Sentry Tower

A gray-walled room with a window. That's how he remembers it. It looks the same now: a large window in a small room. It makes the room look even smaller. The window-sill is thick with dust. Beams of sunlight stream in singly, their path illuminated by many-sided dust particles spinning. Or seeming to spin. Is the room this dusty everywhere? He wonders to himself, trying not to breathe it in. The sunbeams merely illuminate what's already there. Slowly, as his eyes adjust, more details of the room start revealing themselves. The room is bare. Devoid of anything except walls and tiny patches of plaster embedded in the cobwebs at corners. The effect is almost artistic. He wonders if rooms could feel. If they could, what would this room be feeling. Do they remember the people who lived in them? It's almost impossible to believe that people would have lived here once. The walls would have been new and shining with paint and resonant with echoes of laughter or tears or screams....

I had to visit my college a few days ago. Something about getting my last two marksheets etc. I went there with Saboo, one of my three best friends from college (along with Saumya and Shantnu). After all the office-work had been concluded, we decided to eat in the college cafeteria or the 'Mech Canteen' as we call it or called it in our heyday. I did know that it was going to be a nostalgic experience what with going back to college again and especially since it's been just a few months after we'd passed out and all. But the sheer weight of memories that hit me once we drove into college (indeed just as soon as we passed the familiar streets leading to it) was staggering! I am usually prone to over-analyzing my thoughts and I usually try and quantify what and why I am feeling so that I can understand it better. However, this time I just let myself go. As we drove through the streets of Rohini, past metro walk, I remembered the many, many times I had been to that mal...