An abandoned construction site that once overflowed with the dreams of thousands of children. A second home, where kids didn’t just learn to write and read but spent their precious years of life creating dreams, memories and friendships that lasted for eternity. The place that taught me how to speak was never given a voice of its own.
To me, it wasn’t just any school. It was magic wrapped in white walls.
My school was a very beautiful, huge white building with many rooms each holding its own story to tell. A huge playground where the laughter of every kid still echo in the air. The joy of children playing, the gentle scolding of teachers, the echo of running footsteps... I still secretly wish to play those same games again, in that very place, with those same friends.
A place that once was filled with many plants, flowers and trees is now just left with bricks, concrete and dusts of its own body. They may have shattered its body, but they can never touch its soul. The soul that still holds the colors of my life, and the lives of many others.
A soul that is stuck beneath the heavyweights of concrete and wreckage.
Back then, as a student, whenever I looked at SEE graduate students who came to visit our school and meet our teachers, my heart would flutter with excitement.
I would imagine myself in their place. But little did I know that my imagination was just a fictional scene that never got to turn into reality.
Visiting my school after 10th was far away, I didn’t even get to finish my 10th from my own school.
It wasn’t until the early months of 2020 when the rumors of our school being reconstructed into a park began to spread like a wildfire.
Everyone thought it was just a rumor and it would vanish into the air within a few months. But I wish I believed those rumors and cherished my last few days in that school a little more.
In March 2020, as COVID spread, I went to my village not knowing that it would be the last time I ever saw my school alive.
During lockdown, our school was merged with another school. Everything happened so fast. Teachers changed. Classroom changed. The corridors, the playground everything changed in just a moment.
And my dream of visiting my school and teachers after 10th became just a dream.
After a few years, it was broken down into dust. Even though everything else has turned to concrete and dust, the temple of goddess Saraswati still stands untouched, amid the ruins, surrounded by bricks, cement and dust.
Now, whenever I walk by my school, I see little me — playing, laughing, living. And in that moment, I miss it even more. I know as much as I miss that place…. It misses me too.
If I could go back to my old school, even for just five minutes, I would visit every room, walk through every corridor and steps….
Then I’d sit down quietly, and play all its memories like a movie.