A date in June

Some dates here and there through the year rustle around in the head and sometimes even if I forget, something in me always remembers or sometimes tries not to (which is not quite possible).

Our ICSE results were declared on this date, 19 years ago. I got 5 points in Math (a 50%)and 1 in English (over 90), and everything in between. I’d thought I was going to flunk Math actually, and it’s good that I hadn’t bombed English because I’d been threatened with dire consequences, particularly since I’d absolutely refused to even entertain any discussions regarding English tuitions after one point. I’d almost managed a two-pointer in Bengali and it’s a good thing I hadn’t because a neighbourhood friend had let me know in no uncertain terms that she would have personally sent a note to the ICSE Board saying that they had a made an egregious error if I had managed an 80 with my non-existing skills in my native language. Pity still because I was so horrified with the mark-sheet that all urgings to go over to a friend’s place the same day fell on a locked door and deaf ears.

Unlike the ICSE results over which I had no control, I voluntarily chose this date as an option when I took the GREs so many years ago (Jesus Christ! I can't believe it's been ten years exactly). And with my luck I had two Math sections (which I'd been expecting so it wasn't a surprise). And even though other people will vehemently disagree, Math didn't go too badly (I had practiced sums like a possessed lunatic for two months and more - getting up in the middle of the night to solve the simplest of math problems, which flew over my head and which others would have solved in their sleep), and the verbals were about okay but it was the analytical section (which at that point had those lovely puzzles and logical games that one had to solve) that I bombed much to my amazement, and for an entire evening I sulked in the dark because my total wasn't what I had been expecting and was worrying for different reasons but was later on blessedly relieved when the person in charge of the coaching centre in Calcutta where I was all set to teach at that point said that of course I could come and teach as long as I could if I wanted to, and so I did until I was set to come here (for the first time), and had mistakenly imagined back then that I'd never again have to borrow a penny from anybody ever again.

Last year I was glum on this date without knowing why and a friend cheered me up by getting me to talk about a book-series that had caught my utter fancy at that point and so I’d rambled on and on about the book-series and forgot that I’d been feeling glumpy till later.

I had insisted that I would get married on this date some years ago – that almost but then didn’t quite happen. I did marry but on a different date....

There were some birthday parties I’d gone to too on this date it must have been that swing in. And memorable parties they had been too. And different from the wild uncontrollable parties that were the norm back then (put twenty or so girls in a room and they can break or bend a bed out of shape by the end of the evening and if nobody ends up with a pair of broken glasses or some bad bruises everybody can pat each other on the back).

One time there was 'Musical Chairs', and I had to win. I remember being fairly sick for that entire day with a raspy, swollen throat (even though I certainly didn’t smoke back then) but I wasn’t going to give my favourite friend’s party a miss. And when game-time came around I jumped up. And right till the last round it was my friend and I who were the last men standing (rather the last girls sitting, should I say?)…and in the very last round it was my friend who won…I actually think I cursed once and stamped my foot angrily before I saw my friend’s face and felt a little less bad at having lost and somewhat guilty too. I don’t know exactly why I’d wanted to win so badly and who knows whether the suspicion I have has any factual basis. But that was a nice party. In the evening though it was and there was a darkness there which hovered, which I don’t know how to explain (maybe the party unlike other times came to an end too soon for my liking), and I was quite sick late at night back in my room when everyone was asleep but still – a memorable party it had been.

At another quiet party there is only one memory, which has stuck on. This too is a dark memory - but I honestly think it's because the power had gone out and we were sitting in candle-light or maybe a lantern or something. The game of 'guessing the word' from the clue provided. A friend got to hear the word whispered to her, and I was supposed to guess. That didn't go as planned. She said, "of great height...' I looked up into the air and said, 'mountains'....which was met with quiet but not unkind laughs and smiles because I guess everybody else had already guessed the damn word. The friend hissed and said, 'a person of great height - ' to which I quickly responded with, 'a giant?' That was the best I could come up with. I gave up after that point. After mountains and giants my head wasn't going to come up with anything else, and I don't remember whether the friend had exasperatedly provided me with a third clue. It turned out that the word had been a simple 'tall'....I had grumbled of course but could come up with no better 'clue'.

One of the parties – I can’t quite remember whether it was the summer that we moved from Class VI to VII or from VII to VIII – is still the sunniest party that I remember attending (and I have attended a fair number of parties since although over the last some years I have not). There were party hats and eye masks and lovely games organized by the didi and dadas. There was the 'paper dancing game' (you know, dancing on a square of newspaper which you keep folding up into smaller and smaller pieces and the partners who manage to survive the smallest bit without having their feet off the paper are the winners), and it was accompanied by many giggles and laughs and fits, and I’m sure some of the partners were eliminated simply because they laughed too much and missed the spot. I still remember which pair won the game and of course I remember who my dancing partner was (we didn’t win though). There was the 'memory game', which I always thought I should be good at but knew I wasn’t. I got very excited when the tray came into sight and tried to remember a list of things instead of looking carefully, and so quite promptly forgot all I'd seen as soon as the tray was whisked away and I imagined things not there or things which seemed likely to have been there. But the word jumble. Now that was a different matter. And till this day I’m ashamed to say that I cheated in the game. I did. There was this word that I still remember on which I cheated. ‘Memsur’ it said. And my annoying mind kept saying something like, ‘haha…it almost looks like a form of addressing both female and male or a monsieur gone wrong ’. I could almost but not quite see the real word, got increasingly annoyed and yet nothing came to my head, and then while standing in the queue I remember nudging a friend’s sister (who was at least a couple of years younger and...well, sharper...), and she said, ‘that’s summer, Shilpi-di’, and I said ‘of course’ and jotted it down. I was even placed third in the game and by then I was too embarrassed and ashamed to say that I’d cheated in a game. But it was a very sunny party otherwise inspite of my evil act (the only thing I couldn’t do is bring home the prize gotten by dishonest means). And we had a perfect lunch and that lovely ice-cream for the first (and last time - I never did have it again!)…Dr. Frost’s frozen cake ice-cream for dessert. Boy it was good! - and not just the ice-cream. There were lots of laughs and some perfect moments at that party….even a couple of fights and tempers that flew around, I remember…but what I remember most is the rippling laughter and the dancing sun and the light wind flying around and bouncing around in that space.

A random thought comes wandering in: I sometimes feel like a very ancient, befuddled person caught in a time-warp even though I'm never given to feeling even the slightest bit nostalgic about my growing up years. I suddenly wonder what I'd see if I went to some party for a 13 year-old here or back in India, and I wonder whether the games I've talked about would sound to a regular 13 year-old of today as though they are out from the early Stone Age days.These days, I hear there are 'party-planners' for hire...

Anyway, so much for an old bag of memories - exams, an-almost-marriage-date, birthdays and birthday parties - regarding a date in June. They're not sad memories though - seen out of context, in a way - though they might not seem terribly relevant or important.....

...come to think of it the title is somewhat misleading. Ha-ha.