Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Dust to Dust

They're scraping the old paint off the hostel walls today. I was here when they were painted the last time, transformed from dreary blue to shocking pink. We were outraged then, pink for a girls hostel was such an annoying stereotype. That pink faded from shocking to mildly surprising and then to inoffensively pale. The walls are now a rather depressing pinkish-white, pockmarked with holes and covered with the scrawls of students over the years- timid vandals seeking to leave their mark here in some small way.

I left my mark too: my name scrawled in pencil in painstakinly miniature cursive, next to my door. It's an obsession for me, doodling my name. I scrawl it everywhere, on the backs of notebooks, in pools of sauce on plates and this once, on a hidden corner of the wall. K used to tell me that I must have an identity crisis. He said it half-jokingly but he might just be right.

The labourers scraped my name away along with all the others. All our small rebellions. Now they are a fine layer of powdery pink dust all over the floor, flying up in clouds and marking our footsteps as we walk past. By night, it will all be swept away.

8 comments:

Ravali said...

damn !!!
I wrote my name too outside 247 (Aarathi's) room along with her name and wrote batch of 2009 below our names...
i guess i half expected to b able to read it off the wall when i returned back to the hostel for a 10 yr reunion or sumthing :P
but well....looks like its been scrapped away :(

Anonymous said...

Have you forgotten the way you used to write on your palms, hands dresses et al?
It is too much to categorize girls with pink.
I was wanting to see that scribbling. Too bad it will be a memory.
Life is a cycle! Oh! darn philosophy.

Nithya said...

@roomie, you should've known better :p
@Anon, yes I do remember. Still do it in fact.

SaiK said...

... and it begins!

Anushruti said...

Hello Nithya...look forward to your food blog...you have a flair for writing!

Aadarsh Rathore said...

u've gr8 writing skills.......................

:)

Gurveen Bedi said...

please put ur new blogs address here sweetie

दीपशिखा वर्मा / DEEPSHIKHA VERMA said...

how beautiful and sweet Nithya ..sober you !