In my class, I always like to sit in the first bench, for the convenience that it offers - one rarely gets disturbed there and it's easy to dexterously avoid small talk during lectures. So, I always used to sit there, even during "adverse" situations such as class exams or boring lectures. However, a few days before my end semester exams (inter-semester vacations are on as I write this), a bunch of girls would "reserve" the entire first bench, for reasons best known to them. I had to change my seat to the second bench, by the window side. Well, initially it was a little inconvenient, until one day.....
That day, one of our lecturers ended the session early, 10 minutes early. So, we had almost 15 minutes free time (10 minutes+ 5 minutes for the next class to start). Almost everybody moved out of the classroom, but I remained seated and looked casually out of the window. And… what did I see? A lush green paddy field, splendidly beautiful, just amazing. It's beauty left me spellbound, really! I mean, it was simply fantabulous. That 15 minutes passed like a jiffy, completely lost in those greens. From then onward, whenever I had time, I just looked outside and got enthralled. I would contemplate the different colors of the paddy field whenever it rippled with the wind unleashing its different moods, as if it is uttering a hundred words to the breeze and murmuring rhymes onto the zephyr, prancing and dancing with joy sometimes, and sometimes……sometimes, with utter grief, unable to withstand the zephyr’s soothing melody. And, I slowly realized that now I don’t want to leave this seat in the second bench. I have started loving the place by the window, yeah I mean,I really did. I started doing my most favorite activity there, my favorite activity, writing! I carried my notepad to the classroom and whenever I could manage some time, be it 5 minutes or 10 minutes, I would write, inspired by the kaleidoscopic view that the "outside the window" world portrayed. I wrote numbers of poems and articles and all of them had the trance of the fields. Sometimes, I just glanced outside and enjoyed whatever the fields tried to convey. I liked to do that many a times, just observing them. I was so lost in that reverie that I did not even realize that that vista had formed a certain sort a bond with me. It was November when…..
That day when I looked outside, I just couldn't believe my eyes! I mean, I couldn’t fathom anything. What has happened? Our lecture started and I couldn't properly discern the actual thing. As soon as the lecture ended, I looked outside again and I expected some magic to happen this time. Perhaps, whatever I saw earlier was just a hallucination or just a bad dream or whatever. I just wanted to see something pleasant. I looked outside and I realized, whatever I saw was no hallucination, no bad dream, but the bitter truth. Half of the field was cut and the paddy, so yellow, so pale, lay there. Perhaps, they also never wanted it. The wind blew but they lay still. The half of the field that survived the harvest, were also still and seemed so crestfallen that they too didn't respond to the zephyr. The zephyr tried hard to cheer them up but couldn’t. I couldn't believe how all of a sudden everything changed. Every time I looked, I just hoped that everything was fine, but it was not. That day, seemed like a day of disgrace. The next day, I again looked outside only to see that the whole field was destructed, looted upon. The lush paddy, that stood yesterday, was not there. Everything seemed so empty, so void. The breeze rustled but there was nobody to play with it, nobody to dance to its rhyme. The breeze, too, seemed doleful. The sun that blessed them seemed so harsh now, so dull, so gloomy. And, everything ended. I stopped looking outside and now, I don’t like that seat anymore, but I hope life again blooms there soon. Everything went on like they used to be earlier. Everything, but the paddy field.
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