at Saksham, she is off to a new School, away from her friends, Sara, Saresh, Advait and Aryaman. I hope you will forgive me for all the time I was not with you, I wish it was not so, and I wish you would know this some day.