‘Walking Stick: A Lesson She Learnt’

A bamboo walking stick painted in leopard strips was her favourite. Creative at the age of ten, while walking down the streets of Mall road Shimla, she urged her father to buy one for her. She hung it against the yellow wall, without realizing what was to come next.

As a brilliant child, she excelled in every sphere, from toping her class to sports and all extra-curricular activities. She was her teachers’ delight. She cherished and loved the time spent in school, rather than being at home. The school was her refuge.

Children of this age do go wrong. Like others of her age, she hid the food she disliked. But as a child, she could have been taught the significance of food, and how wasting it, is not right. But rather than doing so, she was taught a lesson, a lesson that stayed with her for life.

From a loving possession, the stick became a signifier of pain and despair. For an hour or so till the stick broke, she was hit mercilessly at the popliteal fossa and calf. Though the purple marks turned brown and like pain with time disappeared, the scar that the incident left on her psyche was damaging to her self-esteem.

As a brilliant performer, she was always made to stand and perform in the first row. The next day at school, when called by the teacher, she refused to join the practice. It was winter and the pain was enormous. The teacher took her refusal as disobedience. Without realizing the reason, the teacher made her stand last in the row to practice. The little girl danced in pain, without dropping a tear. At the age of ten, she matured into a person, who no one could see what she was going through.

Admitting that, it’s just the stick that broke, but it did break her confidence and morale. And many such experiences later had crushed her innocence too. Being hurt by the one she thought was her own, she closed herself to the outer world. With the choice of not connecting to unknowns, she learned to guard herself against being vulnerable and getting hurt.