The Winter Morning.

It is 28^th of December 2011, 06:32 and it just used to be a morning like this six years ago. The sun also used to be sleeping till now, but the bang of the newspaper used to bomb the door daily. The noise of the water being filled in the bucket and splashed here and there used to disturb my sleep while I murmured curses to these car washers. Ah! These winters one should blame, for making us love our quilts so much. I think, from here only the phrase “I miss you like a child misses his blanket” took a cute birth. And as much as I loved going to school, my conviction was tested by these dropped degrees of dawn.

Being a child was easy. Mother used to battle the winter away to make me ready for school while father used to hide me under his blanket for those five more minutes. But as the child grows up, s/he willingly or unwillingly, has to quit the obvious dependence on parents.

And while the clock used to tick faster, I used to grab the hurriedly packed lunch, gulp down my throat the less sweetened milk and used to run for the school van. The miles till the colony gate used to seem endless and the car horns from the farthest corner of the world also seemed as if honking out loud almost declaring the last and the final announcement for me only.

And the routine used to start with the contradiction, always. There were noises and sounds all over outside, but inside the window of the school van, the black silence used to dominate unqaureled. Not only me, but every kid used to zone back into that beautiful sleep for the next fifteen minutes. And the distance till the school was hoped never to finish. But, the brutal sound of the driver breaking into our ears, loud enough to shatter our sleep, used to demandingly tell us to get out of the cab, sugar coated in the words “school is here”. Life was much simpler back then.