Ten years ago, this day, around 65 of us attended our first class at The Doon School. Soon, we were to be joined by more. For the next six years (and five for some - not that it made much difference), each of us, different in his own way, was brought together by a bond that would keep us together forever. Here's to that bond called Doon.
Winding roads lead to paths untrodden.
Dim visions of the distance in thrall of majesty.
Camaraderie balancing sweet from the edges of dust
held on to the ground, to the dust beneath
by withering straws - shaffy blades growing out of the shale
glistening in the sun, reflecting off the waters
deep down – through caverns unsaid and vales unspoken.
Obscurity untouched in the kingdom of the pristine,
but no escape, even for this oblivion, preserved,
nurtured - in the shadowy antiquity of the deodar.
Behold, those assembled in the faded facade
of the morning air packed in bands of sunlight filtering through,
dancing on the swirling dust, and now
the crescendo of the sitar to which move
voices on the margins of merger, notes of individuals
in the unison of feeling, and spirit unstated.
The unstated, though, raises its head -
a feverish din, fervour mounting with each second passing
another crescendo, and another one -
glory becomes the cause, against fate fighting intense
builds on, in anxious expectation aghast
at the ecstasy of swiftness in the sinewy moves -
laurels and nothing else.
And the fever, resting, for a while.
Impatience trying hard, subdued each moment
by the endless stream of the printed to be discerned, and
breaking through with the first clang -
a pageant of white against the aging edifices
and sunken grounds – and faster,
before another clang, till the break of a fretful silence.
We picked up curios from the hillside,
lugged them all the way back, to the base,
the base – if we ever had one – perched dangerously
on to another hill, once we slipped off
(those who did will understand,
only the inconsequential merits explanation)
to climb up once again the god-given hills,
forbidden, feared, welcoming, remembered.
Blazers piled up in the comfortable closet of dark,
the agony of sleep put away, no dread now
of freedom impinged – unless, of course, this day
the bards decide to themselves walk right through –
concocting the most innocuous of dishes, in cauldrons treasured -
having been passed on for generations, and
eaten in the daintiest of ways, for every skill of hand
and Eye, we learnt to share even as we
sparred, plotted, conspired, gave up.
In grandeur, we learnt
of asphyxiating classrooms, and straight chins,
of sound recorders, and the English country,
of how Galatea was sculpted, and of devilish angels,
words that were meant to be - we never remembered.
In those we did, and in the meanderings in the dark,
was found that which was cherished – the illumination of light.
Beauty demands form, so does memory,
which time knows to dodge so well, and yet
to forget is to remember - that which wasn’t.
Images of transient capture beauty eternal.
In them, arrested, glory days, fleeting fast,
or in our own voices, lifting to the heavens
our unknowing hearts, or the smell of the water
as it pours incessant on the ground so dry,
and yet so fertile,
in muted mutterings of the moments gone by,
We’ve preserved it well -
the untrodden, the majesty,
the dust, the shaff,
the sun, the unspoken,
the oblivion, the pristine,
and the shadowy antiquity of the deodar.
