Softly Scribbled Stars
-Avni Khandelwal
In nursery, I learnt how to draw stars. I clearly remember the day my best friend, of the time, taught it to me and how for weeks to proceed, every crook of paper was a galaxy of my creation, submerged in stars. I guess the act of how a dot stretched into a line, taken on a journey of random directions- required faith, which turned into my indefinite “starry-eyed” expressions. And I mean in some ways, is that not what life is? A speck guided by sheer hope aiming to reach that end point where it all finally comes together and makes sense, through ups and downs…lines and curves…highs and lows? Every “once upon a time” craves for a “happily ever after.” Of course, this psychological theory would be considered rubbish by a moody 3-year-old Avni who was content with her drawings of “v-shaped” birds, binging Doraemon and shooing pigeons away. The Avni whose biggest fear was what lay under her bed and if something happened to her favourite cartoons or her beloved encyclopaedias, what would she ever do? Nostalgia is such a bittersweet feeling. It’s a thrill to reminisce and look back on your oh so many cherished moments yet a haunting assurement that I would never be able to get them back. My favourite memories remain the ones I don’t have any pictures of, just the feelings that got captured. Childhood is about the print of the curtain, the scent of the spilt vanilla essence from the cakes my mom has baked, the drop of the rain that fell on my shoulder after what felt like aeons of bearing the raging rays of sun, the almonds shoved into my mouth to make me “smarter”, the scar on my left knee from one of the daily father-daughter hallway races, suffocating chocolate wrappers in the side pockets of my school bag, the way time seemed to stop the second I put a whole tin of orbeez in water, convinced that I could see them growing, pillow fights that declared who would get the last piece of mango, temporary moustaches from glasses of milk always filled with perhaps too much Bournvita, the bite of chocolate chips in a subway cookie…from seeing the world, poised above my father’s shoulders to leaning my head on the very same shoulders, from eating uncooked Maggi sitting on the kitchen slab to now sneaking out to cook it at 3 am, from asking seniors how their answers could possibly be of one page to being the senior writing them, the eventual shifting of the bus seats from what once were the front seats to now slowly proceeding to be the last ones, to have stepped in the shoes of classes that were supposed to be so far away…oh to be of an age where you’re too old to do most things yet too young for the rest. The age when the once bright star seems to unweave itself as it fades away, everything is so deep but then again nothing truly is, the world is ending but it hasn’t even begun…all I ever wanted was to grow up and now all I want is to learn to draw a star.
I like this!