Morsels of Faint Recollection: The Eraser

Of late, I have not been writing well. I’ve had times when I saw thoughts oozing up from everywhere around me like the fast evaporation of ether. I’d try to gather as many of these in my pockets and lap. Today, I deem the crow and the nightingale as the same. Even on the occasions when I have sat down to write forcefully, I’ve found the eraser to be doing most of the work. I sit staring at the ceiling of my room or maybe the distant hills from the berth of my train hoping to see the ether rise again. Instead, I see a proverbial boy from faraway. He looks like me in my childhood; his hair is also made my way; his socks are pulled up and his eyes don’t have anything to speak… just like I had. I squint at this wonder boy and I see him wane into the ether that I so desired.

“Morsels of Faint Recollection” is one series that I devote to that boy of yore.
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A story that you love to narrate over and over again is of your childhood. With half shut eyes, unguided between the past and today, you can still make your way to where you are now. Nevertheless with all the missing connections in the story, aided by the lapse of memory, it still is one complete story.

My Camlin pencil box always had the sharpest of the HB pencils, a big eraser, two compasses, a protector and a small ruler. We were still four long years away from using the fountain pens. Occasionally, I’d use a ball pen to write the grocery list, the items of which would be dictated by Ma from the kitchen. Rinku would snatch the pen every time she discovered me using one. Everyone told me that using the pen will spoil my handwriting. I never understood why then ball pens were there.

During one classroom session I discovered, to my utter dismay that the eraser was missing. I remember the teacher giving us some dictation and I was already lagging behind. And then the spelling mistake. Without thinking much I put my finger on my tongue and then rubbed the saliva on the menacing word. In no time the word was dead, but its place was taken by a grey splotch. I looked up at the teacher; her words were like the trailing sound of a train you have just missed. I looked across my shoulders; all the heads were down, busy taking the dictation. Just like the old rule, I left a few blank lines and started taking the remaining dictation.

This newfound spit technology soon became an art that I perfected so well. One could find a decrease in intensity of the grey blob as he flipped through my notebook pages. But before I could patent my art, I moved to High School where I was required to write with a fountain pen. And the grey blob grew fainter in my memory with time until yesterday when I again discovered it in my four-year-old’s spiral notebook.