Sad and Silent

Last week, Puttu's school timings had progressively increased to 2-3 hours a day. Since i was going to be away in Indore, we decided that she could skip this week and go from the next week. But, Vasudha sprang a surprise on all of us. She took it upon herself and managed to send Puttu three days to school - Wednesday to Friday. It was not easy for her. The anxiety and tension of dropping her and keeping her inside the school for 3 hours. To everybody's relief, the week-end came, and all of us, particularly Puttu, forgot all about the school. It became a source of anxiety for each one of us, for our own reasons.

Anyway, the Monday finally arrived. Puttu woke up around 8 and remained gloomy, moody and irritable till she went to school What is really interesting about her is that she remains sad and silent all through. You can see, there is a storm behind those eyes. Occasionally, she remembers the school and makes a brief protest, but soon forgets. Today, when we reached the school, she looked at the gate and burst out crying: Vaddu nanna, vaddu nanna. I took her to the gate and she held my hand till she entered the gate and left it. She didn't look back. As the Ayamma took her to the assembly where everybody was screaming "matru devobhava, pitru devo bhava...acharya devo......"

Amidst this din and confusion, Puttu was holding on to her pink bag as it her life depended on it. We stood behind the wall- me and Alex- and looked on at the proceedings in the assembly. It is a pain I cannot explain. She didn't look back even once.