THE PHONE CALL

She thought of sleeping early and missing her late-night soaps. Having so many successive late nights was not good at her age. She was a day dreamer, so, her disobedient mind wandered here and there before she could coax it to calm down and sleep. A playful child even at the age of 59! She smiled and closed her eyes. The peaceful  and quiet night was woken up by the loud ringing of her mobile phone which she had kept on the highest volume. In the zipped-up pocket of her bag in school, she could hear only a faint ring even at this volume. Now on recharge, it blared through the night and she rushed towards it. Panting and wondering as to who it could be, she said, 'Hello' , forgetting the etiquette of telling her identity. She heard ' Mil Gaya! Mil Gaya!' . she said hello again and now was greeted by an overtly excited voice ' Gill ma'am!?'.  'Yes', she said knowing it was one of her students, but who? She tried to recognize the voice and then the sound came ' Ma'am! I’m Shailender, your student, remember?' Now started her ordeal. She was very bad at remembering names.' My weakness' ,she often admitted openly to her students. She was secretly jealous of her colleagues who could remember the names of all their students after the very first introduction. The name Shailender was not that common and she desperately tried to place it and the speaker could sense her dilemma. He prompted,  'Shailender, ma'am, your student from J.N.U. Remember you encouraged me to swim when I insisted on horse riding. You took me to principal sir to allow me for horse riding also!? ‘Oh yes, my dear! I remember you very well. How are you? What are you doing now?’ He was still excited.' Ma’am! I'm fine. I didn't have your phone number. So, I went to KV JNU and met the principal , he helped me to get your number from a teacher, and after many attempts I could contact you. Ma’am l have been invited to UK by the Queen for a conference. I wanted to share this with you. Sorry to disturb you at this time. Actually, my flight is tonight only'. She was so touched by the boy's concern to share his happiness with her. She felt proud to be his teacher. She wished him well and advised him to take care. Sleep had taken wings and her mind , her disobedient child was active again. It reeled back to the day when the school principal told her that two blind students were going to be admitted to her class. It was a bolt from the blue. Oh God, she thought, do I  have to learn Braille too, now? As it was, she was very poor at learning  new languages. She remembered, when her husband, an air force officer got posted to Bangalore, now Bengaluru and she didn't know how to communicate with the Kannadda help girl, but then she found a muslim middle aged woman who spoke Urdu and thankfully, it was like Hindi, problem solved. But now to learn Braille ... the distance between English room and her class was only forty steps but her mind had already traveled miles planning how to cross the innumerable hurdles, dealing with blind students, sorry, visually impaired students. As she entered the room she could see the excited class, every boy and girl trying to be the first one to introduce the new admissions . The fact that the two had already become friends with the class put her at ease. Both were excited to meet their class teacher. While she welcomed them to the class she could make out that they had already been accepted by the entire class. She realized that it was not those students who had problem with their eyes , it was she  had been blind not to see the fact that they were perfect in most senses. They were confident, happy and social children, the traits lacking in many so called 'normal people'. Why did she forge the false notion about these children?  Other students of the class had already welcomed them into their fold and they had become one of them. In a few days, they were giggling and sharing their experiences with each other.  They were all ears during study hours and got help from other students to make their notes in braille. In the final exams, they were provided a writer from a junior class.  Shailender had eighteen percent of vision whereas Vipin had none. The former was more vivacious, an extrovert and a sportsperson. He wanted to join horse riding classes, but was refused because of his vision. He insisted,  'But I can see!'. She very lovingly told him that it was for his good only as he could hurt himself. Like an adamant child, he insisted that she should talk to the principal on his behalf and convince him to give him permission. The principal's room had a glass door and as she entered she heard a bang behind her, as Shailender could not make out the glass door in the faint light. She finally convince him to join swimming classes instead. He excelled at that......She remembered all that while she tried to sleep…………..