Dr Graham’s Homes – a homecoming
J S Simick
The figures in number sixteen had reversed. A
sixteen year old boy had once sat on a dark stone slab of the cemetery
overlooking Ronaldshay Park, pondering the future. He was finishing school and
venturing out into the big, bad, beautiful world! On the very stone slab I now
sat. The scene was the same. Only I was not 16 but 61 years. And I had come
back from the big, bad beautiful world.
I was back in Dr Graham’s Homes in Kalimpong,
Darjeeling district, the place where I grew up. The huge purple bougainvillea
below the Workshop was missing but a tree with thick green foliage welcomed me
back, as if recognizing me. The beautifully carved rocks of the Homes cemetery
still beckoned passers-by to sit and rest awhile. What was mentioned only by a
few but enjoyed by all was the comforting warmth of the stone slabs on our
posteriors, when we sat there on sunny days !
The steeply turning roads in the Homes
compound were broad and imposing, now it looked so small. The Main Office, with
the blurred silhouette of the Principal through the curtains, had so often
hushed the loud squeals of laughter of passing girls. The wafting smell of
browning bread from the Bakery made us close our eyes and inhale deeply !
The MacCleod Swimming Pool reminded me, of wet
swimming trunks beneath school trousers, and the joke about the water being aabs wet! The rough stone steps leading
up to the School in front of Wollesley had
had blooming red poinsettias, among the green straw fields. I knew every step
and could race down the slope even on a moonless Friday night after the black
and white film of English classics.
Biology field work amidst the big oak, and
acorn trees; the coil of white rope in my belt in the Scout Den; the somersault
in the parallel bars in the Gym; the Tarzan jungle shacks in the slope below
Jubilee House: memories came flooding, vivid and colorful. My friends, Ringay,
the two Peters (all three of them no more) Gehendra, Pradip, Praful, were there
again, and we would enter the classroom again just now! The wooden desks now
looked so crude and primitive, with holes to keep ink pots! What I had lived,
half a century back, was in front of me - touchable, smellable ! It was yesterday once
more.
Standing on the edge of the school ground, I
realized why Dr Graham’s Homes, Kalimpong was so well-liked. The climate was
cool and the air pure. A huge expanse of the Himalayan mountain range was
visible, and so close, I felt like hopping onto one of the ridges. And today Mount Kanchenjunga had shed her
veil of clouds, and was preening herself in the bright sunshine.
Words from a song came to my mind - “give me
another chance I wanna grow up once again...”
I will surely
grow up once again, in this very place, through my grandchild!
///
J S Simick, 28
November 2012
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