Growing up pains

One of the most profound feelings one could have is associated with enforced separation, and we have all had it, sometime or the other, havent we! By some quirk of fate, I seem to have endured rather more, because of the changes in my school, college, and then changes in my posting.

Sometimes, I really envy those people who are born, brought up, educated and live in the same city, or village, who meet their friends regularly and are really surrounded by camarederie, if it can be stated like that!

The wrenching feeling, the mumbled goodbyes, it all began when I was about 10 years old. Suddenly, the guava tree which me and my sister used to inhabit for hours, the small plots of season flowers which I used to water, the stony cricket pitch, even the railway station began to assume such intimate hues which I find hard to describe even now!

And not to mention the wisp of a girl who used to sit with me, wrote names on the covers of my textbooks and sometimes, shared her tiffin. For some strange reason, she never sat beside me in the schoolbus. I can still remember her smile, ever so clearly now when I am pounding the keys..

And the second time, when I was seventeen and thought I was grown up enough! Farewells bid most breezily with hearty shrugs and laughter couldnt however, blunt the sense of loss which is associated with every such instance, and here I was saying goodbye to hundreds of friends, some beloved teachers, the huge playgrounds and orchards, the ceramic workshop, etc, etc...

Thereafter it kept happening and did not cross my mind until recently. My family has gone for the winter vacation and after two days, I found a little note, neatly folded, behind the keyboard.
Bye Bye babai, it said in uneven capitals, I am away!

All of it surged over me in a sudden rush of emotion...this liitle girl, my daughter, is growing up!